KRIEK

norman · Post by **norman** » Mon Sep 18, 2006 10:29 am

Has anyone brewed any of the belgian fruit beers, Kriek, Frambois and if so has anyone got any recipes.

steve_flack · Post by **steve_flack** » Mon Sep 18, 2006 11:06 am

If you're going for ultra-traditional Belgian (i.e Lambic based) beers then they're pretty involved as they require special yeasts (from Wyeast) and a long time. If you're prepared to cut corners and not use wild yeasts then you can add fruit to a pale, lightly hopped beer. There's a section in Randy Mosher's 'Radical Brewing' book on Fruit Beers. One of the handy tips in there is that peaches make rubbish fruit beers as they're not very peachy. Apricots make a much better 'Peach' beer.

Also don't bother with strawberries. They don't taste of anything.

Actually, I'd recommend the Radical Brewing book wholeheartedly. It's a really good book for ideas on all sorts of beers not just fruit beers.

Here's a recipe from Bodensatz. A quick google should find more

http://www.bodensatz.com/staticpages/in ... 3203220300

This may help too

http://www.bodensatz.com/staticpages/in ... 3202232199

steve_flack · Post by **steve_flack** » Mon Sep 18, 2006 12:37 pm

Canned Cherry Pie filling seems popular in the states. One plus is that it's pasteurised. In Waitrose it's 99p for a 400g tin but you could almost certainly get it cheaper.

PieOPah · Post by **PieOPah** » Mon Sep 18, 2006 12:59 pm

DaaB wrote:I made 5L of cherry beer, it was no fun stoning 500g of cherrys, worse still I reckon it could have used 1kg of cherrys idealy

I did stone 1kg and this was going to be for 5 Gallon of beer (mine wasn't a cherry beer, more planned for being a cherry stout.)

The worst part? Having stoned all of those cherries, I decided not to use them as I thought I had ruined the stound. Still got all the cherries in the freezer

steve_flack wrote:In Waitrose it's 99p for a 400g tin but you could almost certainly get it cheaper.

With the exception of M&S and probably Harrods, I think anywhere is cheaper than Waitrose.....

steve_flack · Post by **steve_flack** » Mon Sep 18, 2006 1:07 pm

You forgot fortnum and masons....

PieOPah · Post by **PieOPah** » Mon Sep 18, 2006 1:12 pm

If the Americans use them I would expect it to be free from preservatives etc.

The best thing to do IMHO would be to find a can the next time you are out at the supermarket and have a look at the ingridients.

I'm going to be keeping my eye out since I think I may get a few tins. Will post here if I find out before anybody else.

Saying that we did just do our 'big' shop on Saturday so won't need to go again for a while.

PieOPah · Post by **PieOPah** » Mon Sep 18, 2006 1:17 pm

Will do.

You a supporter of your local corner shop then?

PieOPah · Post by **PieOPah** » Mon Sep 18, 2006 1:32 pm

DaaB wrote:No, thats a friggin Tescos

Living close to the New Forest there is loads of great farm shops and small local producers to choose from.

Much better

We have a local Farmers Market every 2 weeks and I enjoy going there. The eggs alone make it worth going. Same price as supermarket's own (battery hen eggs) and free range as well. How can anybody argue with that?

Some of the stuff is a bit too expensive, but do enjoy buying and supporting the local farmers.

norman · Post by **norman** » Mon Sep 18, 2006 3:03 pm

I was aiming for the authentic Lambic based beers,but dont have the space to store beers for any length of time.The americans try to cut corners on most brewing methods,and in the most spoil them or at best create something entirely different,which they are convinced is the genuine thing.

steve_flack · Post by **steve_flack** » Mon Sep 18, 2006 4:14 pm

norman wrote:The americans try to cut corners on most brewing methods,and in the most spoil them or at best create something entirely different,which they are convinced is the genuine thing.

Perhaps a tad unfair as a number of US homebrewers are excessively anal about the beers they brew. It's probably fair to say that in general they are a bit hop obsessed and don't quite 'get' things like mild.

BigEd · Post by **BigEd** » Mon Sep 18, 2006 4:16 pm

PieOPah wrote:If the Americans use them I would expect it to be free from preservatives etc.

.

...and we all write like Noel Coward too

BigEd · Post by **BigEd** » Mon Sep 18, 2006 5:36 pm

No doubt that fresh fruit would be the best choice. I would be reluctant to use a pie filling product since even if it were preservative free it may likely contain thickeners and added flavorings. Is frozen fruit a possibility? Some vendors in the US sell whole frozen raspberries, blueberries, cherries, etc which are a good alternative for fresh. Another US product that is carried by some of the homebrew shops is Oregon Fruit Puree. This is a pure fruit product with no additives and is sold in a large tin similar in size to malt syrup tins. I used the Oregon Puree with good results in a cherry wheat beer but I don't know if they distribute accross the pond.

steve_flack · Post by **steve_flack** » Mon Sep 18, 2006 7:18 pm

BigEd wrote:No doubt that fresh fruit would be the best choice. I would be reluctant to use a pie filling product since even if it were preservative free it may likely contain thickeners and added flavorings. Is frozen fruit a possibility? Some vendors in the US sell whole frozen raspberries, blueberries, cherries, etc which are a good alternative for fresh. Another US product that is carried by some of the homebrew shops is Oregon Fruit Puree. This is a pure fruit product with no additives and is sold in a large tin similar in size to malt syrup tins. I used the Oregon Puree with good results in a cherry wheat beer but I don't know if they distribute accross the pond.

Some of the UK pie fillings do include starch, water and all sorts of other muck. The Oregon stuff looks good (morebeer sell it) but I guess shipping's a bit of killer

These guys sell a decent looking puree http://www.oakleaf-european.co.uk/shopp ... urees.html and the price is reasonable compared to the Oregon products on MoreBeer. The shipping is a bit steep (as to be almost vertical) though.

monk · Post by **monk** » Tue Sep 19, 2006 5:40 am

Being one of the Americans, I'll offer the opinion that no one should use pie filling. At least over hear, we have two different kinds of canned fruit--syruped and pie filling. The syruped ones are canned in a sugary syrup, the pie-filling type are full of a bunch of junk that you don't want in your beer, as previously stated by others. Oregon brand makes both, but I think they'd only sell the syrup at Morebeer.

As for my own experience (I'm no master brewer--not in the least!), I've brewed about 5 batches of fruit beer. The best was an Apricot Cream ale where I added a big can of Oregon Apricot puree to the secondary clearing tank. I left it for a couple weeks, then added about 2 oz of apricot flavoring with the priming sugar. It was quite nice.

A blueberry pale ale came out pretty good, but very thin. For my tastes, blueberries aren't the best beer fruit.

I recently made a raspberry ale wherein I tried to duplicate a lambic recipe as best I could--with pale malt and tons of raspberry puree, hardly any hops--but without using the brett. and other lambic bacteria. Well, it ended up coming out very thin and pretty dry. It took about a month before the tartness of the raspberries mellowed out. I have to say it isn't anything like the Lindeman's-style framboise I wanted to surprise my wife with.

Anyway, good luck with the lambic style!

monk

Jim's Beer Kit

Practical Homebrewing

HomeBrew Forum

Sponsored by BREW-SCHOOL

KRIEK

KRIEK