Brewing a shandy style beer

Since spring is right around the corner I have been thinking of brewing a shandy type beer with a fruity flavor for my friends and I, my question is this, could I take the actual fruit I want the beer to taste like and put it in with the the beer during secondary fermentation or should I use the juices of the fruit and put them in the wort before primary fermentation?

Also if you guys have any other good ideas of when I should add the fruit or how I can brew a good shandy beer please let me know. Thanks!

I tried to do something similar last year. The advice I was given is that the fruit should be added near the end of the boil or at least avoid adding peels and such as that could cause off flavors. If you add the fruit to the fermentation you'll get the fermented fruit juice taste.

I also had a buddy try a shandy and I'm sorry to say he added crystal light when he bottled. My point is don't do that, it was nasty. Mine ended up very good but not like the Shandy. I think to get that taste you'd have to add lemonade to the beer in proper proportion, which you couldn't do if you are bottle carbing because again you'll get fermented juice flavor. I think you'd have to eliminate all yeast and force carb.

That's my two cents.

I used Lemonade Kool Aid packets in my shandy and it worked out great. Four packets were added at bottling - just the packets, no additional sugar.

Technically, a shandy is a lager which you mix 1/2 and 1/2 with 7-up (aka "lemonade" in the UK).

M_C

INWarner413 said:

I used Lemonade Kool Aid packets in my shandy and it worked out great. Four packets were added at bottling - just the packets, no additional sugar.

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So you use the Kool Aid packets for priming? Or do you do the priming solution as well?

Misplaced_Canuck said:

Technically, a shandy is a lager which you mix 1/2 and 1/2 with 7-up (aka "lemonade" in the UK).

M_C

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There are two forms of a shandy, the Bitter Shandy and the Lager Shandy. The latter is made as you said, whereas the former simply substitutes 1/2 a pint of a Bitter for the 1/2 pint of Lager. The American way of mixing actual Lemonade, maybe from lemon juice and sugar, is likely just a misunderstanding of what the English call 'lemonade'.

Do note that these are mixed at the time or ordering the beer, not premixed. If you want to serve your friends a Shandy, make a Bitter and buy a few bottles of Sprite/7-Up.

Thanks for the correction, this was from memory from 1993

Indeed, lemonade in the US (aka "lemon crush" or "lemon squash" in the UK, if I'm not mistaken) is quite different than lemonade in the UK (aka Sprite/7-up, lemon-lime soda).

M_C

Gremlyn1 said:

There are two forms of a shandy, the Bitter Shandy and the Lager Shandy. The latter is made as you said, whereas the former simply substitutes 1/2 a pint of a Bitter for the 1/2 pint of Lager. The American way of mixing actual Lemonade, maybe from lemon juice and sugar, is likely just a misunderstanding of what the English call 'lemonade'.

Do note that these are mixed at the time or ordering the beer, not premixed. If you want to serve your friends a Shandy, make a Bitter and buy a few bottles of Sprite/7-Up.

Click to expand...

Gremlyn1 said:

The American way of mixing actual Lemonade, maybe from lemon juice and sugar, is likely just a misunderstanding of what the English call 'lemonade'.

Do note that these are mixed at the time or ordering the beer, not premixed. If you want to serve your friends a Shandy, make a Bitter and buy a few bottles of Sprite/7-Up.

Click to expand...

Beer + Lemonade is also known as a Radler

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shandy#Radler