You’ve read all about Jim’s homebrewing journey and now it’s time to learn how to make one of his favourite beers- Blood Orange Nettle Sour.

This is one of my favourites to make and has become a seasonal, we produce it with our friends at Locksley Distillery.

Annually they produce a blood orange liquor called Morocello, using just the zest of the fruit, which means they have the rest of the fruit surplus to requirement. Which is where we come in! I blend barrel aged beer into IBC with a load of the fruit ready to ferment until stable, this year I felt the beer needed an additional dimension which is where the foraged nettles come in.

It is indicative of the approach I’ve been using since my early experiments at home and I have adjusted our process to make it more appropriate for a home brew system.

Beer name: Blood Orange Nettle Sour

ABV 5.0%

Length 25l

Target OG 1.039

Target PG 1.0005

Grist – Assuming 80% mash efficiency

Plumage Archer 3Kg

Torrified Wheat 0.50kg

Rye 0.5Kg

Crystal Rye 0.2Kg

Mash at 3l/kg to achieve 68C for 45mins.

Sparge at 73C to achieve pre boil length of 28l

Boil for 60mins

Olicana bittering (target IBU 35)

60 mins –       30g Olicana T45

5 mins –          75g Opus T45

Flame out –    125g Olicana T45

Chill to 20C for fermentation

Allow fermentation to free rise, co-pitched with ale yeast of choice and a blend of Brettanomyces strains.

Yeast Suggestions: Omega, All the Bretts – White Labs, American Farmhouse – WLP 4022 Walloon Farmhouse II, Bottle dregs from your favourite Lambic, British or American sour beer or Orval? Add the bottle sediment to your fermenter to capture some of that life from your chosen beer.

After primary fermentation, transfer the beer off the remaining trub and yeast sediment in FV into a suitable conditioning vessel for ageing. Rack onto fresh fruit, oak chips and nettles leaving only a small headspace, there shouldn’t be much krausen at this point but keep an eye on your airlock.

I’d recommend 2kg of blood oranges (80g/L) – if blood oranges are out of season try and get the best oranges you can find from a greengrocer and cut the pith off, this will avoid too much bitterness from the rind and leave you with a lovely balance and a tart fruit finish. For the nettles, the leaves from two tall buds should be enough to get a really good spicy green freshness. Just make sure you pick them from an area not too close to a path frequented by dogs! And wear gloves (obvs).

To emulate the barrel character, add a handful of oak chips or spirals – around 50 grams or one spiral will end with a lovely balanced beer that isn’t too astringent, especially after the extended contact time needed with the brettanomyces fermentation profile.

Depending on how active your yeast is and how warm the ambient temperature is, secondary fermentation will take anywhere from 3 months to a year. I tend to check barrels from around 3 months over summer and around 5 when the weather is cooler. When you are happy with the stable gravity of 1.001 or below you’ll be ready to think about packaging. The beer can benefit from a higher carbonation than “clean” beers so look toward 2.6-3 Co2.

There are some flavours and stages to be aware of during mixed fermentations.

Pediococcus can produce Diacetyl and exopolysaccharides during its fermentation, but don’t panic! A healthy Brett pitch will be able to break down the long chain sugars that cause a “rope” or shampoo like texture in the beer. Like in lager fermentations, a diacetyl rest will help, so warming the vessel up to around 20C will encourage brettanomyces metabolisation pathways.

THP (Tetrahydropyridine) which presents as “mouse”, “urine” or “cracker” flavour can also become present in beer. It can be hard to detect by some as the sometimes low pH can mask the flavour, the smallest pinch of bicarb to a sample can help make it more apparent. There is no real quick fix to this, it does age out and I’ve found this to take anywhere from 2-6 months up to a year. Anecdotally pitching a wine yeast as you’re bottling yeast can help reduce the presence of THP but I wouldn’t change packaging practices on your first time round.

So if either of these issues occurs, just give the beer a little more time (brewing mixed ferm takes a lot of patience, as well as even more cleaning!), and be aware these flavours can present in bottle or keg post packaging as well as during secondary fermentation.

Enjoy!