Flavoring an ALE

Hello All

New to brewing, and i started off by purchasing two beer kits. Well on kit was made and bottled, the other is still sitting in the primary with some time to go.

My question is, I have just realized that this beer kit produced a very bitter english style ALE, I am not accustomed to this and was hoping to take the edge off by adding some flavor to the beer that is still in the primary.

Questions

What flavor would match well with an bitter ale?

How would I go about adding the flavor? transfer to secondary and add fruit and let sit?



As always your help is much appreciated, im open to suggestions!

Add some time. Let that beer sit in primary for 3 weeks, then in bottles for 3 weeks. The bitterness will get a lot smoother, and will balance out with the malt flavors. If it still tastes rough, give it more time- use this as a chance to see how conditioning affects a beer. Hop flavors, especially the bitterness, need a little time to meld with the other flavors in the beer, so your english ale ought to taste harsh right now, but should be much better 6 weeks after brewday. In the mean time, you've got that other batch to enjoy...

I have to agree with time being a key ingredient with mellowing a beer, I made a low grav rye beer with too much magnum hops (both thanks to a broken scale), it was too harsh up to the 8 week mark then it sort of smoothed out and became quite enjoyable. give your bitter a try after it carbs up and see if you enjoy it, you may be surprised at the balance, if it is too bitter, park it in the closet for a month and try again, another month, ect. meantime get brewing something more to your liking, and build up a stockpile.

Great advice, but id still like some suggestions as to what fruit is typically added to aleas and how to go about doing so


thaaaaaaaanks cheers

b33risGOOD said:

Great advice, but id still like some suggestions as to what fruit is typically added to aleas and how to go about doing so


thaaaaaaaanks cheers

Click to expand...

I don't like fruit beers, so I'm not one to give good advice. However, I've seen that some people have good results with fruit beers when used with wheat. A blueberry wheat, for example. I once did a watermelon wheat for a friend that came out nice.

The thing is, I don't think dumping fruit into a beer is going to give you what you're looking for. Generally, if you're making a fruit beer you decide that before beginning so that the fruit is a part of the recipe. Fruit doesn't go well with many hops.

I can't thing of a fruit that goes well with an English bitter (if that's the style you made- your post wasn't clear as to the beer style).

that is a good point and the kind of feedback I was looking for. I made cooopers real ale, kit.

That kit has an IBU of 29, which is out of the range for most fruit beers. It should finish with a fruity aroma from the yeast. Give it 6 weeks before bottling or trying anything else. If you decide it needs something to balance the bitterness, blackberry is probably your best option.

I can not speak of brewing beer with fruit sounds like wine to me. My dad makes apple and mulberry wine and they taste very little like the original fruit. The reason I am mentioning this is I think you are "asking for trouble" by ading in fruit to the beer during fermentation and it will do very odd things. (BTW store bought fruit may have pesticides and fungicides on it/in it and cause yeast death? Apples and pears being the most saturated.)

I have also read recipes that call for orange peel or lemon zest but that part of the fruit is ultra bitter! Or other biter fruits like cranberries but these are always added in at the start of the boil.

Shifting gears, I have seen lots of people add fruit into glasses/bottles of brewery beer. Like: Blue Moon with an orange slice, Corona with a lemon or lime wedge, Leinenkugels Honey Weiss with a lemon slice. (I am convinced that is to mask the horrible flavor/taste of those drinks.)

I also have seen flavor extracts for HB beer (fruit flavors) at a local HB/nutrition shop for around $5.00, If you want I can give you the contact info for them.

you could add some lactose to it. I wouldn't, but you could. lactose is unfermentable so it would make the beer sweeter.

If you're looking for a fruity taste to your beer, try reading up on the different varieties of yeast strains as well as fermentation temperatures and how it increases the likeliness of fruity esters developing. Also, I wouldn't hesitate to just try new things with some fruit in the secondary (but go easy on it -- you don't want to over do it and end up with something that's just ungodly fruity). Do your research, come up with something, and try it out. There's not much you can do other than experiment.

Consider splitting the batch, adding some fruit (canned fruit puree is often used, as it's been sanitized by the canning process, but do read up on the topic- a search of this forum should turn up reams of info and opinion) to some, and letting some condition on its own. That way you can really gauge the effects of your addition by comparing the two.

You can get flavoring concentrated at LHBS for a few bucks if you have to go that route. I'd just let her condition see how she turns out.

I think the simplest fix is if you don't like the bitterness, use less bittering hops

I was listening to a Jamil podcast about fruit beers and he had good advice. You can't make a bad beer better by adding fruit. If you want a fruit beer, you need a good recipe to start with. If you add fruit to try to improve a beer that you don't like the taste of, you just get a bad beer with fruit in it.

I have to go along with the folks who advise you to just let this one ride out. Time will mellow it out and make it better. Then try a new recipe designed to be a fruit beer.

but... to each his own and this is YOUR friggin' beer and you can do whatever you want to it!

Ive added unsweetened grapefruit juice to my imperial IPA.