Plum Beer?

I’ve got a few pounds of plums left after brewing 3 gallons of plum wine and was thinking about trying a plum beer. Now, the wine was EXCELLENT paired with 70% dark chocolate so I thought about maybe making a chocolate plum stout. On the other hand a stout beer might overpower the delicacy of the plums so maybe a lighter beer would be better . . .

Anyway, any suggestions as to what styles might compliment plum?

How about yeast (I would like to get it to about 9%abv)?

What do you all think about using honey with this one?

I’m open to any tips, tricks, or suggestions.

Thanks,
evenstill

i think maybe a brown ale. some types of brown ale have a natural fruit flavor ranging from plum to currant i think. from what ive read in "designing great beers" you need at least one pound fruit per gallon of beer to really notice the flavor and i think for something more mild like plum you may need a lot more.

Something like a brown ale might be a good mix, adding a few pasilla negro chilies might also make for an interesting choice. This is a combination that I've used to my plum-pasilla mole.

Yeast...I'd go with something that would promote a lot of those flavors, some sort of Belgium abby or Trappist yeast.

There is a discussion started about pluot beer which you may find interesting although the styles talked about here and there are wildly divergent.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=62434

A pluot is a plum apricot hybrid.

k1v1116 said:

i think maybe a brown ale. some types of brown ale have a natural fruit flavor ranging from plum to currant i think.

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I was thinking a belgian or honey wheat ale might be a good style but now that you mention it maybe a honey brown would be better.

DiscoFetus said:

Yeast...I'd go with something that would promote a lot of those flavors, some sort of Belgium abby or Trappist yeast.

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Yeah, I was already leaning towards either Wyeast Trappist High Gravity 3787 or White Labs Trappist Ale WLP500 to bring the fruitiness forward. Any suggestion as to which one might be better (it gets warm in Texas to I was thinking the Wyeast might be good)?

I used the White Labs Trappist in our spring ale and it turned out really good, lots of fruit, plum and fig notes. So I would lean toward that one, but thats just me.

I made a beer with plums and caramelized sugar awhile ago, taking the inspiration from plum wine. It was kind of orangy amber, and it was quite delicious. I pureed the skin into the mix too. Good luck.

Just the other day I was struck with a sudden idea to try a plum beer. Traditionally, when I'm suddenly struck with an idea, it's either fantastic or horrific. given that I've never even eaten a plum, I'm not sure which this may end up as. Anyway, I was curious what the end results were and what styles/adjuncts you choose to pair it into?

Anyone done this yet? I have some and thinking about a pluot blonde.

I have a bunch of plums from our tree, so I was thinking about doing the same.

One of our local breweries puts out a sour plum abbey ale every year. I don't think I'd do a sour though. I was also thinking a barleywine might not be a bad choice either.

I just sampled my first bottle of a plum (actually prune) sour last night. After blending several 1-2 year old sours together, half went together in a carboy on prunes puréed in plum juice and sanitized at 160-170F. Besides the sour aspect, it reminds me of some old ale or barley wine flavors. I'd recommend old ale or wee heavy, and ideal if you could dehydrate them a bit to concentrate the flavors more. I racked off and packaged after 6 weeks and used plum juice and palm sugar for priming. Another blend of sours is now on the leftover mush plus a pound each of several berry varieties from the backyard.