32nd Brew – Lambic #3 – Jan 2011

That’s right, its time for our annual Lambic brew. This will be our third installment and should allow for us to blend a Gueuze in a year with any luck.

The brew plans aren’t completely solidified yet, but the plan is to follow the same basic recipe from last year. That means a turbid mash with a mix of Belgian pilsner malt and un-malted wheat. The mash will have at least 5 rests and two transfers of mashing liquid to the boil to increase turbidity. As long as we don’t get snow again, it should be a smooth brew.

One difference I do plan on making is with the yeast. I have been saving dregs from sour beers and have added them to a second starter I made during the last brew. This along with any dregs from bottles we drink will be added to the lambic after the sacharomyces yeast in the sour blend has run its course. On top of that, I will be using the oak sticks from our first batch, which should help get the bugs growing.

One of the highlights of the Lambic brew is getting to sample some of the Lambic we have made in previous years as well as a fairly large selection of bottles that we collect for the event.

In the homebrewed category we have our:

• 2 year bottled at year one
• 2 year samples from the fermentor
• 2 year aged on Cherries for 7 months
• 2 year aged on Raspberries for 7 months
• 1 year samples from the fermentor

On the commercial side we have:

• 3 Fonteinen Schaerberkse
• Hansens experimental chassis
• Giradin Gueuze (added 1/7)
• Oud Beersel Gueuze (added 1/7)
• Lindemans Cuvee Rene
• Lindemans Faro
• Lindemans Framboise (2006)
• Iron Hill Lambic De Hill
• Iron Hill Framboise De Hill
• Iron Hill Kriek De Hill
• Rodenbach 2010
• Rodenbach Grand Cru 2010
• Rodenbach Vintage 2007
• Rodenbach Vintage 2008
• Weyerbacher Riserva 2010
• Sam Adams cranberry lambic

Check back later because this list will certainly grow. We are missing a few good bottles that definitely need to be present.