RECIPE & PROCESS: WTWTA: Ira & Judith

As I look back through old posts, and try to organize the blog, I came to realize that I had made an initial recipe post for the clean beer that eventually became the two sour beers that are Ira and Judith. I also gave some random updates with lofty ideas about all this crazy stuff I was going to do, and on how things were going. But there was no single recipe to show for the beers, what I actually did with them, what the process was, aging times, fruit additions, blending, bottling, etc. If someone wanted real info on the beers and how to make them, I didn't have gathered source of all the information. So, here it is. I have given the original recipe and fermentation specs, then outlined the process from there on in the notes.

REVIEW: The Ira (Dry Hopped Mango Sour Blonde)

It started out as an experiment to see if I had rid my brewery of an infection that had hit more than 6 batches.  I made a light American Blonde Ale with Amarillo hops.  Half the beer was infected, the other half was clean.  But even the clean half wasn't something I wanted to drink 5 gallons of.  I combined the beers with 1 gallon of the same base beer fermented with Orval dregs.  I also added honey, dregs from lots of sours, Lacto from yogurt cultured in honey water.  Eventually I split the batches back out.  One ended up with lots of oak, and 4# blackberries.  This one received Mango, and a dose of Galaxy, Falconer's Flight, and Calypso hops just before bottling.  Unfortunately the beer had a large hit of diacetyl and had to age out, which dropped the hops and mango out quite a bit before it was ready to drink.  It isn't exactly what I wanted, but still a good sour beer.

LOOK: Pours a super clear gold with a fluffy white head that fades almost immediately.  Lots of bubbles flutter up.

AROMA: Smells of tropical fruits, mango, nice sour nose, lemons, light Brett funk, musty, light vinegar note.

FLAVOR: Taste jumps off with sour first, big blast of lemon, lactic, light vinegar sharpness.  Followed with mango and some cardboard oxidation.  Diacetyl was big when bottled but has nearly disappeared at this point.

MOUTHFEEL: Fizzy on the tongue, medium body, puckering sour, dry finish.

OVERALL: Slightly oxidized, super sour, light acetic acid.  Not overly complex.  Fruity, light Brett funk.  It's good, but not great.  I really like the sour and fruit combo with the hops, but the diacetyl made it nearly impossible to drink while the fruit and hops were peaking.  The mango is super subtle, need to use a more flavorful variety, and more of it.

Final Update: Sour Blondes

Almost a year ago I brewed a double batch of Blonde Ale to test my fermenters to insure that I had rid myself of the infection that had hit my brewhouse.  After finding that one fermenter was clean and the other was actually the original source of my infections, I decided to sour all but 18 12oz bottles of the whole 9 gallons.  As time passed I wanted to take the 2 batches of soured Blonde in 2 different directions.  One received Mangoes, the other got fresh Blackberries from the backyard.  It is nearly time to bottle them as they have developed quite nicely.  The Mango version has a subtle tropical fruit note that I wanted to play up so I decided to dry hop this version.  It received 2oz of Falconer's Flight blend (lots of pineapple), 0.5oz Calypso (apple and pear) and 1oz of Galaxy (citrus and big passion fruit).  My hope is to play up much of the tropical and fruity aspects of this beer and make it a hop lover's dream.  For the Blackberry version there is a light jammy taste which is what I wanted, and I added more French Oak for the last week to give it a little more punch and separate it from the Mango a bit more since that version has no noticable oak at all, and I think it would play nicely with the Blackberry.