Round Corner Brewing has added a new beer to its range, a cherry wheat beer called Witchery, brewed with copious amounts of cherries and coming in at 5.2% ABV.
The beer has light cherry and orchard fruit characters, which meld with tangerine aromas from Mandarina Bavaria hops. It is a delicate beer, with hints of almond, cherry Bakewell, and confectioners’ sugar, that builds to a slightly tart, dry finish. Some 5% of the fermentable sugar in the beer is accounted for by the cherries themselves.
The name Witchery comes from the very simple play on words combing wheat and cherry. However, with Halloween at the end of this month, it also has a nice spooky connotation.
Round Corner Brewing’s last wheat beer, Zomba, which was a hazy lavender witbier, claimed the country win for the United Kingdom in the wheat beer/Belgian-style witbier category at this year’s World Beer Awards.
“We’re inspired by beers from all around the world, and after trying cherry wheat beers many years ago in the United States, and absolutely loving them, we wanted to create our own version here in Melton Mowbray,” said Round Corner co-founder and head brewer, Colin Paige.
“What we wanted from this beer was something which would be really sessionable and drinkable, while also being a little bit different for us as a brewery. So, we’ve kind of gone off the beaten track with this beer.
“With over 30% wheat in the grist, it’s very much a wheat beer, but what makes it really interesting for us is that the wheat is split into three different types of wheat malt. We have a pale wheat malt, a dark wheat malt — this malt gives it quite a dried fruit character — and then we have a caramelisd wheat, which has added a little bit of colour. However, overlaying all of this is that the beer has a vibrant red hue which looks stunning in the glass.”
He added: “In this beer we’ve only used real fruit, with in total about 38g of real cherries per litre. These were added towards the end of our primary fermentation, but while the beer was still fermenting. We added the yeast after the cherries, so it ferments those fruit sugars as well.
“The result you get from this is a beer that’s not sweet, as it’s been dried out because of those fruit sugars, which have been fermented. What we’re left with is a very mild cherry aroma and flavour. The beer finishes with a mild tartness which comes through from the fruit and the use of the wheat malt. Overall, we think it’s a really cracking autumnal beer, something which drinks really well at this time of year and looks really different in glass.”
Chief executive and co-founder, Combie Cryan, added: “We love wheat beers here at Round Corner Brewing, so producing another new variety of one is really exciting for us. As a brewery we’re always looking and thinking about what the next logical beer for us to produce is, and given the time of year we’re in, and with the temperatures dropping, we felt a delicious cherry wheat beer would match it.
“We believe this delicate beer is going to be enjoyed by our customers in the taproom, at home, or in one of the many venues already wanting to stock it. We believe this delicate beer whic,h has a slight tart and dry finish, will fill them with joy.
“We’ll be exclusively launching Witchery in our taproom on Friday evening and pouring across the weekend, before distributing it far and wide to our customers so they can also share some cherry wheat beer love.”
