Cherry Belgian

[Horners]

Suddenly have the urge to brew some kind of cherry rich Belgian Ale. Don't want to have to get involved with souring etc. Does anyone have something tried and tested that fits the bill?

Cheers

Horners

 

[strange-steve]

I don't have a tried and tested recipe, but since you don't want to sour it then it should be pretty simple, as far as the recipe goes at least. Pilsner malt and a bittering hop addition (though I'd go easy on the IBUs). Normally I'd add a little sugar to a Belgian ale but if you're adding real fruit (rather than flavouring that is) you shouldn't need it.

For the yeast just pick your favourite Belgian strain, personally I really like WLP530 which will give you some gentle spiciness if fermented on the cooler side. Another option would be Wy3522 which is a little cleaner but will still add a touch of Belgian character.

That's the easy bit, getting a good depth of flavour from the cherries might be more difficult. Cantillon use 200g/L of cherries in their kriek (so 4kg for a 20L batch!) and let the beer sit on them for a few months. Artificial flavouring would be much easier but might not taste particularly "real".

 

[Horners]

Thanks Steve - its making me thirsty just thinking about it...