What Style for Strawberry Ginger Beer?

[Homebrewtastic]

I've had my mind set on making something great for the summer with strawberries and ginger, and hop bursted with sorachi ace hops for a nice lemony profile as well. I picked about 7 lbs. of strawberries from a nearby orchard. I want to do something clean and easy to drink.

Supplies and ingredients are no issue. I have just about everything under the sun and LHBS nearby. Also lagering is no issue. So I can make just about any style I want. I don't want to do a saison (I'm well stocked on that at the moment). But I was thinking Cream Ale, Pilsner, Kolsch or American Wheat Ale.

Anyone have any thoughts or suggestions on what style I should brew?

 

[Darklordenron]

cream ale? something that will let those flavors shine, that's for sure..

 

[Captain Damage]

I use a wheat base for my ginger beer. I use 65% wheat extract and Chico strain yeast (wlp001 or wy1056) Light and clean tasting, lets the ginger take the stage.

 

[Saccharomyces]

I'm thinking Wheat as well. I would freeze the strawberries and thaw them to help break them down, and add after the primary ferment is over in hopes of preserving some of the aroma.

7# of strawberries will contribute a fair amount of tannin, so I would consider adding 2-3% acidulated malt to provide some acidity to balance the tannins.

 

[Homebrewtastic]

How warm should I mash? The fructose from the strawberries is completely fermentable. So I'm worried about it being overly dry. My thought was a fairly warm mash profile. Maybe around 154? The wheat beer itself would be a shade under 1.050. Do you think that mash profile will leave enough residual sugar to balance out the high fermentability of the strawberries?

Thanks for the tip on the aciduated malt and the tannins. That gives me all the more reason to lager it to help the tannins drop out.

 

[Homebrewtastic]

So here's what I ended up doing....

10lbs. German Pilsner Malt
1lb. Caramunich 40L
Mash at 152 for 90 min
90 min. boil

.5oz. Target 8.8%AA - FWH
1oz. Sorachi Ace Pellet Ace 10.9%AA - Flameout

6lbs. Strawberry Puree (homemade) flameout
6.6 oz. pureed ginger (fresh homemade) flameout

1L starter WLP Kolsch

1lb. Lactose (added right before bottling)

So this turned out awesome. My wife and I just finished our first pints. It's only been bottled for a couple of weeks so we'll wait another week so it's at it's prime.

The closest I can call the base style is a kolsch seeing as how it's mostly pilsner malt. I usually add 1lb. of regular munich malt to my kolsch beers, but I opted for caramunich for increased body. The reason is that I expected the strawberries to dry it out significantly, so I went with a warm mash profile and a full pound of caramunich to help balance it.

I kept fermentation pretty cool... 62F the whole way through. I usually don't secondary but there was so much crud in the fermenter that I had no choice. After two weeks in primary it went to two weeks in secondary before bottling.

However this thing attenuated really really well. It went down to 1.004. Which for me would be fine, but I made this for my wife and she wanted a slightly sweeter beer. So I added a pound of lactose.

Overall this beer is great. There's a bright taste of ginger and definitely a lot of strawberries. It's very drinkable despite being over 7% ABV (whoops... promised the SWMBO a lower ABV beer)

The O.G. (before strawberries) was 1.057
The F.G. (before adding the lactose was 1.004

I will definitely be making this again. Especially considering that my wife likes it. Next time I'll probably add some wheat to it.