#icupe

The non-blackberried gallon of my sour saison has been in the bottles for a little over a month now, so we decided to try it out while I was bottling the 4 gallons that had been sitting on blackberries.

Short story:  I'm pleased, but not thrilled.

Long story: This had the potential to be a very good beer, and it's almost there.  Pours with a thick off-white head that lingers for a while and then dissipates with a fair amount of lacing.  The nose is pretty brett heavy, lots of barnyard funk (if you told me five years ago I would think descriptors like "leather" and "horse sweat" made for good beer, I would have thought you were nuts) with a little bit of sourness.  I'm pretty happy with the balance between the malt, hops, and funkyness.  It drinks well and surprisingly easily considering it clocks in at 8.4% alcohol.

What's the downside?  There is a not-overpowering but noticeable band-aid flavor mixed in with all the good stuff.  I attribute this to the fact that I brewed this before I realized my tap water had chloramine and began treating accordingly.  It's not terrible, but it certainly holds the beer back from realizing its potential.

Remember that big old messy day when I tried to get a little over four pounds of thawed and mushy blackberries through a very narrow carboy mouth?  That day was November 17th.  For the past month, my collection of brettanomyces and bacteria were nibbling away at the blackberries as the carboy hid under the sink in the warmest room of my house. 

(ps. that growler sitting next to the carboy has my very own brettanomyces culture in it.  I used some in the Belgian Golden Ale I made this past weekend.  More on that to come) Wonderful things have been happening under the cover of that Pittsburgh Pirates t-shirt.  On Saturday, four weeks after I racked the sour saison onto the blackberries, I pulled it out from it’s makeshift lair to have myself a taste.

Even if the blackberries don’t come through that much, at the very least they’ve contributed a nice purple-ish hue to the beer. I took a sample and gave it to Danielle to have the first sip.  She sniffed the aroma excitedly, took a small sip and exclaimed, “Wow!  That tastes just like real beer!”

Eureka! 

At this point in time, this is by far the best beer I have created.  The aroma is a little fruity with a healthy dose of your typical barnyard brett smells.  The brett doesn’t come through so much in the flavor, which is a lovely combination of malty sweetness and a healthy tartness.  There is only a trace of blackberry detectable in the flavor, but I can’t complain too much about that when the beer tastes so good.  The mouthfeel has a nice and pleasing body. I cannot wait to get this into bottles and start drinking it.  Going into bottles in a week and going into my belly in about 7.

 Let me know if you have any questions about this beer, brett, or anything else!

I think that in general, it is best to try one new thing at a time. That way you can focus on that one variable, while having everything else well under control.

So naturally my Icupe Sour Saison is: My first sour, my first brett (different things, but related), my first time fermenting via pitching bottle dregs, my first time dividing the batch post fermentation for different treatments, and my first time using fruit in a beer.

Somehow, when I was planning this, it didn't seem that bad. And to be honest, for the majority of the process, it wasn't!

But then the fruit. Oh man. The fruit kicked my sorry little behind. I wanted to add a little over 4 pounds of blackberries to 4 gallons of the beer. I had purchased said amount of frozen blackberries on sale, and they were just waiting to make my beer more delicious. Quick tangent: when using fruit, frozen is typically best. This is because the process of freezing breaks down the cell walls and makes the fruit sugar more easily accessible to the yeast.

Anyways. My next mistake was trying to do this in the morning before I flew out to a friend's wedding. So I was rushed. So when I realized I should have let the blackberries thaw, I panicked. It took them a long time to thaw in the lowest possible oven temperature, and then they were all juicy and mushy.

And at THAT point I realized I had no plan to get this juicy, mushy, blackberry-y liquid through the relatively small opening of the carboy.

Without belaboring the point too much more, I started out planning on racking 4 gallons of saison onto 70 ounces of blackberries. I finished with stained cupboards and floors and absolutely no idea how many blackberries actually made it in.

Here's the gallon I bottled without blackberries. I did this mostly because there wasn't going to be room in the 5 gallon carboy for 5 gallons of beer and 4+ pounds of fruit. But it will also be interesting to see what the beer tastes like with and without fruit.

I couldn't resist one last picture of the pellicle. This is after I took out the first gallon.

Geez lousie. I had forgotten how bad it was until I looked at these pictures again.

I'm guessing 3. That's the magic number. 3 pounds made it in the carboy and a little over one... well... didn't.

I'll let you guys know if any of the blackberry flavor comes through in the beer.