Blackberries - Beer or Cider?

So a friend has a huge blackberry bush. He's going to give me about 4-5 pounds of berries to make a fermented beverage with. Undecided on whether to do a beer or a cider.

I haven't done any cider yet, and that idea is intriguing. I also think added fruit flavor sounds better in cider than most beers.

If I do a beer, I'm debating on style. I'm thinking probably a cream ale with a healthy amount of oatmeal.

I love blackberries! I used to pick bucketfuls of the things when I lived up in Folsom.
I think style might depend on how pronounced you want the berry flavor/aroma to come through. A wheat beer is always a good pick for a fruit addition.

Cider. I think fruit flavors come across better in a brew that's not hoppy/malty. If you want the blackberries as center stage go with a cider. If you want them as an accent, go with a beer.

Haha I have been debating the EXACT same question recently

wine

I've got a blackberry hefeweizen in the fruit beer recipe section. I'm not a big fruit beer fan, but it turned out pretty tasty.

vinyl_key said:

I love blackberries! I used to pick bucketfuls of the things when I lived up in Folsom.
I think style might depend on how pronounced you want the berry flavor/aroma to come through. A wheat beer is always a good pick for a fruit addition.

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How amusing. I live in Sacramento. I was thinking that I could probably pick up some good cider at apple hill.

As for how pronounced I want the flavor... I don't know. Planning it as a beer, I had been thinking a beer with a relatively light fruit flavor. With a cider, I'd want a strong blackberry flavor.

Hmm... looks like apples aren't yet in season. Not sure if I'd be able to get good cider for the base yet. I could swing by Jack Russell Brewing up there to see what they do. Appears they have a blackberry abbey ale, but it's not on tap right now.

My suggestion would be beer. Either a blackberry wheat or a blackberry pale ale. One of my favorite beers of all times is a Bell's Cherry Ale typically only available at the brewery. It actually has a very pronounced fruit flavor because the malt and hop profiles are fairly light. I know we're talking blackberries and not cherries here, but it is very possible to get a pronounced fruit flavor in a beer - especially using 5 pounds in a 5-6 gallon batch.

For that matter, I made a pretty darned good peach lambic and a passible mixed berry (including blackberries) last year. It'll take longer, but IMO, it was worth it!

I've had good luck with ciders too, but I simply prefer fruit beer to cider.

If you do decide to go the beer route, I would recommend a low malt profile. The abbey ale you mention... I imagine it was tasty. I would also imagine it would be very difficult to make a complex beer like an abbey that balanced well with a good fruit flavor. Not to say you couldn't, but I guess it would take some trial and error. Just my $0.02! Good luck.

i have a blueberry hefeweizen bottle-conditioning right now. i've heard blackberry hefeweizens are great too.

cimirie said:

If you do decide to go the beer route, I would recommend a low malt profile. The abbey ale you mention... I imagine it was tasty. I would also imagine it would be very difficult to make a complex beer like an abbey that balanced well with a good fruit flavor. Not to say you couldn't, but I guess it would take some trial and error. Just my $0.02! Good luck.

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Yeah, I'd go light. I remember reading something Jamil wrote about crafting fruit beers to emulate a favored food. I have fond memories of oatmeal with fresh blackberries and cream for breakfast. I'd kind of like to emulate that. Hence a cream ale, which I discovered does not actually use any lactose; they're just light and creamy. I figure oatmeal will give a nice mouth feel, and give the beer a bit of creaminess like in an oatmeal stout.

I'm looking into ciders, and this seems like the wrong season to get good cider to brew with. I'm also a bit unclear about how to stop a cider fermenting fully. I don't have a good facility I could use to cold crash 5 gallons.

Also this will be my first fruit brew, so I'm trying *one* new thing. I've never done a cider before, so I'd be trying to do two new things at the same time.

Salanis said:

I'm also a bit unclear about how to stop a cider fermenting fully. I don't have a good facility I could use to cold crash 5 gallons.

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Stopping any fermentation early is simply a matter of killing the yeast. A way to do that is to add camden tablets to the fermentation when you want it to stop. Camden tabs don't actually kill the yeast, but they stop the yeast from reproducing. The current yeast will stop eating the sugars as they will be overwhelmed with the task at hand and you will have more residual sugar.

However, if you plan on having a sparkling sweet cider, you need to have a kegging system because there is no way to naturally carbonate a sweet cider (the yeast will keep eating until the brew is dry).

A cold crash temporarily halts the fermentation process, but it will resume once the brew is returned to room temp.

cimirie said:

A cold crash temporarily halts the fermentation process, but it will resume once the brew is returned to room temp.

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you can just not let it return to room temp

Use it to either make a blackberry wine or beer. Using it in cider seems like it would muddy up the flavor a lot.