Cherry sour

My first stab at cherry sour happened by accident. I was planning to a crabapple beer. I had made a 4% Belgian golden ale as the base which I was going to add the fruit and souring yeasts to.

But when i took the crabapples out of the freezer they had kept very badly, browned all over looking very unpleasant. I couldn't commit to using these, so i composted them and instead bought some frozen cherries from the supermarket.

I split the beer into two batches. One would be exposed to a Brett mix which would mature in 2 months. The other I'd expose to a lambic bacteria mix (with pediococcus and lacto bacillus as well as Brett) which would be ready in .... 12 months.

I let the cherries defrost. I liquidized these in the food blender and then poured the cherry mixture into the containers. An elementary mistake, but cherries contain a lot more sugar than crab apples, so very soon both containers had begun to froth and then overflow.

Ooops. I scooped off the excess cherries and poured away some of the work (wah!) to prevent any further blow over. At least when adding your own wild yeast you don't need to worry any more about your beer getting infected. It's already infected!

First cherry beer will be ready about easter time, i'll get the first look at it at the end of February!- the lambic one will have to wait for Christmas.