Pineapple / Citrusy / Tropical Wheat Beer

Hello all,
I am wanting to put together a pineapple / citrusy / tropical beer recipe. My wife recently had a pineapple cider that she really liked; I wanted to try to make something similar, but I'm not a huge cider fan, so I figured an easy-drinking wheat beer with pineapple would be something we would both enjoy.

Here is what I am thinking so far, let me know if you have any comments or suggestions.

For a 3 gallon batch:

Grains:
3.25# - 2-Row (56.5%)
1.5# - White Wheat Malt (26.1%)
0.5# - Flaked Wheat (8.7%)
0.5# - Munich 10L (8.7%)
1 oz - Acid Malt (to bring pH to 5.61 per EZWater)

Hops:
0.25 oz - Motueka (45 min)
0.25 oz - Motueka (10 min)
0.25 oz - Sorachi Ace (10 min)
0.25 oz - Sorachi Ace (flame out)

Other:
1/2 tsp - Irish Moss
1 tbls - Coriander (crushed after measuring)
1# - Frozen Pineapple chunks (added in secondary - 1 week)

Yeast:
Wyeast 1099 - Whitbread Ale

Mash at 158 F
Ferment at 20 C
OG: 1.045
FG: 1.014
ABV: 4.2%
IBUs: 19


I have made this same beer as a lemon wheat before, but used lemon zest + juice, no coriander (or pineapple of course), and a different yeast (Wyeast 3333 - German Wheat). My only complaint with that one was that I wanted it to finish a little sweeter, so I am hoping the Whitbread Ale yeast will achieve that since it is supposed to have less attenuation.

A guy I follow on twitter (@lewybrewing) slices pineapple rings, then grills it and then throws it into the mash.

I haven't done one, but just passing on some information.

IME if you really want tropical flavors, you should look into doing all all-brett beer. I have a 100% brett IPA ive done 3x and it literally is alcoholic fruit salad

Sorachi Ace has an herbal characteristic too that I do not think will mesh well with you beer. Looki into hops liek Kohatu and Wai-iti for pineapple tropical flavors

I think you should also up the hops a lot at flameout to pull out the fruity goodness and not get the associated bitterness. Fruit additions can help too but its nto really necessary if you know how to design the recipe right....

bowserm said:

A guy I follow on twitter (@lewybrewing) slices pineapple rings, then grills it and then throws it into the mash.

I haven't done one, but just passing on some information.

Click to expand...

That's a really interesting idea! I don't think I will go that route on this first try, but I may try that in the future.

m00ps said:

IME if you really want tropical flavors, you should look into doing all all-brett beer. I have a 100% brett IPA ive done 3x and it literally is alcoholic fruit salad

Sorachi Ace has an herbal characteristic too that I do not think will mesh well with you beer. Looki into hops liek Kohatu and Wai-iti for pineapple tropical flavors

I think you should also up the hops a lot at flameout to pull out the fruity goodness and not get the associated bitterness. Fruit additions can help too but its nto really necessary if you know how to design the recipe right....

Click to expand...

I started with Motueka and Sorachi Ace since I have used those previously in a lemon wheat and it turned out good. I don't remember picking up any herbal flavor at the time...The Kohatu hops that you mention sound perfect, unfortunately none of the LHBSs around me carry them...I may have to track some down for a future batch. Some other varieties that may LHBS carries that I was considering were: Mandarina Bavaria, Waimea, Wakatu, Jarrylo, or Amarillo. But I haven't had experience with any of those yet, so I'm not sure if they would be better suited or not.

Id go with Waimea.

Jaryllo has a lot of peach and spice that arent really tropical. Amarillo and Mandarina are very orangey and can compliment tropical flavors but probably nto what youre looking for. Wakatu is a bit more "noble" version of mouteka IME so that may be another option...definitely some lime in there