Fruit Beer Guava Belgian pale ale

[motorneuron]

Recipe Type

All Grain

Yeast

WL 500 (Trappist)

Batch Size (Gallons)

5.5

Original Gravity

1.047

Final Gravity

1.011

Boiling Time (Minutes)

60

IBU

14

Color

6 SRM

Primary Fermentation (# of Days & Temp)

10ish @ 68F

Tasting Notes

a slightly acidic, very fruity pale ale perfect for a summer day!

This is one of my first truly original recipes. It's a summer beer that is designed to be low in alcohol but high in flavor, but it gets there by a slightly non-traditional means: the addition of guava paste to the beer at high kraeusen (as well as one whole guava late in the boil). The combination of very late Citra and Belma hops, as well as the Belgian esters, complement the actual guava to produce a huge tropical fruit nose and taste, while the acidity from the guava paste helps offset the fruitiness. It is not particularly sweet, though the fruit flavor might trick you into thinking it is.

The guava paste I used is the kind you can find at Latin groceries (easy to get from Washington Heights, but I'm sure it's widely available in many places). Looks like this: http://www.mycolombianrecipes.com/guava-paste-bocadillo I calculated its PPG as about 25; it contains a lot of sugar along with the guava pulp, as well as some additional citric acid beyond the guava's natural acidity.

The one issue I have had so far is that the beer is not at all clear. I think that is an artifact of adding the guava paste post-boil. I haven't tried to fix that yet since I'm so happy with the flavor, but you might want to think about it.

Link to the recipe here:
http://www.brewtoad.com/recipes/guava-belgian-pale


GRAIN BILL FOR MASH (5.5 gallons)
5 lbs Belgian or English pale ale malt
1 lbs white (malted) wheat
10 oz flaked wheat
8 oz honey malt

Mash @ 158F for 60 mins.

BOIL: 60 mins.

whirlfloc @ 10 mins
pulp of one whole guava (peeled and coarsely chopped up) at 10 mins

1 oz Citra pellets (12% AA) @ 5 mins
1 oz Belma pellets (9.5% AA) @ 5 mins
zest of one sour/Seville/bitter orange @ 5 mins (grate directly into boil)
.5 oz crushed grains of paradise @ 5 mins

1 oz Citra @ hopstand
1 oz Belma @ hopstand

Cool and pitch yeast (I'm sure most Belgian strains would be fine). I fermented in the mid to high 60s. You could definitely go higher, but I didn't want to overpower the actual fruit.

After 36 hours (i.e., around high krauesen), add 2 lbs of guava paste. I reconsistuted it by boiling a few cups of water, then adding the two packs of paste, and stirred until it broke up into something like tomato sauce. Then I let it cool and poured that into the active fermentation. That will kick your yeast into overdrive.

 

[mando_dando]

how did it taste?

 

[motorneuron]

This was very good. The amount of guava gives it a very noticeable flavor that complements the fruity yeast and hops, with a little kick from the grains of paradise. It's not just a generic "fruit" flavor, either; it's very clearly guava.

It took a few weeks in the bottle to really come together. At first, I think the late hops were a bit too much. So I think if I did it again, I would not bother with the hop stand hops; just the two one ounce additions at 5 minutes are enough. That lets the guava be more of the primary note. Several months later, I still have a bunch of this stuff, and with the hops faded out a little, I think it's great.

I would definitely make it again. The one issue, as I mentioned above, is that its appearance is not great--very cloudy, and not a great color. Not sure how to fix that without some kind of filtration system, though, which I don't have. But hey, it's for drinking, not looking at!