newby Question, fruit beer

Hey Everybody,
Still new to homebrewing, only 3 batches so far. But i dislike the Ale aftertaste, just found that out. I am interested in making a fruit beer, they sound pretty tasty. Is there a certain kind of style that is best for this? Like a dark beer etc.? I have also heard of wheat beer and fruit. Since i dislike ale, can i make a fruit beer with a lager or pilsner instead? I live in AZ where it is very hot. A strawberry blond sounds good. Thank you all for your suggestions a comments.

Fruit is "As a General Rule" added to wheat beer. 5 to 6 lbs of chopped fresh fruit or puree added to the secondary. Except Cranberries. Just need 4 lbs of those or it'll be too tart. Assuming a 5 gal batch of course.

I agree that a wheat beer is the best way to go for fruit. If you're really lazy, like me, you can always get a small bottle of fruit extract from your local homebrew store. The extract gets added at bottling time, so you don't have to deal with fruit in the secondary or anything like that. The real fruit tastes better, IMHO, but the extract tastes pretty good, too.

I wonder if you could learn something about fruit choices by looking at the menu at the LHBS? My Strawberry Tart is about like lemonade. I know that citrus wines use a bit of juice and lots of sugar to avoid excess acidity...

Last weekend (Mother's Day) we had the famiily over for dinner, etc.

I added a spoonful of strawberries and syrup to my Hefe Weizen. It was great. I had a second one that way too.

homebrewer_99 said:

I added a spoonful of strawberries and syrup to my Hefe Weizen.

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Didn't it beer-cano on you? How did you keep it from flooding all over the place?

PhoenixCoyote said:

But i dislike the Ale aftertaste, just found that out.

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IMHO, you should not settle on this opinion just yet. What yeasts have you been using? What are your fermentation temps? I suspect that it is some byproducts of your fermentation that you are responding to here. Some people really like those fruity, estery aftertastes that you can get with some ale yeast strains. Others don't.

Before you decide that you don't like ales, you should ferment with something like Safale 1056 (Chico strain, California Ale) or the Nottingham dried yeast. Both of these strains are described as very "clean" and "flocculent." They leave a very crisp and clean tasting beer. You may find that it is the character of specific ale strains that you dislike rather than ale itself.

Also, cooler fermentation temps will result in cleaner flavors.


[he sings] "All I am say . . . ing . . . . is give ale a chance." :cross:

I know there are mixed opinions about The Brewing network here but I kinda like them so I'm gonna post a link to one of their shows.

Jamil Zainasheff (if you aren't sure who he is) has won the Homebrewer of the year award a ton of times and basically just knows his ****.

He does a biweekly show on different beer types and has done one on fruit beers. It's a great show with tons of info.

http://www.thebrewingnetwork.com/jamil.php

There is a link to an mp3 on that page.

just sharing some info i found interesting.

ws

Chairman Cheyco said:

Didn't it beer-cano on you? How did you keep it from flooding all over the place?

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Add the fruit and syrup AFTER you pour the beer.

sonvolt said:

IMHO, you should not settle on this opinion just yet. What yeasts have you been using? What are your fermentation temps? I suspect that it is some byproducts of your fermentation that you are responding to here. Some people really like those fruity, estery aftertastes that you can get with some ale yeast strains. Others don't.

Before you decide that you don't like ales, you should ferment with something like Safale 1056 (Chico strain, California Ale) or the Nottingham dried yeast. Both of these strains are described as very "clean" and "flocculent." They leave a very crisp and clean tasting beer. You may find that it is the character of specific ale strains that you dislike rather than ale itself.

Also, cooler fermentation temps will result in cleaner flavors.


[he sings] "All I am say . . . ing . . . . is give ale a chance." :cross:

Click to expand...

Thanks for your reply. I used a beer kit from the HBS, the yeast came with it. It was a "brewers best" kit. All of my 3 batches were from these kits. That's all they carried besides all canned kits. My fermentation was in the low 70's in my primary, i did it back in december. I don'tlike the aftertaste of any of them. What did i do wrong? I have another kit i bought back in january, i will experiment with it. It is a Continental Pilsner. I use a plastic bucket one stage fermentation. One week then to bottles. Any help with getting a good tasting beer would be great. Thanks again.

PhoenixCoyote said:

Thanks for your reply. I used a beer kit from the HBS, the yeast came with it. It was a "brewers best" kit. All of my 3 batches were from these kits. That's all they carried besides all canned kits. My fermentation was in the low 70's in my primary, i did it back in december. I don'tlike the aftertaste of any of them. What did i do wrong? I have another kit i bought back in january, i will experiment with it. It is a Continental Pilsner. I use a plastic bucket one stage fermentation. One week then to bottles. Any help with getting a good tasting beer would be great. Thanks again.

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Jeeze.... well why didn't you say this before Don't get me wrong. You are more then likely getting a "good" beer. But certainly there are places to improve. First and foremost is to not use the yeast in those kits. That will change the taste right off the bat. Those yeast are usually pretty old. You could use those kits and get liquid yeast for instance (they have expiration dates on them so you know your getting new yeast) with good pointers on making a starter and be absolutly certain that it will taste quiet a bit different.

Another REAL INCREDBLY SIMPLE thing you could do is steep some specialty grain. This is no more difficult then just getting the grain (you can have them crush it), putting it in a grain bag, and when you put your water on the stove to start to boil. Put this grain bag in the pot. Right before the water starts to boil, take the bag out. Thats it. But the difference in how your beer will taste will be impressive!

Do you have any book your reading on homebrewing? A real REAL simple book that I'm certain you can find in borders or barnes and knobles is called
The Complete Joy of Homebrewing Third Edition (Harperresource Book) (Paperback)
by Charles Papazian
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0060531053/qid=1147917178/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/102-9372828-5892156?s=books&v=glance&n=283155

Beer Snob said:

Jeeze.... well why didn't you say this before Don't get me wrong. You are more then likely getting a "good" beer. But certainly there are places to improve. First and foremost is to not use the yeast in those kits. That will change the taste right off the bat. Those yeast are usually pretty old. You could use those kits and get liquid yeast for instance (they have expiration dates on them so you know your getting new yeast) with good pointers on making a starter and be absolutly certain that it will taste quiet a bit different.

Another REAL INCREDBLY SIMPLE thing you could do is steep some specialty grain. This is no more difficult then just getting the grain (you can have them crush it), putting it in a grain bag, and when you put your water on the stove to start to boil. Put this grain bag in the pot. Right before the water starts to boil, take the bag out. Thats it. But the difference in how your beer will taste will be impressive!

Do you have any book your reading on homebrewing? A real REAL simple book that I'm certain you can find in borders or barnes and knobles is called
The Complete Joy of Homebrewing Third Edition (Harperresource Book) (Paperback)
by Charles Papazian
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0060531053/qid=1147917178/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/102-9372828-5892156?s=books&v=glance&n=283155

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Hello,
All the 3 kits i brewed did come with grain to steep, which i did. Could all of this be because of the yeast? I will take a sample of all 3 to my HBS to try, then maybe he can give me some advice too. If it's not good, then maybe he will feel bad for selling it to me LOL. Thanks.

You should also look into doing a two-stage fermentation. It will round out some of the less refined notes in your beer.

Check out this thread:

https://www.homebrewtalk.com//showthread.php?t=5084

...it is many pages of real solid discussion on fruit beers. Don't feel bound to use wheat beers as a base, ales can be just fine too. I think you need to move off of packaged kits to really explore what ales can taste like. Three or four batches is not enough to reach a conclusion, they are extremely "elastic." Talk to your HBS guy and tell him what you liked about your products, and especially what you think could be improved upon. Having a real live consultant like that is really helpful.

You know a good place to start as well is a commercial beer you like. What beer do you normally drink if you were to go out and get one? Most if not all beers have clone recipes so you could make something like it That way you at least know you are going to like the taste.