Blueberry Base...

Hoping to get some opinions from you guys regarding a base beer. I'm going to be attempting a blueberry beer somewhat similar to Wild Blue. Although I'm not a huge fan, the SWMBO is. I personally prefer Bar Harbor's Blueberry Ale. Anyways, the Wild Blue is actually a lager so I'm thinknig I want a nice clean, crisp base beer.

Recently brewed the Cream of Three Crops and the SWMBO loved it. Do you think that I should try this as the base, or should I go for a more wheat type of beer? I like the cleanness of the crops, but a wheat base with possibly some biscuity flavors would go good too. Kind of like a stack of blueberry pancakes.

If I did go with the Cream of Three Crops, I was also planning on cutting down on the bittering hops and have that be my only addition to help accentuate the blueberry. Any suggestions, comments...?

I was thinking more of a simple Blonde, like Biermunchers Centennial Blonde.

Funny, I was going to do the same thing this weekend. Even picked up the blueberry puree.

I was going with a 50/50 split between 2-row and wheat. Then, another # or 2 of victory malt to give it some crust. I was going to throw a few tblspoons of vanilla extract in there because I really like a scoop of ice cream next to a hot slice of blueberry pie.

I am not a big fan of fruit beers, but I have had bar harbor's and thought it was pretty good. I suspect they use a blueberry flavoring (perhaps artificial) since there is not even a hint of blue in that beer.

Wild Blue is wacky purple, high ABV though not detectable, and tasted like grape nehi soda. They clearly are dumping a bunch of puree in their beer, and maybe even a some sugar near the end of fermentation to push the abv up without adding maltiness.

I can taste the corn in my CO3C, so I wouldn't use that. But then, I think I had some other problem there. I probably need to make that one again since it seems to be such a favorite on this board.

Thanks for the thoughts guys. Pawn, definately let me know how your brew came out. I slightly modified the CO3C recipe to bump the ABV% just a bit by adding more 2-row. Also brought the hops additions down by 15% to bring in some of the maltiness.

The Centennial Blonde also may be a good base for this brew. I actually brewed it a while back and would for sure have to cut down on the hops. They came through way too much for a fruit beer, but DAMN I love that beer!

I think this may be an ongoing experiment for me as there is not much information out there regarding blueberry beers. Not one of the favored fruits due to its serious subtleness. I'll keep you posted as to how it came out.

Twice I've made a blueberry wheat. 8ish lbs of blueberries, 7lbs Wheat malt extract and 1010 am wheat yeast by WYeast. AWESOME beer. Not too much blueberry taste but enough to know it's there. It's so good.....

rsmith179 said:

Thanks for the thoughts guys. Pawn, definately let me know how your brew came out.

Click to expand...

I made an Irish Red Ale instead. I'll probably make the blueberry in two weeks.

BTW, Jamil, in his fruit beer podcast, highly recommends using Oregon puree for fruit beers. That is what I am going to do.

passedpawn said:

Funny, I was going to do the same thing this weekend. Even picked up the blueberry puree. .

I am not a big fan of fruit beers, but I have had bar harbor's and thought it was pretty good. I suspect they use a blueberry flavoring (perhaps artificial) since there is not even a hint of blue in that beer.

.

Click to expand...

Bar Harbor does not use artifical flavor.

I juiced mine.

boydak said:

I juiced mine.

Click to expand...

Was it purple? What did the juice do to the color? Thanks.

funny, I was just going to post a thread almost exactly like this

Yesterday I made an American wheat 6lbs wheat, 6lb 2 row. I was wondering how much blueberry to put in it.... if 8 lbs is just enough maybe ill go to 12..... I want BLUEBERRY. any thoughts on negative effects of using too much?

Also, my plan is to ferment for 2 weeks, then chuck in the blueberries.... how long should I let it go with the blueberries? 2 weeks? month?

so i actually just made a blueberry cream ale AND was up in maine on vacation and visiting atlantic brewing (bar harbor blueberry ale) -- apparently they add their blueberries during the boil, and use whole ones, so they're probably also adding some pectic enzyme.

my blueberry cream ale came out awesome though. just a little sweet, a little tart with a nice blueberry flavor upfront.

i can post if you want.

tkone said:

so i actually just made a blueberry cream ale AND was up in maine on vacation and visiting atlantic brewing (bar harbor blueberry ale) -- apparently they add their blueberries during the boil, and use whole ones, so they're probably also adding some pectic enzyme.

my blueberry cream ale came out awesome though. just a little sweet, a little tart with a nice blueberry flavor upfront.

i can post if you want.

Click to expand...

if it came out good then yes plz!

Have you ever tried Blue Point Blueberry Ale? And if so, is that the sort of flavour you are looking for?

I made a batch of BM's SWMBO Slayer that's just about ready to bottle. Since I missed adding puree to the secondary I decided to go with extract in the bottling bucket.My LHBS said to add 1lb. of lactose to help bring out the blueberry flavor. Does that sound like too much? I've never used it before.

HomeBrewGirl said:

Have you ever tried Blue Point Blueberry Ale? And if so, is that the sort of flavour you are looking for?

Click to expand...

I have not I have tried one blueberry lager that was real good... maybe ill go to the store tongiht

I would like to find a nice Sweetwater Blue clone recipe. It's by far the best Blueberry ale I have had.

Someone earlier asked if there is a thing as too much blueberries in a batch... Yes and no. The more blueberries you add the more wine like your beer is going to taste. I don't like wine very much so I go on the side of less blueberries myself. That's just me.:rockin:

All grain, 68% efficiency
Ingredients:

3 lbs Fruit - Blueberry
4 lbs Pale Malt (2 Row)
4 lbs Pilsner (2 Row) Ger
1 lbs Wheat, Flaked
12 oz Table Sugar
6 AAU Cluster @ 60 min
1 liter starter Kolsch Yeast (Wyeast Labs #2565)

Dough in with 12.5q water at 173F, rest 60 minutes @ 155F
Sparge with 165F water to bring up to 6.5 gallons to get a pre-boil of 1.042 with the sugar added

Boil 60 minutes with the cluster and chill to pitching temp (@68F).

2 weeks primary, then 2 weeks secondary on top of the blueberries, and bottle condition for 4 weeks.

I would actually let this sit a little longer even -- after 2 weeks teh flavor was flat, but the longer i let them sit (six weeks now), the better it gets.

You could up the blueberry by adding fresh blueberries at whirpool as well.

passedpawn said:

Was it purple? What did the juice do to the color? Thanks.

Click to expand...

Color was tinted blueish. The guy from Atlantic told me they but berries in the 2ndry under the co2 blanket.

Just a quick update on my batch I brewed. Decided to add 1 can Oregon blueberry puree to a cream ale 4 days into primary fermentation. Fermentation kicked back up as it should and the beer has been sitting for two weeks now in the primary.

Took a sample today and it actually got down to 1.006, which is probably a little more than I anticipated/wanted. Regardless, it tastes "alright" but blueberries are almost non-existent. The color is also still quite light, not purpleish at all.

I was planning on racking to a secondary tonight but instead will be going out for one more can of the puree. I'm also going to pickup some BB extract while I'm there just in case the can doesn't help the flavor at all. Hopefully that extra can will help get the color to where I would like it to be as well.

Another poster said that their LHBS told them to add 1 lb. lactose to the batch to help bring out the flavors of the blueberries. Any word on the results of adding the lactose? Might need that as the FG is a tad bit lower than I would like.

50% 2 row
50% wheat malt

1.15oz willamette @ 60
Safale us-05

3lbs blueberry in secondary

rsmith179 said:

Another poster said that their LHBS told them to add 1 lb. lactose to the batch to help bring out the flavors of the blueberries. Any word on the results of adding the lactose? Might need that as the FG is a tad bit lower than I would like.

Click to expand...

I decided to just go with the extract this time around to see what happened.Should be fully carbed in another week.

Get blueberry extract. It will give you the blueberry flavor while you still have beer that tastes like beer. I do this because I find that the addition of the fruit puree is too wine like for me. The flavor doesn't come out as much as I want it to and so it is extract in the bottling bucket/keg for me. You might think of doing this in order to attain that "flavor" without have to worry too much. My fruit brown is still sitting there in the keg because it tastes like blackberry wine to me. Not a tasty beer.

Very interesting... Didn't even think about making the batch turn into a wine-ish tasting batch. Hopefully that will not be the case as I added more of the puree in. It's really at this point more about the color for me. The flavor from the blueberries themselves will probably be minimal. There was more tartness than flavor in my sampling. The color is the biggie for me. The SWMBO loves how Wild Blue is redish purple. I'm really trying to extract the color from the berries but so far it's not what I've anticipated.

I will keep trying to brew this in order to get it right, so there will be many more batches like this one. I may try steeping the blueberries or cooking them somewhat to release the colors next time. I'll keep updating regarding how this one turns out. I'm giving it another week and a half in the primary before going to secondary for about a week.