Lime Beer???

Okay guys this is my first post so be gentle.
We, (me, DH, & best friend; collectively call Batch 1 Brewing), have a friend who drinks purchased lite beer of all things. The weird thing she does (besides drinking what she does) is put an entire lime into whatever swill for the masses she is drinking at the time. She is not doing this to mask the flavor of the swill, which would be understandable, but she does it because she really likes lime beer. Because of the nice folks we are, we will be making her her very own batch of lime beer. But how to go about doing that......

We purchased a kit American Light Ale kit from Midwest figuring to match the light beer she drinks. No, that's not right. We know it will be much better than what she drinks but you get my drift. The point it that I have been pondering how to make a perfectly nice ale into lime beer.

One thought is that I would just add lime juice to the brew as we are bottling/kegging/whatever. I've also considered adding zest into the carboy at some point but I'm not sure if I would gain anything doing that. Freaks me out to think about adding lime juice to the beer while it's in a carboy but I could be convinced if anyone has any experience with that sort of thing. The high acid in limes makes me nervous.

Has anyone out there made any lime beers? I would love to hear any thoughts, ideas, experiences on when to add lime. I figured I would be tasting during the "liming" process to find the right amount but would love to have suggestions on that too. Also, anyone had it negative experiences adding something so acidic to a brew?

Thanks!
Nurmey

I imagine the zest would be your best option. That way you get the flavourful oils without all the acid. Similar to adding bitter orange peel to a wit. Not sure how much to make a 'lime beer' as opposed to 'beer with a hint of lime'. You might want to check out some of the wit recipes and see what they do for orange peel as your base line.

Oh and welcome to HBT!

Keffir lime leaves added to the boil with 1st addition of hops will give the beer a lime nose and light lime flavor. You will need 2-4 oz of lime leaves (available at asian food stores/foreign food aisle), depending on how pronounced you want the flavor. I used 2 oz in my limey bastard, and its subtle, but there. You might want to reduce your hops, since the lime flavor will enhance the flavor and bitterness.

Thank you both for your thoughts. I checked out the wit recipes so I have a baseline on the zest. The oils in the zest just might get me started and the Keffir lime leaves sound good too. I will take your advice on reducing the hops with the addition of the leaves. I would be happy to hear more from whomever can contribute.

I've decided that it would be much easier to make a beer with a "hint" of lime rather than a "knock you out with lime" beer, however, I will persevere! LOL

A wit with lime instead of orange as the citus? What an interesting idea... Techniquely I know it's not right for the style, but bjcp guideline only say something about "citrusy" notes in the flavor profile. Doesn't say what kind of citrus it needs to be. I might be tempted to try that on my next wit, sounds like a fun twist.

Let us know how yours turns out!

mike

NurseNan said:

Keffir lime leaves added to the boil with 1st addition of hops will give the beer a lime nose and light lime flavor. You will need 2-4 oz of lime leaves (available at asian food stores/foreign food aisle), depending on how pronounced you want the flavor. I used 2 oz in my limey bastard, and its subtle, but there. You might want to reduce your hops, since the lime flavor will enhance the flavor and bitterness.

Click to expand...

I had someone's beer made with those and it tasted... off. I'm pretty sure it was those leaves, they definately left the lime flavor, but there was also a nasty bitterness that was reminiscent of eating the back of a lime peel, the white pith part. If you go this route (and honestly, I'd recommend just adding a piece of lime to your glass), I'd err on the side of caution.

Sorachi Ace hops, which personally I really dislike, *might* be good for a small addition here. They don't give lime, but they give a very strong lemon tone which might prove to be complementary. Again, be very discrete; there's something really odd about those as well, you might just use a little to enhance the flavor and aroma (maybe a 2 minute addition).

The Blue Moon Summer Ale is a commercial product which is heavy on the keffir lime leaves. You might want to try this out because a beer brewed with lime zest / leaves isn't going to be quite the same as squeezing a fresh lime into a beer. It has the lime flavor, but not the lime zing.

It might be difficult to find it for sale, but it was all over the place this spring. I enjoyed it, but judging by the 50% off sale at the liquor store, not many people did.

I am trying to accomplish the same thing an hit upon the idea of using ROSES sweetened lime juice in after the primary has started ar in the secondary fermintation. had found a fruit recipe that added sugar to the secondary to help fermintation and ad a sweetness, the Roses lime juice is mainly corn syrup and lime juice and comming in at the end i think would add more lime flavor, after all it is the flavor we want.

I made a similar lime beer. I took an American light kit from the local LHBS and completed it per instructions, and then squeezed limes to taste right before bottling. BUT.... forgot that there are natural sugars in fresh-squeezed lime juice.

So, we ended up with some really overcarbed beer, since we also added priming sugar on top of the sugars from the lime. It tasted pretty good, although you lost almost half of the bottle in foamovers when you popped the top.

Funny, this was my first thread on HBT. Against my better judgment, I posted to see if anyone had any ideas how to make this monstrosity for my friend Connie. In the end I just made her a pale ale and told her to add limes. The Roses lime is not a bad idea but we have since "educated" her to drink better beer.

And juts look how far you've come in over a year!

Next time, just make some lime extract and add at bottling time.
Pure Key Lime Extract Recipe | Recipezaar

drunkendog said:

I made a similar lime beer. I took an American light kit from the local LHBS and completed it per instructions, and then squeezed limes to taste right before bottling. BUT.... forgot that there are natural sugars in fresh-squeezed lime juice.

So, we ended up with some really overcarbed beer, since we also added priming sugar on top of the sugars from the lime. It tasted pretty good, although you lost almost half of the bottle in foamovers when you popped the top.

Click to expand...

I'm curious, how much lime juice did you add? I've got some keylimes I juice for limeade, and was thinking about adding it at bottling time. I'd really like to get a refreshing lime finish on an APA.