In October 2013, on our honeymoon, my wife and I visited Belgium, the land where Cantillon and Drie Fonteinen flow like water. There I truly came to appreciate the wonder that is Belgian Lambic. For me, there are very few memories I have more glorious than sitting late at night in a cozy, warm, bar in Bruges called Cafe Rose Red, sipping on lambic and other amazing Belgian beers. It's enough to bring a tear to this beer lover's eye. Tart, vinous, and complex, Lambic is an amazing beverage, and more so, it's forever connected to my memories of roaming around Brussels and Bruges for the first time with my wifey, drinking in the best bars in the world, and getting all sorts of cultured.
About six months after getting back from that trip, I decided to try my hand at a Lambic-style ale which shall be named Brambic. I'm calling this a "Lambic-style" ale rather than a Lambic for the following reasons:
1) It's not made in Belgium.
2) I don't have the patience for a traditional turbid mash, so I'm going with my standard single-temp infusion mash.
3) It's fermented with a blend of cultured yeast and bacteria along with bottle dregs in glass, rather than spontaneously fermented and aged in oak barrels.
4) It's a straight unblended beer, rather than a blend of old and young vintages. I couldn't possibly wait 3 years to drink it.
So in reality, it's pretty far from a traditional lambic, but if it lands anywhere in the same ballpark, I'll be happy.
For the grain bill, I went with a simple mix of 2-row and flaked wheat. In the hop department, I went the traditional route by using aged whole leaf hops. I didn't have aged hops on hand, so I ordered mine, ironically, from freshops.com.
For the yeast and bacteria, I decided to go with the Wyeast Lambic Blend. I failed at recording the exact dates, but a couple of weeks after the Lambic Blend got its start, I pitched the dregs from a bottle of Cantillon with the hope of getting some Belgian magic in my beer. A couple of months later, I pitched the dregs from a bottle of Jolly Pumpkin's beer.
For the first 3-4 months, I kept this beer in my temperature controlled fermentation chamber at around 70 degrees. After that, I moved it to a closet in my house where it sat for another 8-9 months before I racked it onto 3 lbs of raspberries. I gave it another 4 months sitting on the raspberries before bottling.
Recipe Specifications
Batch Size (fermenter): 3.10 gal
Estimated OG: 1.055 SG
Estimated Color: 4.8 SRM
Brewhouse Efficiency: 70.00 %
Boil Time: 60 Minutes
65% - 2-Row Pale Malt
35% - Flaked Wheat
Hops:
1.55 oz. Aged Willamette (Whole Hops) @ 60 minutes
Fruit:
3lbs - Raspberries - racked onto after 1 year of aging
Wyeast 3278 Belgian Lambic Blend
Cantillon dregs
Jolly Pumpkin dregs
Water:
50% Duarte, CA tap water
50% RO filtered water
Added 1.9 grams of gypsum and 1.9 grams of calcium chloride to strike water
Mash:
Single-infusion @ 153 degrees (60 min)
Notes:
Brewed on 4/12/14.
4/20/14 - SG is at 1.012. No sourness detected yet.
4/25/15 - Racked beer onto raspberries.
8/23/15 - Bottled the batch. Added fresh yeast (red wine yeast) for carbonation.
