27th Brew – Ritbier – March 20, 2010

I decided for some reason on Wednesday that we should brew this weekend. For one I will be by myself, which will leave some free time, and its going to be the first REALLY nice weekend after that abysmal snowy winter.

So the question before us at the St Patrick’s day pint night at Frisco was what to make. We will be brewing again on May 2nd for national homebrew day, so it had to be something that can go fairly quick and doesn’t interfere with those plans. I have been thinking about the idea of a traditional witbier Celis style for a while. A friend recently brewed one from a recipe in the radical brewing book with great success, so this was further motivation. I nice witbier on a warm spring or summer day is a wonderful thing.

Sounds nice alright, but why not spice it up a little and make something new and different. This idea was actually thought of a few weeks earlier when I was trying to compile a list of potential future brews, but didn’t think it would happen this soon. The idea is to make a traditional witbier, but replace at least half of the wheat with Rye. Everything is the same except for the rye.

I’m not really sure how this will turn out, but it could be very interesting. I really like the flavors in rye and I think it will do good to spice up the wit and give some nice malt notes. Rye has similar properties to wheat so it shouldn’t be too much of a stretch. I guess the interesting thing will be to see what the wit yeast does to it.

The name is kind of corny and probably not the most appropriate, but it was easy to replace the W with an R. So I’m sticking with it. Hopefully everyone can make it out. As usual there is plenty of beer to be consumed. I need help finishing off the RHIPA so I can tap the Old Ale.