Peoples thoughts on a beverage I have appropriately named 'Wier'

[ninebarnyardowls]

As the name suggests... it is wein+bier (German sp.). I thought I could make a red wine (pinot noir, cab sauv, merlot) and blend it with an Belgian style ale? People make fruit ales already and they seem to work out alright. It will just be a matter of trial and error with regards to concentrations I suppose? ie 90:10 (beer:wine) for example.

It would basically be a fortified fruit beer.

I have 23 litres of 12.5% abv cabernet sauvignon I made from grapes from the parents vineyard to work with. It is just a matter of making an appropriate beer to blend it with at this stage.

Let me know your thoughts on this! Do you think it would be worth it?

[Greig McGill]

To quote the Barenaked Ladies... uh huh huh huh... it's all been done!

http://www.dogfish.com/brews-spirits/the-brews/occassional-rarities...

;)

[ninebarnyardowls]

haha dammit.

[Stu McKinlay]

I made a similar beer with a strong Belgian amber ale (quite hoppy), to which I added Chardonnay must at 10% of the total volume.

Even at this level the Chardonnay really showed through. If you were blending in Cab Sav you may well need a really robust beer (imp stout, Baltic porter?). However, the beauty of it for you is that you will be blending finished products so you can test different ratios first... I added must to the beer as it was nearing the end of fermentation so things were a little less known. I'm certainly interested in exploring the idea further so I'll play with some blending before I try it again. I'm thinking Belgian Blond or Strong Golden with an aromatic white.

[ninebarnyardowls]

Oooh nice, nice! Yeah I was doing a bit of sleuthing online the other day and a possible combination that I might be doing is exactly what you mentioned in your post - a stout and a red. I will have to play around with the concentrations though, ie 95:5, 90:10 (beer:wine) and also with what stage I will add the wine to the beer. I was also thinking of adding a Spätburgunder (pinot noir) to a doppelbock, or even eisbock. See where that takes me...

[ninebarnyardowls]

haha yeah I wouldn't waste fantastic german wine on this!

[Andrew]

Funny this should come up - the other night I poured myself a Pale Whale Ale (6% IPA) which I topped up with the last of a bottle of Pinot which just happend to be at hand - probably about 90/10% - not at all bad. Sure saves all the dicking around aging in barrels!

[Soren]

I have done this, blended a 6% belgian blonde ale with Riesling, Sauvignon Blanc and Pinot (in 3 different bottles). The ratio was 2/3 beer and 1/3 wine. The result was promising but needed more work. The pinot was probably the best of the 3.