Oak Smoked Strong Golden Ale w/Cherry and Wheat and Brett

[mashani]

So I liked the oak smoked wheat in my experimental Abbey beer, so I am using some in a more "normal" recipe as I think it will go nicely with the tart cherry candi syrup. Anyone who knows me knows I think rauchbeer = YUCK, so the fact that I am intentionally using some smoked malt in this should tell you how mellow this stuff is. So later today or tomorrow I am brewing this:

EDIT: I slightly revised this from when I first posted, and took it into strong golden ale territory vs. triple territory by reducing wheat and adding more sugar.

For 5 gallons:

PM of:

2# Weyermann floor malted bohemian pale wheat malt
1/3# Weyermann oak-smoked wheat malt

FWH that with 1oz Styrian Goldings (5.7AA)

60 minute boil

@30 add

1/2oz Styrian Goldings (5.7AA)

@10 add:

6# MoreBeer Pilsner LME
1# cane sugar

Cool, split between 2 LBCs, pitch a full pack of Lallemand Abbaye in each. Or maybe Bella Saison in one of them, but I am leaning towards not doing this, my gut says this will be a lot better with the Abbaye yeast. I'm sort of afraid the saison yeast will dry it out to the point where the smoke starts to get more in my face instead of being something nice in the background. (did not use Bella, see below).

After fermentation settles down a bit (3-5 days) I will add 1# of Cascade Tart Cherry candi syrup (8oz per fermenter).

I will dry hop each fermenter with 1/4oz of Styrian Goldings.

OG before candi syrup is fed should be 1.067ish (1.074ish once the candi syrup is added later).

IBUs around 27-30

FWIW, some reviews of this syrup complain the tart cherry flavor/aroma is too subtle for folks who wanted a strong cherry presence. So I figure that really that's a good thing in my opinion - I'm looking for some cherry, but not in your face, hints of oak/smoke as a foil and spicy/sweet hops to bring it out in a nice way. At least that's the plan.

EDIT: Got my house Brett too. See below.

[BlackDuck]

Interesting recipe. I must say that even though I don't always comment on your recipes, I love reading them. They are most always very creative and use ingredients that are new to me. Like the tart cherry candi syrup. That's a new one on me.


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[mashani]

I revised it a little bit and took it more into strong golden territory then tripel territory. I think that it will be really nice that way. But doing that now I'm sure I won't use Bella Saison in half the batch.

This candi syrup doesn't just have Tart Cherry in it but some Mahleb seeds (a spice made from St Luci cherry pits). That will possibly add some slight almond flavor too, but it should be very subtle. None of the review complain about the beer tasting like Marzipan.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahleb

If this turns out as nice as I hope, I'll be sure to send or bring some to a borg meetup.

[mashani]

So the OG going into the fermenters was 1.063. So after the candi syrup feeding it will end up around 1.072 equivalent. The FG should end up something like 1.012 I expect, which would put this at ~7.9% ABV if true. Which I think is the strongest beer I've made this year.

[mashani]

Well, I fed it the sugar, and I've never seen Abbaye go as wild as it's going now. It's usually pretty mellow compared to something like 3787. But it likes this. There are apparently bits of cherry in the syrup, so those things keep floating up to the top - looks like I dismembered something and tossed it I there. Yuck

[mashani]

So turns out it wasn't just the Abbaye going wild, but a good glob of my house Brett got into it. Both LBCs, so it was either infected right up front, or got infected when I fed it, or a mix of both, but either way, this is what it started to look like just 9 days in... which to me suggests it was infected right from the get go. I've not had my house Brett get into anything so far this year until now, so it figured this would be the beer. Luckily I like my house Brett and will be happy to embrace the funk! My house brett is mellow funk anyways (it's Brett C, which now permanently lives in my house for those newer folks who are unfamiliar with my fun times). It just looks ugly.

funk.jpg (92.01 KiB) Viewed 696 times

So this has been at 1.008 for 5 days now, so I went ahead and bottled it. I carbed it lightly instead of like I'd normally do a strong golden. The brett will shave some points off over time slowly, so it will end up carbed like a strong golden anyways with some age. Do not try this unless you know what your doing, I just happen to know how my house Brett behaves and know that when the pellicle is at this point and my gravity seems stable, I'm safe as long as a prime properly. It would be safer to secondary it for a while if you aren't sure.

That puts it at 8.4% abv. Might be more after a while in the bottle due to brett.

I drank the hydro sample and yes, even though it looked like that, it tasted awesome. This is going to be a really good beer. The brett is just making it even better, adding some light tropical and hay flavors to the cherry and oak.

The cherry and smoke is mellow, it's just enough to make this interesting.

The alcohol is noticeable, but not hot or distracting. So Abbaye reacts well to feeding which is good to know. This could be consumed now.

So I see no reason I can't bring/send some of this to a borg meetup.

It's going to be tough to figure what to send/bring, as I've got a lot of really good and different then what folks regularly get beer in my pipeline right now.

[mashani]

So I popped open one of these because if you saw my post in no-post thread about the mysterious empty bottle that still held pressure, that was one of these. I wanted to see if it was overcarbonating due to brett or something. But no this seems fine - yes it's highly carbed like say Duval - but not so much it should be busting PET bottles or good Belgian glass bottles. The PETS are not deformed. It didn't go foaming out the top when opened.

I like this beer a lot. The cherry is only there enough to make it interesting, it doesn't taste like cherry beer. I might not even identify it as cherry if I didn't know that's what it is. Same with the oak smoked malt, I wouldn't identify it as smokey, just something interesting in the background. If you want a lot of cherry, the candi syrup I used might not be the thing, or you might want to use 2 or 3x as much (that would be spendy though). But if you want something subtle and interesting, it is very much that.

The only thing that I'm not liking is that it doesn't have much head retention. I'm not sure why with all that wheat and the high carb levels. All I can figure is that the Mahleb seeds had enough oil content to mess with it. Some long cold aging might help, or maybe not. I will have to try it.

But this beer is perfectly nice to drink right now, it doesn't need long aging.

[mashani]

So I liked this so much I popped another today to drown out Browns woes, and it had perfectly good head retention and is lacing my glass, so I don't know what was up with the bottle yesterday.

Perhaps it's just spooky beer. It can have head or no head. And it can remove itself from bottles without damaging the bottle, leaving the carb behind. Somehow. (see no post post if you don't follow that, I still have said bottle and I still can't get it to leak).