Brewing a Sour Beer - Actual Fruit vs. Puree?

[Corbet]

I'm just curious what most homebrewers use when they brew a sour beer - a fruit puree or the actual fruit? Can you really tell the difference?

 

[Lgaddy44]

I might be making an assumption on your question here, but simply adding fruit will not make a sour beer, and also, a sour beer does necessarily need to have fruit involved. Are you simply interested in adding a fruit flavoring to your beer, or are you interested in a particular type of sour?

 

[Corbet]

I'm interested in making a couple different things, embracethefunk.com created an all grain kit for a blackberry lambic with blackberry puree but I was doing some reading and noticed a lot of homebrewers use real fruit, not puree. I was just curious which is preferred and if there's a difference in taste.

Here's the grain bill/kit:
http://www.rebelbrewer.com/shoppingcart/products/Nightfall-Blackberry-Lambic-Kit.html

I also have an interest in doing a cherry oud bruin, I haven't come across a recipe I'm positive I want to brew but I'm in the process of figuring out what I want to do.

Edit: came across this cherry oud bruin recipe. Thoughts? http://hopville.com/recipe/638780#

 

[Lgaddy44]

I've only made 4 sours up to now, and all four are still in the carboys, anywhere from 1 month old to 7 months. I have a stout, and three Flanders, but haven't used fruit additions on any of them. I did consider getting some sour cherries for the Flanders, but opted not to, as I was happy with the flavor I got from sampling.

I have used fruit in other ales, mainly wheats or hefe. The one time I used a strawberry extract, I wasn't that satisfied with the flavor. I thought it tasted a bit too fake. I have since used only frozen fruits, strawberries and raspberries, when I make them. IMO, the fruit comes out with a more natural flavor. I also have a Magic Hat #9 clone that I just racked to secondary on 3# of apricot puree. First time using puree, so we'll see how it turns out.

For my sours, I've used only the Wyeast Roeselare blend. I've read that can provide a bit of a (cherry) fruitiness to the profile.

 

[ReverseApacheMaster]

You can use either whole fruit or puree. If you go the whole fruit route, make sure you freeze the fruit first to break down the cell walls and get the sugars and flavor out of the fruit more efficiently.