by timmy » Tuesday Mar 22, 2011 4:41 pm
Grain & Grape used to stock a Kriek K&K kit that was really tasty - it was expensive but worth it I think.
I find an easy way to brew a nice fruit beer was to brew a basic wheat beer with a neutral yeast (or use the weizen yeast but keep the temps down) and then dump it on some pasteurised fruit in the secondary. I've had good success so far with apricots, blueberries & blackberries. They give the nice sourness, but probably not exactly the same as a lambic. A hell of a lot less effort, though.
I heard another tip on brewing a lambic - brew a fairly standard beer (low hopping rates, low attenuating yeast) and then throw it in the secondary with the dregs from a couple of bottles of lambic. Apparently if you leave it for about a year it starts to develop the lambic character. You will obviously need to find a lambic that is not pasteurised and uses the original yeast for bottling.