Trying to clone Prickly Passion Saison by New Belgium

For some reason, my sister in law really likes this beer and has requested that I try to clone it for her as a Christmas present. From the NB website:

Prickly pear and passion fruit mingle together for New Belgium’s return to farmhouse ales. Prickly Passion Saison is truly a beer for Belgian inspiration. The combination of passion fruit and prickly pear juices with the tropical esters of a traditionally earthy Saison yeast create a wonderfully broad and reaching mango-like character. Ostentatiously amber, this Prickly Passion Saison is sure to provoke the palate with a passionate prick, turn that bottle over and take a sip.

Just the facts Ma'am...

Birthdate - October, 2011
ABV - 8.5%

Hops - Target, Liberty
Malts - Pale, C-80
Fruits/Spice - Prickly Pear, Passionfruit

Body - Light - Medium

Aroma - The yeast dominates its bouquet with big fruit and peppery notes, banana and pineapple undertones with a faint caramel malt backbone.

Mouthfeel - Starts sweet and juicy but finishes dry and warm due to the higher ABV, and because of that fruity sweetness, this otherwise lighter bodied beer will seem much fuller- medium bodied.

Flavor - Almost sticky sweet in the beginning and middle- tons of strawberry and moist tropical melon- but still with that strange addition of banana and fig. Spicy late linger and slight caramel notes.

Visual - Deep glowing amber with the slightest sheen, nice white foam and light lacing.

I have personally tried this beer one time. It was definitely sweet, but overall not super fruity. It honestly just tasted like a sweet saison.

Before we even get into a specific recipe, I'm concerned with the fruit additions.

I called whole foods and they do carry passion fruit and can order me prickly pears, not sure on the cost. I've looked online and you can buy puree for both prickly pear and passionfruit, but it's $25 per tub of each (30oz). The description above says "juices", so I'm not sure if the real fruit ever touches the beer.

What is the best way to go for getting these fruits in the beer? Additionally, prickly pears are red and from searching on here are used in meads, turning them red. This beer was definitely not red, it was a shade of gold. How could that be possible?

Is the juice also red or is it a lighter color? If it is a lighter color, that's probably why that saison isn't red. It's also possible it's added in such small quantities it doesn't have a substantial effect on the color. I don't know how much NB will share about their processes but it wouldn't hurt to email and ask.

The juice looks to be red as well. It appears there are some other varieties of prickly pears, that are different colors, but the main or most popular kind is bright red. I also considered that they just use very little of it. I thought about emailing but from reading other posts about NB beers I wasn't sure they actually respond with real info.

I don't think they would respond with disinformation. They might just tell you they can't say. Maybe it's just me but I don't remember picking up a lot of prickly pear, much more passion fruit. Perhaps there just isn't a lot in the beer.

That would make sense as to why the color didn't seem to be affected much. I'm going to operate under that assumption and use mostly passion fruit. From the info on NB's website I put together the start of a recipe: http://hopville.com/recipe/1653543

Thoughts? The grain bill just seems super basic to me, is that a problem? Should I use something other than regular ol 2 row? Hops look ok? Also, this does not need to be an exact clone. We won't be doing any side by side taste tests. Really, it needs to be a high alcohol saison with some sweet fruit character.

Some wheat, munich, and pilsener malt in place of straight 2-row wouldn't hurt.

I wouldn't use American Crystal 80. It seems too sweet, raisiny, dark, and rich for a Saison. Remember, your color will also be affected by the fruit addition.

I've made a saison before with pale, munich, and wheat that turned out nice. I could certainly use that bill. I just wonder why NB is claiming it's made of pale and C-80. Good point on the fruit, although I have no clue how it will really affect the color.

how did this turn out? a friend requested a prickly pear beer and I am still undecided on general style. he suggested ipa, but the sound of a saison makes me salivate. reviews on NB's beer seem to be mediocre.

i never ended up making it due to not knowing what to do for the grain bill, but more importantly the headache involved with getting the fruit. it was going to be expensive and i wasn't really sure how much i needed, etc. i decided not to spend that amount of time and money on something i wasn't remotely sure would turn out decent.

I thought thats what homebrewing is all about- trying something new and challenging.

goo-gone said:

I thought thats what homebrewing is all about- trying something new and challenging.

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sure, generally speaking, but i'm always limited by how frequent i can brew and the money i can spend on it. i decided to put my resources elsewhere. if i could brew more often and/or spend more $ on brewing i would have given it a go.

wowbeeryum said:

Good point on the fruit, although I have no clue how it will really affect the color.

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I make prickly pear juice from the red cactus pears by juicing them, diluting with plenty of water to taste, and also adding lime juice and agave nectar to taste. It's my favorite juice. Vibrant Magenta in color. A very vivid look and concentrated taste, even after dilution. I imagine a pint of this juice would lend a subtle but noticeable pink hue to 5 gallons of pale beer (4-6 srm). A quart would be better.

wowbeeryum said:

headache involved with getting the fruit. it was going to be expensive and i wasn't really sure how much i needed

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Any Latin or Asian farmer's market or super market willy carry this fruit. Maybe not all the time, but they do get them in quite regularly. If not, just ask. They're usually 0.25 cents to 1 dollar each on the East coast where I live. A case of them (approx. 25-30 fruits) sells at a discounted price, and makes 3 liters of juice with the above prescribed recipe, including the fruit, the water, lime, and agave. You could probably leave out some of those ingredients if you're adding it to beer.

I made P. Pear wine years ago. Very good flavor. Watch the needle like spines, though. Mother Earth News website has quite a few P. Pear recipes. Most involve boiling, mashing and straining the fruit.

I know this is an old thread, but I made a prickly pear saison experiment, 1gal batch size, and it turned out nicely tart. Only took a couple months of bottle conditioning to get the Belgian esters to calm down. Even though I used 1# of red prickly pear in the gallon secondary, it’s still an amber color. I can post recipe if desired.

JAReeves said:

I know this is an old thread, but I made a prickly pear saison experiment, 1gal batch size, and it turned out nicely tart. Only took a couple months of bottle conditioning to get the Belgian esters to calm down. Even though I used 1# of red prickly pear in the gallon secondary, it’s still an amber color. I can post recipe if desired.

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Please do

I scaled this base recipe down from a 5gal recipe from Loftus, so just multiply by 5 to make a 5gal batch. The corn, prickly pear, lemon, and agave are my best guesses to fit the recipe I wanted; and since it worked I will someday scale this up to 5. It has a nice clear light amber color, decent bubbles.

*Important! If you are getting prickly pear off the cactus, use tongs to pick them and a paper bag or a bowl to hold them. Soak them in water for about an hour to soften the spines. Use leather work gloves to rub the fruit while they’re under water to get the spines off. You will still be picking spines out of your fingers, just a lot less. Slice in half and spoon out the insides. Do not try to ferment the whole thing chopped or puréed. I did not strain out the seeds, but you can if you want. Just don’t crush the seeds-some seeds contain toxins, I don’t know about these in particular.

6.4 oz white wheat
3.2 oz Pilsner malt
1.6oz Munich malt
3oz yellow corn polenta (mashed in advance 45 min then added to regular malt mash)

1.2# amber DME
3.2oz agave syrup-organic, no preservatives

.1oz summit hops 60 min
.08 oz Nelson sauvin 15 min
1/8t Irish moss 15min
.08 oz Nelson sauvin 5min
.14 oz Nelson sauvin flameout
Fruit insides of 4 red prickly pears at flameout

1/2t mangrove jacks m29 saison yeast
Zest and juice of one lemon in primary at start of fermentation

Racked to 2nd ferment after one week onto 1#2oz inside fruit of red prickly pear (30 fruits off cactus, more or less)

Bottled after 15days
.8oz corn sugar priming

Aged for one month in bottle

OG: 1.086 before 2nd add of fruit
FG: somewhere near 1.000, the meter just dropped to the bottom of the fermenter, I estimated ABV: 8.7 and IBU: 29.8, but I’m new to this and mistakes get made.

Tasted before bottling and had a distinct flavor of Crest toothpaste. It went away after the month aging. Very tart, Belgian esters are present but not overwhelming.

Enjoy, and thanks for reading!

If my recipe seems odd, it’s because I used to be a professional chef and I’m getting used to beer recipe formatting.

JAReeves said:

I scaled this base recipe down from a 5gal recipe from Loftus, so just multiply by 5 to make a 5gal batch. The corn, prickly pear, lemon, and agave are my best guesses to fit the recipe I wanted; and since it worked I will someday scale this up to 5. It has a nice clear light amber color, decent bubbles.

*Important! If you are getting prickly pear off the cactus, use tongs to pick them and a paper bag or a bowl to hold them. Soak them in water for about an hour to soften the spines. Use leather work gloves to rub the fruit while they’re under water to get the spines off. You will still be picking spines out of your fingers, just a lot less. Slice in half and spoon out the insides. Do not try to ferment the whole thing chopped or puréed. I did not strain out the seeds, but you can if you want. Just don’t crush the seeds-some seeds contain toxins, I don’t know about these in particular.

6.4 oz white wheat
3.2 oz Pilsner malt
1.6oz Munich malt
3oz yellow corn polenta (mashed in advance 45 min then added to regular malt mash)

1.2# amber DME
3.2oz agave syrup-organic, no preservatives

.1oz summit hops 60 min
.08 oz Nelson sauvin 15 min
1/8t Irish moss 15min
.08 oz Nelson sauvin 5min
.14 oz Nelson sauvin flameout
Fruit insides of 4 red prickly pears at flameout

1/2t mangrove jacks m29 saison yeast
Zest and juice of one lemon in primary at start of fermentation

Racked to 2nd ferment after one week onto 1#2oz inside fruit of red prickly pear (30 fruits off cactus, more or less)

Bottled after 15days
.8oz corn sugar priming

Aged for one month in bottle

OG: 1.086 before 2nd add of fruit
FG: somewhere near 1.000, the meter just dropped to the bottom of the fermenter, I estimated ABV: 8.7 and IBU: 29.8, but I’m new to this and mistakes get made.

Tasted before bottling and had a distinct flavor of Crest toothpaste. It went away after the month aging. Very tart, Belgian esters are present but not overwhelming.

Enjoy, and thanks for reading!

If my recipe seems odd, it’s because I used to be a professional chef and I’m getting used to beer recipe formatting.

Click to expand...

Thanks!