Curvee de Tomme is one of my favourite dark sour beer, unfortunately it’s a little difficult and a little expensive to get a hold of over here in the UK. So I am hoping to brew a dark base beer, ferment it with WLP530 in stainless, then age it in a second use bourbon barrel with Wyeast 3278 Belgian Lambic blend for between 6-12 months. Previous to this the barrel held a Belgian quad, which turned out well so fingers crossed.

The barrel will then have approx 100L drawn off from it and this beer will be aged on sour cherries in a stainless vessel (100L keg) for a further 6 months or so. The beer removed will be replaced by more off the same base beer.

The base beer will be brewed using a recipe from Wild Brews which as the author says – may or may not be inspired by Curvee de Tomme, the recipe is given below it will be brewed as 2 x 130L batches working on 70% mash efficiency and mashing at 67deg C and a 90min boil:

Ingredients
Amt Name Type # %/IBU 34.83 kg Pilsner (2 Row) Bel (3.9 EBC) Grain 1 66.0 % 3.17 kg Aromatic Malt (51.2 EBC) Grain 2 6.0 % 3.17 kg Caramunich Malt (110.3 EBC) Grain 3 6.0 % 3.17 kg Munich Malt (17.7 EBC) Grain 4 6.0 % 3.17 kg Wheat Malt, Bel (3.9 EBC) Grain 5 6.0 % 1.06 kg Chocolate Malt (689.5 EBC) Grain 6 2.0 % 1.06 kg Special B Malt (354.6 EBC) Grain 7 2.0 % 3.17 kg Cane (Beet) Sugar (0.0 EBC) Sugar 8 6.0 % 160.00 g Challenger [7.50 %] – Boil 90.0 min Hop 9 25.4 IBUs 200.00 g Styrian Goldings [5.40 %] – Boil 2.0 min Hop 10 3.8 IBUs lots Abbey Ale (White Labs #WLP530) [35.49 ml] Yeast 11 –
Beer Profile
Est Original Gravity: 1.087 SG
Est Final Gravity: 1.014 SG
Estimated Alcohol by Vol: 9.8 % before souring
Bitterness: 29.2 IBUs
Est Color: 47.1 EBC

Will post a brewday blog when it happens

Cheers

Rich