We are brewing this gem of a beer for a light refreshing spring time ale with a hint of sweet fruit. We love it, and will likely add it a list of beers we want to brew again.
13.5 Gallon Preboil Volume, 11 Gallon Postboil Volume. 60 minute mash at 155° – 75 minute boil. The beer was served at the 2023 Bluebonnet Brew-off in Fort Worth, Texas, and it received favorable reviews.
It also comes with its own music playlist, enjoy: Space Kitty Spotify Playlist
Updated: This beer has now secured our lowest scores to date in two categories across three competitions (including the American Homebrewer’s Association competition). In our opinion, this is a GREAT tasting beer. However, the cherries give it a pink tint which counts against it in the Kolsch category. The cherries aren’t strong enough for it to do well in the fruited beer category. If we left the cherries on longer, the cherry flavor would have overwhelmed any Kolsch semblance. So we learned from this beer, that you can make a truly delicious, light, sweet, aromatic beer, but judged blindly (the judges did not know it was a kolsch WITH added cherries), it can be deemed “oxidized”, “old”, and “flawed.” So a word to the wise for those brewing for a competition, brew to the style, or better yet, enter the beer into the style where you think it can be best recognized, but tread lightly, as not every beer has a category to fall into…
Preboil: 1.039
Original Gravity: 1.046
Final Gravity:1.010
IBU: 26.95
SRM: 3.89
ABV: 4.7%
Fermentables: Weyermann Grain Utilized: 16.5 lbs of German Pilsner (1.5°L) 2 lbs of German Vienna (3.5°L) 1/2 lb of German Acidulated Malt (3.4°L) 1/2 lb of German Carafoam (2.2°L) 1 lb of German Carahell (10°L) Boil (hops in pellet form): 3 oz Tettnanger (3.9AA) @ 60 1 oz Hallertau Mittelfruh (4.5) @ 15 Yeast Nutrient and Whirflock Tablet @10 Dry Hop (hops in pellet form): 3 lbs of sweet/sour cherry variety (in secondary for 20 days)
Yeast – USE STARTER: White Labs PurePitch WLP029 German Ale/Kolsch Yeast