Dates (the fruit)

I've been thinking about making a date ale. Not sure what I should use as a base though, something for spring but with a ABV around 7% or so. What percentage of my fermentables should be date sugar? I will most likely add chopped dates into secondary. Any ideas?

i love date taste in beer, i think special b and malts like that would enhance or add a date flavour?

ive never tasted date sugar, i dont know if it keeps some date flavour, but the fruit itself you could probably chop up and add late to the boil ?

good luck, sounds like very tasty idea!

its hard to find good dates (no pun intended) that have full flavor - I would try an ethnic grocery market of your choice before settling for large supermarket type dates. GOod idea though, what would be your base beer?

as a base, i would do either an amber ale or a belgian dubbel of some kind. It might even be good in a sweet stout?

alcibiades said:

its hard to find good dates (no pun intended) that have full flavor

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yes, just remembered that, dont get honey dates or whatever cheap ones, the best ones that come to mind are medjool but are a bit pricey sometimes

Dates scream dark belgian to me for some reason. Maybe it's just because I could name it Dubbel Date... I dunno. :fro:

I haven't been overwhelmed by commercial date beers, but I'd bet they take a lot cheaper hand with those dates than homebrewers would.

My sister gets some pretty quality dates from ethnic grocers in NYC so I will probably get them from her.

as far as base beers goes, Dark Belgian sounds like it would be fantastic. I have yet to make a Belgian beer but really want to. Any good Belgian beer recipes I could use as a base for this? I am working on a extract system but don't mind something complicated.

special-b sounds like a great idea too. do you put special-b in Belgian beers?

Keep these jokes and bits of advice coming.

I don't know whatever happened to this thread, but I thought I'd throw in.

I went shopping at my local Halal market, and they have 13oz packages of pitted, mashed dates.



I threw them in a pot along with 4 cups of water and 1.5 tbsp of cinnamon, and they were super easy to get into the carboy.

Well... not all of them made it into the carboy... some accidentally found their way onto a spoon and then into my mouth after I was done filling the carboy.

In Brew Like a Monk, there is a recipe for a Dubbel that uses raisins in the boil at flameout. Sounds like dates would work that way too.

has anybody done this???

I just visited a brewery in Vankley Hill, Ontario. They have a special brew I tried called Mates with Dates...The guy said they used 200lbs of dates for 1500L...so 1lbs per 7.5L. I found the date flavor to be very mild, I will use more than this when I make one of my own.

Any news on how this turned out?

i added a lb to a gallon experiment second runnings brett fermented dubbel in secondary. came out awesome!