Brewday 19/08/08 - Flanders Red Ale

[mysterio]

Alright, so I finally racked this thing, and gave it a little taste in the process...

Eurgh! Looks disgusting!



Here it is in the glass... colour looks about right to me...



Aroma is spot on I reckon. It has that faint acetic smell which I like about Rodenbach. Flavour, sourness-wise I think this is about halfway between the original Rodenbach and the Grand Cru. Maybe slightly closer to the original - I can't remember, I'll have to buy a bottle. It's a good kind of sourness. There's a noticeable 'leatheriness' if that's a word, maybe slightly 'horsey' or 'barnyard-y'. It's not offensive and I think it adds an interesting dimension or maybe i'm just being charitable towards my own beer. I can't remember if that flavour is in Rodenbach. I can tell it's a flavour which has been decreasing over time so I think it's the Brett.

Not sure what to do with it now folks... any ideas? Stick it in a loft? Or a fridge? Or carb it and drink it

[Barley Water]

Now you get to have some fun. Make up a batch of sweet brown ale, O.G. around 1.050-1.055 or so. Once it is ready, blend some of your sour beer with the new beer and bottle it. Figure out what proportions work best with a small sample then just scale the whole thing up. I would try to use up only about half of the sour beer. By the way, I would bottle in really good, strong bottles because the bugs are going to ferment the sugars in the new beer that the ale yeast couldn't touch driving the carbonation way up (I have a bunch of Belgian 750's which I cork and put a wire cage on, they handle the pressure and look artsy as well). You should then be able to try a bottle periodically just to see how it changes since I imagine the flavor drift will be considerable as the bugs go to work on the young beer. You will become very popular at your brew club if you let the members help you with your tastings occasionally.

I can think of a couple of things which you could do with the remaining sour beer. One would be to add cherries and let it sit around for another 6 months or so. Another would be to make another half batch and just mix the two, letting the whole thing sit around for another year (I think they call that a solera if I remember correctly). Once another year rolls around, just do the same thing. After a while you should have some very interesting brew which, God willing, will really taste great (and probably be agressively sour as well). Of course, you could just let it sit another year and in the meantime, make another batch. After a couple of years you will have a nice stock of beer you can use for blending, just like our buddies in Belgium. The book "Wild Brews" by Jeff Sparrow has a bunch of other ideas, check it out.

I have 5 gallons of Oud Bruin sitting in a corni keg right now which will be a year old in May. I will be very interested to hear what you decide to do since I have never done this myself. I do have a friend in the brew club who has experience with bugs and I will get him to impart some of his wisdom which I will pass along as applicable. By the way, to get the slight vinegar flavor, you need to allow just a little air into the beer, how did you store your beer to allow this to happen?

[mysterio]

These ideas are making my head spin!

The cherries/solera thing sounds interesting but the planning and work required doesn't appeal much (this has already been more labour intensive than I would have liked). I am planning lambic in the future so the fruit can wait for that.

I think I will go ahead and force carb the keg gently then put half of it in champagne bottles, brew a brown ale next year and blend in some of the sour beer, then bottle that too.

I heard that about the oxygen producing the acetic acid, and the wooden peg idea and all that. I just didn't bother and put a carboy cap and bubbler airlock on like normal. What you see in that photo is exactly how it was stored. The vinegar is just right for my tastes. Mostly in the aroma. How are you controlling it with your oud bruin?

I think I've missed the window for getting another Roeselare yeast blend, I think that's an Autumn seasonal.

[Barley Water]

Actually, you don't want the vinegar in the Oud Bruin so what I did is rack it into a corni after primary fermentation, put a layer of CO2 on top of the beer and sealed it up. So far, I have not even taken a taste. I don't know how it works in your corner of the world but over here, the blend comes out in the springtime.
I suspect what I will do is bottle roughtly half with a young brown ale and just keep the other half. At the same time, I will probably brew another batch and purchase a used corni to store it in. That way, I will have a couple of batches I can use to blend with so that after year two, I will have more options. In the meantime, I think I will try to find a souce of fresh cherries. You just put them into a plastic bag and freeze them until you are ready to add them to the beer. Once they thaw, the skin of the fruit breaks open and the bugs then can invade the inside of the fruit, you just add them to the beer, pits and all.

A friend of mine made a Berliner Weiss which I really enjoy when I go over there. The stuff is fairly sour but the alcholol content is pretty low so it's a great session beer and is especially good in the summer as it's a great thirst quencher. He kegged his but I think I would probably bottle it so I could run the carbonation way up there just like they do over in the Fatherland. I think it would be cool to make some of that stuff up and source some of the syrups the Germans typically add to the beer, you don't run into that stuff in the bars around here.

The other idea I had was to make a porter just like they used to back in the day. It would be interesting to find a formulation like they used a couple of hundred years ago then hit it with some bugs to sour it and add some oak chips to simulate the keg storage. After about a year in a corni, you could then make up some young brown ale and do the three threads thing, that would be very unique. Oh yeah I wonder what could be done with the chips once the beer was ready? That's the whole problem with this hobby, there are so many ways to amuse oneself that you can never get to all of them.

[mysterio]

I'm not a fan of the Berliner weiss, I'm surprised you guys in the US have taken it to heart so much. I'm sure theres even a few microbreweries over there making some isn't there? If I want a session beer I'll go for a low gravity bitter every time. Beer how it's meant to be. The Berliner Weiss is just too sour and one-dimensional to enjoy more than one. The syrup flavoured ones are just plain disgusting. The woodruff weiss tastes like cough syrup. I had to specifically request the unblended version in Berlin because most places don't/won't serve it without syrup. They even remonstrated with me to take syrup because there was no way I would like it. Well, it was nicer than the flavoured version but it just tasted like yoghurt to me. I can appreciate a good sour beer, too.

The other idea I had was to make a porter just like they used to back in the day.

Yeah, the original Rodenbach brewer got the idea for his sour blended beers from the Porter brewers in England (where he learned brewing). You'd have to be really dedicated and have a lot of time on your hands to undertake a projects like that. I don't think i'm enough of a porter aficionado to do that but maybe one day.

[steve_flack]

The Berliner Weiss is just too sour and one-dimensional to enjoy more than one.

My feelings exactly...except I don't even enjoy one.

[oblivious]

Congratulation mysterio, looking like its developing into a fantastic beer

[bosium]

Whoah this looks incredible! I also read the chapter in brewing classic styles, and thought 'hmm, waaaaay too impatient for that', but it's great to see that you've pulled it off and that the results are good. +1!

[mysterio]

but it's great to see that you've pulled it off and that the results are good.

Bit early to say yet! Still got to finish the beer off and bottle it, that's usually where I Fk something up.

It would be nice to have this one in champagne bottles ready to go for around Christmas though... i'm starting to think I might just bottle the whole lot and not do the blending.

[bosium]

Hmm, personally I find the grand cru a bit much, but I love the blended one. I like one after a meal when I'm bloated and a bit thirsty, it's a real quencher, so for that reason alone I'd probably leave some in a keg for blending and serve it on tap. Maybe bottle condition the unadulterated grand cru version? Either way, good job!

[mysterio]

No way am I keeping this on the keg and putting it on tap. A year and a halves work will be gone in a week!

I will have to get a couple of bottles this weekend to remind myself how sour each one is then i'll make a decision.