Making a Fruit Beer

I have only ever made kit beers (Brewers Best) but now i'm kinda switching it up. I am going to make a pumpkin ale and will have some left overs since i'm only make 2.5 gal. I will have this left:

Caramel/Crystal Malt - 10L 4.00 oz
US Carapils Malt 4.00 oz
Extract - Golden Light Liquid Extract 3lb 0oz
Mount Hood 0.5 oz
cascade 0.5 oz

I want to try to make a fruit beer for SWMBO, Can i brew these up the same way as my pumpkin ale, but w/o the pumpkin and spices? I was thinking of racking on top of either strawberries or raspberries in the secondary, maybe both (split into two small fermenter, one with strawberries and one with raspberries).

Would something like this taste good?

muse435 said:

Can i brew these up the same way as my pumpkin ale, but w/o the pumpkin and spices? I was thinking of racking on top of either strawberries or raspberries in the secondary, maybe both (split into two small fermenter, one with strawberries and one with raspberries).Would something like this taste good?

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In my opinion, those ingredients are a good base for a fruit beer. You have to decide which base beer works best with the fruit you're going to choose, though. Some important things to remember with a fruit beer are that:

1) the base beer (without fruit) should be able to stand on it's own,
2) balance is your friend,
3) some fruit is stronger than others and amount needs to play in with style. With a stout, for example, a given amount of strawberries will be subtle to undetectable when compared to the same amount of raspberries.

As far as process, when you ask "can i brew these up the same way as [your] pumpkin ale", that depends on what you mean. Typically fruit beers are made by adding the fruit to the secondary vessel. I strongly urge against putting fruit in the boil kettle (like some people do with pumpkin).

As far as sanitization of the fruit going into the secondary, there are a few schools of thought (of which the owners get pretty heated when you cross them), so i'll leave that up to you to search. I, personally, don't do any sanitization when adding to the secondary, as the amount of alcohol already present in the fermented beer serves to protect the batch on a base level (given proper sanitary techniques).

Regarding taste, only YOU are going to be the one to determine if something tastes good.

Thank you very much for the advices, my plan was not to add the fruit to the boil, but to rack on top of them in the secondary. Since I have no experience with fruit beers, or making non-kit beers with the ingredients pre-measured for my, how much strawberries would you suggest, I want to use real strawberries, not extract. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Well, I would consider strawberries a "soft" fruit with regards to flavor. Without knowing what type of base beer you're interested in, i would say that in lighter beer (say, a blonde) 1lb per gallon is a bit too much in my opinion. If you're going to do something darker, with crystal malts or a maltier profile, 1lb per gallon is a decent place to start.

As far as process, you can easily get the frozen berries in the grocery store (get the "no sugar added" ones). Just thaw and dump. If you happen to use fresh berries - wash, cut, freeze, thaw, then dump.