New Glarus Wisconsin Red

[Mermaid]

I am now officially obsessed with this beer, despite never having tasted it.

I've wanted to try brewing a fruit beer and this sounds like something right up my alley.

Saw a clone recipe online which called for about half Belgian 2-row and half wheat making up the base grain bill, I would add a little crystal (because my beers brewed with a little crystal malt produce nicer head).

The cherry thing seems debated a bit, but if I brew a 3 gallon batch I can go half jarred sour cherries (which are easy to find this time of year, although expensive) and half cherry puree.

NG web site says the beer is brewed with Hallertau hops (not surprising, I love Hallertau as it's very subtle) and they're common in Belgian ales.

Yeast strain on the clone recipe I saw called for Wyeast 3787 (Trappist) strain, but I might use the Unibroue strain that I have yeast banked (3864) because it's so lovely in the Unibroue ephemere (which seems to have a similar grain bill) and has worked very well for me.

Thinking of using a few oak chips in the secondary, although all I've read on this beer seems to point to the oak being very subtle in this beer.

Has anyone had success in brewing a clone of this? Care to share ideas?

Would love to brew this over my holiday work break and have it ready to drink by my 45th birthday in late March.

 

[yodalegomaster]

Yes, I have brewed it 2 times, the first was with Belgian ardens yeast and the zymurgy recipe from 2003, I used cherry concentrate it was the best beer, but it's not a clone of NG belgian red, they use some kind of very different yeast so the next time I used the yeast from the bottle and grew it up to a big starter. It needs some time in the secondary and the first beer gets better with age. The first beer i did quite a bit of back sweeting to get the cherry to pop out. After about 3 years in the bottle it's very complex and dried out a great deal. I can tell you it's not Trappist or unbourne yeast. My problem is did I want to recreate the first recipe or did I want to try for the closer clone. I went with the clone.
You don't need the crystal malt, the wheat will give you a better head than the crystal will.

 

[remilard]

I know some people who think that the roughly Flanders Red style Enigma is the base beer.

Wisconsin Red tastes like unfermented cherry juice. IMO use the 64 brix tart cherry concentrate (brownwood acres is a good source) in very large amounts and use some more to backsweeten to taste and then pasteurize.

 

[Mermaid]

I'm definitely going to give this one a go, especially since I can only manage smaller wort boils on my craptastic kitchen stove.

What about the "aged" Hallertau hops? Would lowering the amount provide the same general effect as aging them? No way I'm going to be able to find aged hops around here.

I have been reading the various threads on different boards re this recipe, and several folks suggested a Belgian wheat strain of yeast. They seem to be rated for lower fermentation temps as well (thinking that this beer has very mild phenoics, and is much more like a lambic without the sour/funk you get from Brett in the lambic strains.)

This would be a bit of a balancing act for sure - how to create the "sweet" cherry flavor in a homebrew without having too many residual fermentable sugars to create bottle bombs. Belgian bottles with champagne corks & wires seems like the recommended option for bottling.

I'm curious about back sweetening. Would you use lactose at time of bottling? vs. an artificial sweetner. How much would you use for a 5 gallon batch?

 

[yodalegomaster]

Well I can tell you it has lactobacilis in it because the yeast growing up from the starter and has that kind of top petacule. I use spenda to back sweeten, I don't want to add calories to the beer if I can help it, I have a little problem with too much sugar. That means you can use the lactobacilis package from wyeast after the fermentation completes. I would add some wood but not much. the real problem is we don't know how long to store this beer. All the best sours are combination of new and old worts, and that's probably how you get the sweetness into the beer.

 

[Mermaid]

Well I can tell you it has lactobacilis in it because the yeast growing up from the starter and has that kind of top petacule. I use spenda to back sweeten, I don't want to add calories to the beer if I can help it, I have a little problem with too much sugar. That means you can use the lactobacilis package from wyeast after the fermentation completes. I would add some wood but not much. the real problem is we don't know how long to store this beer. All the best sours are combination of new and old worts, and that's probably how you get the sweetness into the beer.

I see. The lactic acid is for tartness. add the lacto when I rack to secondary with the cherry juice?

You used Splenda. Unfortunately it gives me headaches, but I would sweeten with xylitol which only has an effect on me if I drink too much :cross: