Concord Grape Ale w/ Saison Yeast?

[blizzardofoz63]

My gilrfriend’s dad ownes a couple acres of concord grapes and I recently picked some and froze them to make some beer with. I think I have enough for 2 batches. The ideas I’m throwing around are 1) a saison or belgian style with concord grapes and 2) a concord grape stout.

The stout I think I have under control, but I was wondering what everyone thought of the saison/belgian. Any suggestions on a yeast strain that would work well? I’m thinking fruity, maybe a little tart (yeast not brett) and light-ish on the phenols. I’d also like to keep the grain bill pretty simple. Pilsner malt, a little vienna, and maybe a little light crystal. Right now I’m leaning toward WY3711.

My next question is keeping the natural bugs out of the mix. I’m thinking of juicing the grapes, adding some campden, ala wine technique, and adding the juice to the secondary. Maybe I’ll just let nature take its course and not campden the juice, hmmmm…

[shadetree]

Grape juice in beer sounds disgusting to me - have you tried adding a little bottled juice to a glass of beer to see what it tastes like? But if I was making something like the saison, WY3711 sounds like a good candidate and you could add some acid malt to the grist to keep the pH low.

[nighthawk]

I’ve only used the 3711 yeast. It ferments fast and easily at lower temps (65-70).

Sounds like an interesting hybrid. Sasion/wine combination.

For the stout, I’m not sure if the grapes will show through with the roasted malts. It’s homebrew, we have no boundaries!

[denny]

@Shadetree

Grape juice in beer sounds disgusting to me - have you tried adding a little bottled juice to a glass of beer to see what it tastes like? But if I was making something like the saison, WY3711 sounds like a good candidate and you could add some acid malt to the grist to keep the pH low.

DFH (IIRC) made a beer with grape juice in it. The best thing I can say about it is “interesting”.

[s2y]

I think it might be interesting if used in a small quantity to bump up the OG.

[blizzardofoz63]

@Denny

[quote=“Shadetree”]Grape juice in beer sounds disgusting to me - have you tried adding a little bottled juice to a glass of beer to see what it tastes like? But if I was making something like the saison, WY3711 sounds like a good candidate and you could add some acid malt to the grist to keep the pH low.

DFH (IIRC) made a beer with grape juice in it. The best thing I can say about it is “interesting”.[/quote]

Yeah, this is certainly not something that I would usually consider to be a great combo, especially since I don’t like concord wine. However, I think a few pounds of concords in a saison might prove “interesting”, as Denny said. Plus my GF kind of challenged me to do it, so I HAVE to now, haha.

I might go pick up a saison just to try the mix out anyway. Any suggestions?

[denny]

@blizzardofoz63

I might go pick up a saison just to try the mix out anyway. Any suggestions?

Saison Dupont is the classic.

[muddywater_grant]

Dogfish head does a grape beer.

http://www.dogfish.com/brews-spirits/th ... le-rot.htm http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkbAI4ad ... r_embedded

I would highly recommend to use all or mostly nelson sauivon hops. I think they have that grape flavor that would with what you are trying to do.

[s2y]

Sam Adams used to have the homebrew contest beers, maybe ~5 years ago and they had a grapeseed IPA that really hit the spot on a hot summer day.

[tom_sawyer]

DFH also made Chateau Jiahu, that was based on some archaeological analysis done on Chinese pottery.

Why not make a small batch of Concord wine? Then you could play around with blending to taste, that might include keeping them separate.