Fairwater Brewery

Rhubard & Gooseberry Sour

Ok, it seems like I'm still hopeless and writing new posts. Maybe I need to find something other than brewday recipe posts..!

The recipe is this one for a fruited sour.

Some friends of ours have an annual party where the attendees supply mini-kegs of beer for everyone to enjoy, but since I'm a brewer it seems sensible for me to bring one of my own creations! It was suggested that a sour would be popular, as they're not as easy to get hold of in mini-kegs from commercial breweries.

I'm starting with a simple grain bill of mainly low colour Golden Promise (which is what I'm tending to get by the 25kg sack as my base malt for pretty much everything), some biscuit malt (to try and get a sort of fruit crumble end result), a bit of wheat, and some acidulated malt lactic acid to adjust the mash pH (that strikethrough on the acidulated malt is from the brewday, when I found that I didn't have any in my stocks, so I increased the Golden Promise and used lactic acid instead).

Water treatment is quite simple, just a bit of epsom and salt. I'll probably add a bit more salt later in the process, not to make it more like a gose, necessarily, but to help emphasise that biscuit flavour.

I put Saaz as the hop in the recipe - on brew day I might substitute, depending on what and how much I have of European hops. It's not there for flavour, just a bit of light background bitterness.

We have some rhubarb and gooseberries in the freezer from my in-law's garden, so those are the fruits for this one.

I'm going to use Philly Sour, as I appreciate the simplicity. I'll start the ferment using the straight wort, and after 2 days I'll add the fruit.

I'll let it defrost, then probably blizt the rhubarb to get a puree, and mash the gooseberries to release their juices (I won't blitz them as I don't want to break up any seeds). Then I'll stick it all in a grain bag so I can remove it easily and won't have to fight with any bits of fruit in the lines when I rack to keg.

I've got a little shy of 2kgs of the fruit, so I'm going for a 12 litre batch, though it will probably end up a bit more than that in the end because of the added liquid from the fruits.

I considered aging on wood to get a more complex character, but I don't really have time. I've also considered adding a little vanilla extract to give ahint of custard, just for the whole "fruit crumble" idea.

If it all works out as planned I should have a decent fruited sour in time for "Kegger 2025"!