Strange Fruit

4lbs Raspberries in Secondary

MARCH:
Now is the time of year when I start thinking about fruit beers. It's not that I am a fan of them, but playing with different fruits and alcohols has been a big part of my brewing over the past year. Last year I worked on a few different saisons, mainly concentrating on different herbs, different yeast strains, higher and lower temperatures and overall getting to know the style of beer a bit better. Spring in Philadelphia is absurdly warm right now and it feels like a nice middle of the road temperature to work with.

I have access to a good deal of fruit grown last year and frozen. Raspberries were the majority in my options. I wanted a pretty basic base of Pale Malt, a bit of Wheat. Warrior hops seem to be something that have made it into two recipes last month so I went with it as the only hop at 60 mins. I wanted this to be a fairly big beer with an OG around 1.096. I planned on 3 lbs of berries at knock out and a 2 litter starter with 2 smack packs. This is sounding kind-of DFH Fort-like and as much as I would love to make something like that, I know there is so much time and knowledge to kick something like that out. I was recently sent a blog where the brewer made a 120 Clone and I assume that it is a similar fermentation process.

After primary is over I still plan on racking onto another 4 lbs of berries. Time and taste will tell.

Lesson Learned- Puree, Puree, Puree. I potato smashed 3 lbs of rasp. and wild berries. This resulted in a nicely clogged screen when draining into the fermentor. I planned on this so I had a strainer and large funnel sanitized and ready.

Brett Pellicle

APRIL:
After a month of sitting a top of 4lbs of raspberries in the secondary it looks no different that out of the primary. Why would it? The berries roused up a nice second fermentation adding plenty more tartness and haze. I pitched a vile of Wyeast Brett L. Let's see what happens.



Sour Belgian Raspberry
Pale Malt, Wheat Malt, Carapils
Warrior Hops
Wyeast Belgian Wit 
White Labs Brett L
Orange, Lemon, Lime Zest
3lbs of Raspberries (knock out)
4lbs of Raspberries (secondary) - Photo above

Here is a poem: 

Strange Fruit by Seamus Heaney
Here is the girl's head like an exhumed gourd.
Oval-faced, prune-skinned, prune-stones for teeth.
They unswaddled the wet fern of her hair
And made an exhibition of its coil,
Let the air at her leathery beauty.
Pash of tallow, perishable treasure:
Her broken nose is dark as a turf clod,
Her eyeholes blank as pools in the old workings.
Diodorus Siculus confessed
His gradual ease with the likes of this:
Murdered, forgotten, nameless, terrible
Beheaded girl, outstaring axe
And beatification, outstaring 
What had begun to feel like reverence.