I’d been thinking about making something different for Thanksgiving and quickly got convinced doing something with apples would be the way to go. I mean who doesn’t think about apple pie on Thanksgiving.
My first thought was a sort of spiced apple beer. After a few minutes of Googling I discovered this was not even close to a new idea. People have been mixing beer and cider for a long time. In the UK you can order a snakebite and the bartender will mix beer and cider. I also learned that you can brew them together and it’s called a Graff. Weeks later I was watching episodes of Brew Dog while flying to Africa and wouldn’t you know it there was one where they made a Graff. They made theirs on top of a double decker bus while driving around London and they inoculated it in a coolship with one of the Brew Dog guys sitting in it. For sure I’m not doing any of that.
Up until last week I’d never had a Graff, nor do I ever remeber seeing one on a menu. Well last week while in NY a few us went to Arts & Craft Beer Parlor and they had Farm Flor Graft on the menu so I order one as part of a flight. It was funky or sour like the Brew Dog version. My goal is to make something more white wine like. That said it will certainly not be clear due to the cider. Honestly I have no idea how this will come out.
Grain Bill
8lbs pale malt 2 row
2lbs Honey malt
5 gallons of apple cider (added after boil)
4 pkgs Wyeast 4021 dry/sparkling
4ozs galaxy dry hopped
Water
2g gypsum, 3g calcium chloride, and 3g epsom
