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Sour beers have been around since the beginning of beer brewing thousands of years ago. There are many types of organisms that can turn sugar into alcohol.

American fruited sour beers are as diverse as the brewers who make them, but these days fruit is added to many if not most sours. That's exactly what we did with this beer. However, this particular recipe falls into the category of a "heavily fruited sour" because we added fruit before AND after fermentation.

The base for this fruited sour was originally a black lager that' was super roasty but was also super light in body. We achieved this vibe by using an absurd amount of black patent malt and a ton of black rice. This is a recipe for a 10 gallon batch of beer and it's tailored for our 20 gallon 240 volt brewing system. Here's the full recipe

Heavily Fruited Sour Video

Ingredients

• 15.24 gallons of city water treated with one campden tablet
• 12 pounds of 2 row pilsner malt
• 7 pounds of black rice
• 3 pounds of vienna malt
• 2 pounds of black patent malt
• 1 pound of crystal 60 malt
• 3 ounces of Rakau hops
• 2 packages of Saflager 34/70 yeast

Brewing Procedure #1

• Fill the kettle with 5 gallons of water and add the rice. Boil for 60 minutes or until rice is fully cooked.
• Once rice is cooked, add 10.25 gallons of water and heat (or cool) to 158F.
• Add the remainder of the grains (make sure to finely crush) and mash for 60 minutes.
• Elevate grains and allow to drain for 10 minutes.

Kettle Souring Procedure

• Drop pH to 4.3 using lactic acid
• Chill the wort to to about 100F
• Add lactobacillus bacteria
• Cover and leave sit until pH drops to 3.5 or until desired level of sourness has been achieved.

Brewing Procedure #2

• Heat kettle to a boil.
• Once boiling, add 1 ounce of Rakau hops and set a timer for 60 minutes.
• Once the timer expires, cut the heat and add the remainder (2 ounces) of Rakau hops.
• Chill to 70F, transfer to a fermenter and pitch 2 packages of Saflager 34/70.
• Add 4 lbs of fruit raspberry fruit puree
• We recommend pressure fermenting at room temperature for 14 days, cold crashing, and serving on tap at 40F.
• We fermented this using one of our new keg fermenters with a tri clamp spunding valve - you can pre order one of these kegs here

Brewing Procedure #3

• After fermentation is finished, add 4lbs of raspberry or blackberry fruit puree
• KEEP COLD (38F) from here on out so fermentation does not begin again

If you like this recipe, we recommend you check out

Japanese Rice Lager

Mexican Lager

Chocolate Lager