Yes, you read that title right, a beer made with tomatoes. At this point, though, this sour is a couple years old so the fruit (or vegetable?) would have faded quite a bit. Not sure how old exactly, but I'm sure Kevin will chime in when I post this to twitter. He's very helpful like that. I'm not really sure on the base style of this either other than calling it an American Wild Ale even though he called it a lambic. I don't think he blended different years together as a homebrewer though. Maybe I'm wrong! Regardless, I've been super intrigued to try this ever since he gave it to me so I finally opened it the other night.
I thought it had a light vinegar nose with a hint of acidity while my wife thought it was super strong. Her nose is more sensitive than mine so it probably was stronger than I'm saying. Body followed the nose with a ton of vinegar and a bit of a bite in the finish. Unfortunately, there really wasn't any hint of tomato except maybe the slight acidity most likely as result of the age. Not sure if it was stronger fresh. It was also super flat and Kevin said that is why he prefers kegging his sours since you are carbing them on the spot. Honestly, it almost reminded me of a barrel sample which was kind of fun. Anyway, for a homebrew, it was pretty cool and a really neat idea. One note, but a delicious note for someone who likes acetic sours. Side comment, if you want to try a beer made with tomatoes after reading this, it seems that Tired Hands just brewed an heirloom tomato berliner weiss so that should be available soon.
On the actual blog front, I'm clearly not keeping up with it right now. I'm hoping things will settle back into routine once Pax goes into daycare but we'll see. In the mean time, bear with me and my sporadic posting and hopefully I can get things back on track in the future.
Some notes:
ReplyDelete1) Calling it a "lambic" is kinda misleading on my behalf. Nothing about it is spontaneously fermented. I used the Wyeast Lambic Blend (3278) to ferment with
2) Originally made a larger than normal batch, split off 5 gallons to be unfruited and 2 gallons to age on about 2 pounds of fresh jersey tomatoes, skin and all
3) When they were younger & I was taking samples, the main difference was that the tomato version was more lactic acidic. At that point neither was overly acetic / vinegary in nature
4) This was brewed I think 3 years ago at this point. The unfruited never got bottled.
5) Definitely no blending - I don't really have the space or time to have that much homebrew fermenting longterm like that
6) The idea is all Jon Medlinsky's :)
7) I also made another tomato beer 4 or 5 years ago - a sundried tomato & thyme american wheat beer!
-k
Heh, I was just messing with you about calling it a lambic. Obviously you aren't blending. Still, I liked it quite a bit and it's probably my favorite from you other than maybe the Flemish Barleywine.
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