Brewing with extract (flavoring) - can't get it right

[FS7]

I love fruit beers. Not the "fruit soda" macrobrew type, but things with a little bit of fruit flavor. Tangerine wheat is one of my go-tos, and I have always loved Leinenkugel's Sunset Wheat (blueberry, at a minimum, maybe with some orange).

The cost effective way to do this at scale as I understand it is with extract. Lots of brewing supply places have these. The "real" way is with fruit puree, juice concentrate, or juice itself, which is not cost effective and not practical at any scale, which is why the big brewers use extract.

I have tried blueberry, blood orange, lemon, raspberry, and tangerine. None of them - not one - have tasted good, instead being rather cloying and fake. It doesn't even matter how much or how little I use, or how long I let it age - it never tastes anything other than fake. Now on the real side I've made tangerine wheat with juice concentrate, orange ales with puree in the secondary, shandy just by mixing with lemonade, all of that. It's all been great.

Is there a secret to this? None of the commercial brews taste anything like this. Lost Coast Tangerine Wheat and Leinenkugel Sunset Wheat, for example, are supposedly made with extracts, but they taste great to me. Why can't I duplicate it? Wrong kind of extract? A step I'm missing?

 

[FloppyKnockers]

If you're talking about those Brewer's Best Natural flavorings, yes, I have used them. And no, there is no secret. It's just that there's no substitute for the real thing. Those extracts have a place in my beer room when I wanna try something, but don't want to toast a bunch of pumpkin to find out if the flavors go well. I can use an extract to judge if I wanna move on to the real thing.

That said. There are some flavors that you just can't do for real for varying reasons - caramel, butterscotch, toasted marshmallow, chocolate, etc. In which case a flavoring is the only way to go.

I find the best thing is the real thing. Not from the homebrew place, but from the grocery store. Raspberry puree is like $12,000 at the homebrew place, but a bag of frozen raspberries is a few bucks at WalMart.

The peanut butter though... The extract has a great taste and there's no clean-up like there is with BP2. Lately I find myself using that extract over the real thing more than not.

 

[BongoYodeler]

I have used Apex flavorings for a few different beers. There are a few posts here that talk about Apex. I've used their apricot extract in my wheat beer recipe. It turns out quite good, I think better than Pyramid Brewing's apricot wheat beer. I'm sure using puree instead will make it even better, and I plan on doing that next time I brew it. I've also tried their grapefruit extract in an ipa but I wasn't happy with it. Tasted almost medicinal. I think fruit extracts may be hit or miss in beer.
Now, I also use their pecan extract in a porter, and I really like how that works. Also, their toasted coconut extract in a milk stout works extremely well (imo). In fact I currently have that on tap.

 

[WestMichiganSteelheader]

I’ve used the Brewer’s Best extract with mixed results. Their pineapple in a citrus forward IPA is excellent. The strawberry goes from not flavorful enough to tasting like medicine. Yet my brew partner loved it. I’ve also had good results with a combination of peach and mango. I believe if you use to much of these they will also have a medicine taste. Lastly, I used 2 ounces of habanero for a 5 gallon IPA. Damn, it was spicy and hot. Good, but hot and I like hot food.

From my experience with these extracts, matching the proper hop profile with the proper extract is a must.

 

[FS7]

Everything I've tried with has been a particularly mild (low AA) hop variety, like Hallertau, Saaz, or Tettnang. So I think those are not the right hop profile for what I've tried.

It might make sense to try again in an IPA or something with a drastically different hop profile, though I would try a very small amount in a glass instead of potentially ruining the whole keg.

 

[bwible]

I have used Apex flavorings for a few different beers. There are a few posts here that talk about Apex. I've used their apricot extract in my wheat beer recipe. It turns out quite good, I think better than Pyramid Brewing's apricot wheat beer. I'm sure using puree instead will make it even better, and I plan on doing that next time I brew it. I've also tried their grapefruit extract in an ipa but I wasn't happy with it. Tasted almost medicinal. I think fruit extracts may be hit or miss in beer.
Now, I also use their pecan extract in a porter, and I really like how that works. Also, their toasted coconut extract in a milk stout works extremely well (imo). In fact I currently have that on tap.

+1 for Apex.

I went through what OP is describing but with fruit mead. Anything I tried with real fruit was a mess and tasted terrible.

I’ve used several of Apexs flavors for meads and all were good. I used their chocolate flavor in beer.

They make hundreds of flavors - just about anything you can think of and I’ll bet some you never even thought of. Snickerdoodle porter, anyone? All of their flavorings are also made specifically for the alcoholic beverage industry.

 

[Wayne1]

You might want to try to find Amoretti extracts

 

[rmchair]

I talked to a brewer a few years back (at Soggy Bottom Brewery) because his peach IPA was one of the best things i ever had. I was having trouble with fruit fermenting too much and lets face it, extracts mostly suck. He suggested dropping the fruit in and cold crashing it out within a day.

Now i have had great commercial beers with extract—like a blueberry jailai, that im pretty sure were extract. However, that’s one beer,, not a whole keg, and they tend to go for a note rather than beat you over the head with a blueberry bush like some brewers do. Ymmv.