Strawberry Blonde Questions

My wife got a little more interested in my homebrewing and asked if I could make her a beer with strawberries. I could make her a strawberry wine but she wants a beer. I don't have much experience with fruit beers so I went to the store to pick up a couple. One which caught my eye was Pete's Wicked Strawberry Blonde. It states "golen blonde lager with natural strawberry flavor" so I assumed that it would have a decent strawberry presence.

I gave one bottle to my wife and had one for myself, and I have to say I'm a bit disappointed (as was she). There really isn't much strawberry flavor at all. Every now and then I get a slight hint, but even if I eat something with the beer I can't taste any strawberry.

So...my main question is, will this be the case if I use real strawberries? Should I use extract instead? Is this how a strawberry blonde is supposed to taste? Do any of you make stronger fruit flavor beers or is this the norm?

I make cider but the wife insists on a strawberry beer and I love a good challenge. Thanks to any answers.

i would suggest fermenting out the beer first and then racking onto strawberries. If you want alot of strawberries i would do around one pound per gallon. Use frozen ones because they tend to be cheaper. Strawberry blonds usually have a subtle strawberry flavor whereas a strawberry beer is much stronger. They have one on the markey at my LHBS but i cant recall the name. You can always add strawberry extract after if the flavor isnt strong enough.

Do you smoke?

I find it strange that you cannot taste the strawberry in Pete's Wicked. It is syrupy and has a strange artificial quality IMO, but there's definitely a strawberry-like flavor there.


I have a strawberry blonde recipe listed under my recipes, which I have made several times. It's very good but if you cannot taste the strawberry in Pete's...I dunno if you'll like mine.


I don't like any of the fruit extracts that I've tried in other people's beers. They have a strange off flavor IMO. I prefer to use real fruit.

I just cracked open some strawberry and blueberry wheat beers this weekend. I made 1.25 gallon batches and added one lb of frozen fruit directly to the primary in each case. They both taste phenomenal. I elected to add straight to the primary instead of secondary because I figured it would lessen the risk of infection, as I thought the yeast would outfight any bacteria on the fruit in the primary. I definitely plan on brewing more of this soon and will use frozen fruit again for sure. Haven't tried any of the other methods though, so take it for what its worth.

Thanks for the suggestions guys. Maybe I got a bad batch of Pete's Wicked? Neither my wife nor I could taste any strawberry. There was a hint of flavor but it was only there every few sips. It was a little disappointing. I also picked up a Sam Adams Blackberry Witbier which has more berry flavor to it. We could both taste the berry flavor, but I'm sure she'd rather have strawberries instead. I just wanted to try a few to get an idea of what fruit beers should taste like.

anteup02 said:

I just cracked open some strawberry and blueberry wheat beers this weekend. I made 1.25 gallon batches and added one lb of frozen fruit directly to the primary in each case. They both taste phenomenal. I elected to add straight to the primary instead of secondary because I figured it would lessen the risk of infection, as I thought the yeast would outfight any bacteria on the fruit in the primary. I definitely plan on brewing more of this soon and will use frozen fruit again for sure. Haven't tried any of the other methods though, so take it for what its worth.

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Would love to have your strawberry recipe.

Was going to start a thread related to this. I made 11 gallons of BierMuncher's https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f66/centennial-blonde-simple-4-all-grain-5-10-gall-42841/ and I want to make half of it into a strawberry blonde. Has anyone used Lorann strawberry candy flavoring to do this? It's basically extract but 4 times as strong.

weirdboy said:

I don't like any of the fruit extracts that I've tried in other people's beers. They have a strange off flavor IMO. I prefer to use real fruit.

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I assume you use fruit from produce and not frozen from your post? Does your strawberry blonde have a tart to it with very subtle strawberry flavor? I'm trying to nail down a perfect amount of real or extract flavoring to add to get a great strawberry flavor with no tart.

Agree with Weirdboy on this one, I have a couple Peete's Strawberry Blonde's in the fridge right now. My wife and I can both taste the Strawberry, personally its more of a summer beer I think. Anyway I was hoping to make something similar for my wife as well so she could enjoy some home brews. As of now she really doesn't care for home brews as they have been too dark. So the search continues for me as well.