Recipe and notes provided by Kristen England, head brewer at Bent Brewstillery (Roseville, MN). Meggyes is a beautiful deep red beer with big, bright notes of cherry. The professional version Kris brewed is a fairly dry Trappist-style ale with wonderful ester-y sweetness from both the cherries and vanilla.  See this Chop & Brew 12 Beers of Christmas video for tasting notes and more brewing notes from Kris.

Meggyes Trappist Ale with Cherry and Vanilla

OG: 13P pre-cherry / ~16P post-cherry.
IBU: 25
ABV: 7.1%

Malt Bill

The idea for this one was to have a bit more malt backbone than a straight Pils only as the cherries really do better with a little more support.

• 85% Belgian Pale
• 5% Biscuit malt
• 5% Munich
• 5% Wheat malt

Mash: 150F or so.

First Wort Hop to 25 IBU with any high alpha acid hop

Boil wort for 75-90 minutes.

Ferment at 68F with Wyeast 3787 Trappist High Gravity at ~3-4mil cells/ml or SafAle BE-256 at 3-4g/L. In either case, I prefer the lower end of the pitch rate.

Extras:

• King’s Orchard Balaton Tart Cherry Concentrate – 30-60ml/L. In primary.
• Vanilla Extract (optional) – 10-20ml/L (use your own taste). In primary.