Wine grape hybrid beers - how???

[TravelingLight]

I was at Avery in Boulder last weekend and had Sanguine. It's billed as a sangria-inspired beer, with all the fruits and tempranillo grapes. It was phenomenal. Clocked in around 12% ABV and drank much easier than that. But that's beside the point...

How the hell are they doing these beers? I don't think it's feasible on a HB scale. I'm just curious, really. I've had a couple of Trillium's pales with with wine grape juice added. But I don't think that's how these are being done. Any thoughts??

As a side note, is it even possible for consumers to buy wine grapes in the event I ever wanted to attempt something like this?

 

[HausBrauerei_Harvey]

I just made a Riesling saison, it's awesome! first time doing it but turned out really well. I made my standard saison (1.042 OG), then added a 2-quart can of reisling grape concentrate I bought at my LHBS, that got me up to 1.08 OG, beer finished at ~8% I also used Nelson Sauvon hops for more grape aroma. The LHBS sells two types of white grape concentrate and two types of red, something to play around with for sure if you have a dual wine/brew shop they should stock these.

Cheers!

 

[TravelingLight]

I just made a Riesling saison, it's awesome! first time doing it but turned out really well. I made my standard saison (1.042 OG), then added a 2-quart can of reisling grape concentrate I bought at my LHBS, that got me up to 1.08 OG, beer finished at ~8% I also used Nelson Sauvon hops for more grape aroma. The LHBS sells two types of white grape concentrate and two types of red, something to play around with for sure if you have a dual wine/brew shop they should stock these.

Cheers!

Thanks. When/how did you add the concentrate? I'm guessing you added it in primary? How much of the flavor carried through on the back end?

 

[HausBrauerei_Harvey]

I added it to primary (i dont secondary) about 5-6 days after pitching when things had started to slow but most of the yeast hadn't dropped yet. I'm actually surprised how the flavor carried over into the glass, you get a nice taste and aroma from the grapes, and the acidity of the beer is a bit higher than normal, but it's still not over-the-top and balances well with the beer flavors.

the concentrate was sterile and a fairly low viscosity liquid so I just opened with a can opener after soaking the can in starsan and dumped into the carboy.

FWIW the mouthfeel was quite a bit different than my standard saison, it tasted a bit flat at my normal carb of ~2.1 vols, so i bumped it up closer to 3 vols then lower the pressure again for serving and it's got a huge head and great mouthfeel now.

 

[TravelingLight]

I added it to primary (i dont secondary) about 5-6 days after pitching when things had started to slow but most of the yeast hadn't dropped yet. I'm actually surprised how the flavor carried over into the glass, you get a nice taste and aroma from the grapes, and the acidity of the beer is a bit higher than normal, but it's still not over-the-top and balances well with the beer flavors.

the concentrate was sterile and a fairly low viscosity liquid so I just opened with a can opener after soaking the can in starsan and dumped into the carboy.

FWIW the mouthfeel was quite a bit different than my standard saison, it tasted a bit flat at my normal carb of ~2.1 vols, so i bumped it up closer to 3 vols then lower the pressure again for serving and it's got a huge head and great mouthfeel now.

Fantastic. My house saison grist is pils, with a touch of wheat and vienna. Might go well with that. What yeast did you use on that?

 

[HausBrauerei_Harvey]

Fantastic. My house saison grist is pils, with a touch of wheat and vienna. Might go well with that. What yeast did you use on that?

I've been using a local yeast supplier, Inland Island (291-farmhouse) for a few years now. Originally I did a split batch with that and WLP565 and it was really similar to 565 but I liked the inland island a bit better.

 

[jc587491]

I know Dogfish Head has been brewing these for years now. I always buy a case of Knoble Rot every year when it's released. They say it is 51% wort and 49% viogner grape must and Pinot Gris must. They have a few other one like this, but this one is by farm my favorite. They even oak aged some it this year.

 

[Zwerski]

Saison du Vin kit from NB. It was and extract kit with a quart of white grape juice concentrate dumped in the late primary. Same stuff they use at LHBS for wine making. Super tasty.

 

[ShareBrewing]

Tried a great imperial NEIPA that had Sauvignon blanc must added in late primary. Was also aged in Sauvignon Blanc barrels. Man, it was good.

I wonder if you could try different styles other than a pale beer. Has anyone tried making a brown/porter/stout and then added maybe red wine concentrate?

Have also had ideas of making a sangria-style beer. Add wine concentrate (or actual wine?) and a mix of fruits? I also tried the 12% Sangria beer from Avery and it was incredible.

 

[TravelingLight]

Tried a great imperial NEIPA that had Sauvignon blanc must added in late primary. Was also aged in Sauvignon Blanc barrels. Man, it was good.

I wonder if you could try different styles other than a pale beer. Has anyone tried making a brown/porter/stout and then added maybe red wine concentrate?

Have also had ideas of making a sangria-style beer. Add wine concentrate (or actual wine?) and a mix of fruits? I also tried the 12% Sangria beer from Avery and it was incredible.

Right?! I thought my wife was going to chug that beer. It was phenomenal. I think you could do it with wine juice concentrate. A lot of people just advocate for adding actual wine to taste at bottling/kegging. But I'd rather toss it in with some fermentation left to go and see what it does.

 

[ShareBrewing]

Planning on brewing a 15 gal batch of a pale wheat blonde base (OG 1.065) on an upcoming weekend. 10 gal or so will become margarita gose (recipe outlined in another forum under the Wild & Lambic section) and the rest will become some sort of sangria beer.

Think I'll go with some of the ideas on here of adding grape must/juice concentrate to late primary. What kind of variety of grape is still TBD.

It's hard to decide what to add. A red wine would obviously be best with berries, orange, spices, etc. A white wine would go better with tropical fruits, citrus fruits, stone fruit, the options are basically endless.