New Glarus Strawberry Rhubarb Clone

[BrewOx]

Hello Everyone,

I live in the New England area and recently I had the great pleasure of trying a New Glarus Strawberry Rhubarb since one of my associates brought a bottle back with him from travelling. I loved this beer and would greatly like to try brewing it since obviously its a little out of my distribution areas and I can't buy it. Does anybody have any idea what a formula I could use would be? Any help would be greatly appreciated! Thank you!

 

[WI_Wino]

New Glarus is pretty tight lipped on details around their fruit beers. Dan Carey was on the Brewing' Network's Sunday session and gave some limited details on what they do for their fruit beers.

Link to interview: http://www.thebrewingnetwork.com/shows/The-Sunday-Session/The-Sunday-Session-01-20-08-New-Glarus

Here is a link to a thread I started that has some notes in from the interview: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f127/new-glarus-raspberry-tart-459094/

At that time I think they only had the Raspberry Tart and Belgium Cherry fruit beers, the strawberry rhubarb is fairly recent. Good luck and let us know how you do!

 

[ArkotRamathorn]

I recently got my hands on 6lbs of nice rhubarb and just shy of 6lbs of strawberries that will go towards a strawberry rhubarb clone attempt. As I am in Wisconsin I have quick access to "research materials".

My (somewhat) uninformed guess would be a 50/50 split of 2-row and wheat with some flaked wheat mixed in to leave some extra food around for sour bugs to munch on. Since the description of their beer lists "wild sour fermentation" I would put my money on a mix of bugs. I think when I attempt this I may do a yeast capture of wild (thankfully I live in Wisconsin so itll be Wisconsin yeast) yeast and step it up and use that for ferment it.

Also the rhubarb is supposed to impart a lot of sourness, I am wondering how "sour" the beer gets from lacto, and how much is imparted from the rhubarb.

 

[BGBC]

I have a bottle stashed away, looking forward to trying it.

Anyone know if they typically use a different strain to bottle condition? Or if there might be viable bugs in the bottle?

 

[ARealClassAct]

I imagine they allow the bugs to do their thing for a little bit before adding the fruit, pasteurize, then add fruit and probably a substantial amount of lactose along with some yeast. Their fruited sours are so sweet there is no way they get that product without killing of the bugs at some point.

 

[BrewOx]

I imagine they allow the bugs to do their thing for a little bit before adding the fruit, pasteurize, then add fruit and probably a substantial amount of lactose along with some yeast. Their fruited sours are so sweet there is no way they get that product without killing of the bugs at some point.

How would they pasteurize it without driving off some of the flavors and burning off the alcohol? Also, if their purpose was to kill the buggies, why introduce them in at the end again?

Im not disputing anything, I'm just trying to understand so that I can mimic the process as much as possible in my home environment since I dont have access to a commercial brewery (yet...)

 

[gravityspiral]

This is one of my favorite beers - luckily I live in WI so I can get it often. It makes REALLY good beer bread, too.

I don't think there's much souring in this one though, the rhubarb does a pretty darn good job matching with the strawberry all on its own.

 

[ARealClassAct]

How would they pasteurize it without driving off some of the flavors and burning off the alcohol? Also, if their purpose was to kill the buggies, why introduce them in at the end again?

Im not disputing anything, I'm just trying to understand so that I can mimic the process as much as possible in my home environment since I dont have access to a commercial brewery (yet...)

My guess would be that they pasteurize it in a sealed container similar to when people can fruits / vegetables.

My apologies. When I was referring to Lactose I meant the sugar, not lactobacillus. There is definitely a large amount of unfermented sugars left in their beers and bugs would chew threw those if they were still left in the solution creating bottle bombs.

I'm guessing lactose because it is unfermwntable by yeast, however they could add the fruit, then pasteurize, and force carb leaving the sugars from the fruit unfermented.

 

[mkling]

In that Brewing Network podcast with Dan, he implies that he uses winemaking techniques in making his fruit beers. I heard this as implying that he stops fermentation before complete fermentation has occurred using sulfites and potasium sorbate, maybe after filtering. This would leave behind that sweetness you find in virtually all his fruit beers. I've got a bottle of Strawberry Rhubarb sitting in my cellar. I may have to open it & degas it to see what the FG is. That would give you an idea when to stop the fermentation. This would be my guess for techniques that don't involve pasteurizing, which I think isn't so likely.

 

[WI_Wino]

Trying to stop an active fermentation with sulfite and sorbate is very hard. I think they are more likely to pasteurize or do sterile filtering to stop the fermentation.