KVEIK GRAPE ALE RECIPE

Jump here to get to the recips without all this wibble…

Grape ale at 2 weeks (opened as a wet cork was pushed upwards)

Due to hubris and an understanding partner I have planted a Pinot Noir and a Chardonnay grape vine and plan on either a Pinot Wrotham or Meunier to make sparkling wine. The Pinot Noir is the eldest at four or five years old and has previously had the grapes removed to help get a good root stock established. This year was the first I time I left the grapes to harvested, though I did not have enough to make wine. The obvious solution was to combine the grapes and beer to make a grape ale.

Pinot Noir grapes at the start of verasion (posh name for ripening)

Grape ale sounds like a total gimmick and I have never seen a bottle for sale anywhere though there are certainly commercial versions. It sounds like a beer for beer wankers and having read about them I think the ideas and descriptions are a little bit muddled. Grape ale is not a beer/wine hybrid… it is a beer with grapes in like any other beer with fruit. It tastes like a beer first and foremost. The dominant taste is malt and moderate but certainly noticeable hops. Mouth feel is like a traditional ale without the thicker vinocity of a red wine. The grapes do add a slight refreshing astringency and a fresh acidic bite to the beer with a delicate floral fruitiness to smell and taste. Even though I used red grapes and the skins were left macerating in the beer as it ferments this is not like pouring a glass of red wine into a pint of Carling as the grapes.

The chosen 7% ABV is a mid point between an ale and wine and was the starting point of the recipe. Knowing I had 3.5kg of grapes I worked out I could make the equivalent of three bottles of wine. My freebie recipe software was not able to deal with this so I used a Pearson Square to work backwards to determine how much grain I needed to use. Only 2.2kg of malt for 15 litres total to drink at 7%. This grain bill was then divided into two thirds pilsner malt and a third wheat malt to get a balanced base for the grapes to work with. Usually I hate wheat in my own beers but I this really worked well making a light, simple but very nicely flavoured base that really hides the alcohol behind the pleasing fruit.

As the malt was simple this determined that the rest of the recipe was simple too. Hops was mild with only 17 IBU of Saaz added as a bitter addition at the start of the 60 minute boil. No flavouring additions were added at the end so that the grapes could get a decent voice in this beer. Yeast was similarly basic with Voss Kveik used for a reliable fermentation that would really dry the beer out with out too much yeast character added.

Kveik as everyone always tells “you ferments like a beast”

Using the Kveik also side stepped a tricky fermentation conundrum of red grapes traditionally fermenting at up to 30°C as opposed to a traditional ale fermentation of about 19°C. In the end I started the grapes fermenting in my warm kitchen and let it free ride for a week probably at 25°C for a couple of days when it really kicked in. The grapes were picked and crushed in a hop bag to allow the juice to be extracted into some clean sterile water that was boiled and cooled. Campden was added to kill any potentially trouble some wild yeast and possible contamination from a mouse that had nibbled a few grapes. If there had been no pesky rodent I may have considered a wild fermentation for the grapes. The grapes fermented quickly and vigorously with the Kveik for a week (it probably sat for a few days fermented out) before the wort was added and a second fermentation kicked up within 20 minutes. Using the hop bag to contain the skins and seeds meant I could quickly remove them when I though enough tannins had been extracted. Too little tannin and there is no point using grapes but too much would dominate and ruin the beer. Just a week later the beer was dry as a bone and was bottled with only moderate carbonation to be a bit like a pet-nat wine.

The beer will age for six months so it can be popped open for a spring time evening. I was forced to open one battle after two weeks and it tasted even at this young age delicious. The astringent sensation should stay but any slight bitter tatsing tannins develop, acidity should drop to a lovely pleasing zing.

Grapes: L picked and cleaned R after fermentation and a squeeze

I see no reason to tinker with this recipe though it does rely on periodic tasting to determine the grape skin removal. Making this can sit happily between my summer saisons and autumn Biere De Guarde. I may develop another recipe in tandem next year that is far more ambitious using a combination of 71B wine yeast and a saison beer yeast to similarly allow a mid range fermentation temperature but more yeast expression. It should be noted this is virtually the only wine yeast that could work in conjunction with a beer yeast as it lacks the “killer” enzyme. A little oats might be added in that beer for body and spelt or rye replacing half the wheat for some malt character. Hops could be more elaborate with Tettnang replacing the Saaz and some floral or lemon notes in flavour/aroma/dry hop additions. I would love to be able to get some Mandarina Bavaria in conjunction with another hop to work with the grapes. All that is next year and I am more than happy with what has been bottled.

An experiment with the pomace left over from beer and future wines will also be used in a recipe and hopefully a high alcohol aged “cru” beer using EC1118 Champagne yeast and Brett aged on oak… sorry.. the grape ale was really inspiring. 7% and bottled in a wine bottle too!

I would love to hear any one else experience with grape ales like this. Thanks to The Ant 06, Drink more beers, Skindiddy and Walfredo Bramley for ideas along the way.

KVEIK GRAPE ALE RECIPE

Batch:15L
Start gravity:1.044 grain (plus the grapes)
End gravity: Probably about 1.00.
ABV: 7%
IBU: 17
Colour: 3 SRM plus the grapes
Water profile: Thames tap moved towards a lighter beer profile.

EXTRA FERMENTABLES

Fermentable	Wright	Percentage	(Per litre)
Grapes	3.5kg	N/A	233g

FERMENTATION 1 (GRAPES)

Grapes destemmed and crushed in a sanitised nylon hop bag to keep the skins. Juice and the bag of skins left in 2 litres of boiled then cooled water and pectic enzyme and a campden tablet added to sanitise and destroy pectin for 24 hours.

5g Voss Kveik added and alloed to ferment out in ambient conditions of about 25°c using a fermentation jacket to help. Left for seven days though fermentation could have been a lot quicker.

GRAIN BILL

Malt	Weight	Percentage	(Per litre)
German Pilsner	1.4kg	63.6	93g
Acid Malt	360g	9.8	24g

MASH

67°c for 60 minutes Sachrification rest

1litre of water to every 500g of grain. Vorlaufed until the wort runs clear. Sparged with water at 67°C to bring it to volume of 12.5L before the boil.