We were thinking maybe some blackberries. Thanks for the advice.
ahh black berry wheat beer - that is something I know about
I've made it several times
here is what you want/need to know about black berries:
1. Don't bother trying to pick them - a couple pounds of already frozen black berries you can get at the grocery store for a buck or two, so unless you just like to pick berries don't bother.
2. If you decide to pick them anyway, you need to blanch them - so basically what you do is boil a large pot of water, put the berries in a collander and pour the boiling water over them. Don't soak the berries in water or you lose lots of the juice. Another reason to buy them at the grocery is you can skip this part.
3. After you blanch them, put them in a ziplock bag or tupper-ware and stick them in the freezer.
4. Do not put the berries in the blender - DO NOT. If you do you're beer will have floating berry pulp and it will look gross so even though it will taste ok, your friends and family will look at you funny if you try to get them to try it.
5. You need a good wheat beer add the berries too. A simple one that works beautifully is 5# Wheat Spray Extract and 1/2 oz Perle or Sterling for 45 minutes. But any wheat or hefe recipe you want to try would be a good start.
6. Now ordinarily most people don't do a secondary with a wheat but in the case of blackberry wheat - that is what you want to do. When you think your primary ferment is almost but not completely done, take your frozen berries out of the freezer and put them in the bottom of your carboy or bucket you're going to use for the secondary, then rack the beer out of the primary and into the secondary on top of the black berries, put on the airlock and leave it. The fermentation will kick back up again for a few days.
7. Now when you bottle it, do your best to leave the berry pulp behind and not get it into your bottles. This is next to impossible to do, but not putting the berries in the blender and straining or filtering the beer someway is a big help.
8. How much blackberries to add ? I've seen recipes that called for as much as 2-3#s for 5 gallons, personally to me that is way too much but obviously some people like that. For my tastes, I think a pound is just about right - a pound will have a noticable black berry taste but it will still taste like beer. Two pounds, and it will no longer taste like beer it will taste like berry.
9. Also, avoid the blackberry syrup or black berry flavored extract if you can. I've used it before, but I think you'll be lots happier with real black berries.
10. One last thing, black berry wheat is a beer you want to drink pretty quickly, so even though you are doing a secondary - don't let the beer sit and linger when its done get it bottled or kegged so you can drink it.