Blueberry Porter

So living in Maine we have lots of blueberries about to come into season. I wanted to try making a blueberry porter. The flavor that I’m going for is reminiscent of pie, i.e. I want it to be malty and little biscuity/toasty. I have never done a blueberry porter so some input would be helpful.

5.5 lb LDME
1 lb Crystal (40)
1 lb Brown malt
10 oz chocolate malt

1.25 oz fuggles 60min
.5 oz fuggles 10min

Nottingham dry yeast

About 3-4 lbs of blueberries added to secondary

Any thoughts?

I think you'll have a tough time getting blueberry to come through on a porter... I'd definitely recommend trying to create some extract in vodka for use at bottling.

g_rath said:

Any thoughts?

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Honestly it sounds terrible to me. If you want to make a blueberry beer, I would go with a wheat beer of some sort. You can still make a pretty malty beer without making something as malty and roasty as a porter. I would skip the brown malt and knock the chocolate malt down to 4oz or less.

Obviously this is your beer, make it taste the way you want it to taste, but if it was me, I would not want all that dark malt in with my blueberries.

Of course, you could always just make a porter and blueberry muffins and enjoy them together that way

well it dosent seem that this was well receved. maybe i will rework it and get back to it.

I agree with cubbies. I don't know that I would ever fruit a porter. I had a few fruited porters at NHC and I didn't care for any of them. If you're going to fruit the beer I'd recommend doing so in something like a Blonde Ale or an American Wheat. The roasty/toasty/coffee tones in a porter don't seem to pair very well with fruit IMO.

how many gallons to this recipe?

You guys are out of your mind, Dark Horse makes a blueberry stout that is one of my favorite stouts of all time. I think a blueberry porter is a fantastic idea, blueberries go great with the dark roasty malts and I plan to use them in a dark beer soon. However, they are right that it might be tough to get them to come through in a dark beer like that, so I would use more like 8-10 pounds, you will need a large fermenter.

Agreed. I've had two blueberry stouts so far and liked them both. In fact, I don't generally like stouts and these changed my mind.

I've used blueberries before. They impart MUCH MORE color than they do flavor. I used 5lbs in a hefe w/o armoa/flavor hops and it wasn't the star. It was all in the finish. Go 10lbs if you want to taste blueberry over the malty dark grains.

I wouldn't know how to make it myself, but the idea of a blueberry porter sounds delicious to me. If it can be done in a stout, it can be done in a porter.

I just had a blueberry stout at a brewpub and I suspect it was a combo of fresh fruit and extract. It was only slightly blue but the blueberry flavor was prominent.

Just curious, but couldn't you take a large batch of fresh blueberries and make a syrup/extract for something like this? Then combine the syrup with fresh berries for color and maybe tartness?

You later guys made me feel better. i was almost going to give up on this. I will see how much blueberries I can get and for how much. My mane worry is not being to taste the berries so maybe I will cut back on the darker grains a bit and add more fruit. Maybe .5lb brown and 7oz chocolate?

I've made both a cherry and a raspberry porter, and made the mistake you suggest on the cherry. The sugar in the fruit will ferment leaving tartness. Your specialty grains will balance nicely if you leave them. Don't decrease your "porterness". I've never used blueberries, but 3-4 Lbs won't get you what you want, 10 lbs may be a little excessive, but you want blueberry flavor, right? I say go for it.

+1 on not leaving out the specialty grains. These are what makes your porter a porter.

Go for it. If it turns out well, add it to the recipe database so we can all enjoy it

thanks guys. i will keep it as it is (with maybe some more berries) and keep you posted on how it goes.

So how did the blueberry porter turn out? I'm very interested as I'm about to embark on a similar recipe.

I know this thread is old, but has anyone had success with this. I made a porterish beer this weekend, and was thinking about adding blueberries to it.