Verkenbrau 6.0

Batch 7
Verkenbrau 6.0 (Golden Cap – well, not really, let’s call this Verkenberry)
5 gallons
Raspberry beer
Recipe derived from tastybrew.com, but not exactly (fruit handling portion only)
Ingredients
6.0 lb extra light malt dry malt extract
1 lb rice syrup solids
½ lb American Crystal Malt 10L
2 oz Willamette Hops (1.5 oz boil, ½ oz aroma)
2 teaspoons irish moss (30 min in boil)
1 pkg Nottingham Danstar yeast.
5.0 lbs raspberries

7/19/09 – Used 2.5 gallons of water in the boil. Steeped grain until boiling, added syrup solids & DME. First time using DME. Had heard the extra light comes out amber in color, very true. It was very sticky & hard to get in the pot without help. Had to take the pot off the heat for quite a while when I put it in & stirred to ensure syrup & DME didn’t stick to the bottom. Added most of the hops at the boil, saving only ½ oz for the last 15 min. Sprinkled Irish moss in about halfway through the hour boil. Brew came out looking very, very dark. Interesting. I chilled in an ice bath for about 20 minutes & was able to pitch the yeast right away. Let sit in the living room to ferment as the weather is hot, hot, hot & I didn’t want it to cook upstairs. Next week will add 5 lb raspberries in a gallon of water.

Boiled raspberries for 10 minutes, added to the bottom of a plastic bucket, siphoned beer on top of it. Let sit for 10 days.

Extreme heat wave during fermentation. Apartment got up to 100 degrees, concerned for the beer.

14 days after adding berries I siphoned the beer to another plastic fermenter to get rid of berries. Transferred 4 more times (a day apart) for added clarity before bottling. Bottling yielded 54 12 oz. plus 4 champagne bottles.

After a week of aging I tasted it & was pleasantly surprised. It’s pretty light bodied with a strong raspberry flavor that somehow isn’t overwhelming. It’s very good. I’m very happy, & Banessa says she’ll drink it. We’ll see about that.