Wild Plums: What base recipe should I use?

[mrdauber64]

Hello!

In October I bought 30 pounds of Wild Plums. I washed them, then put them in the freezer. Last weekend I used 24 pounds of the plums to make a Plum Melomel with 12 pounds of locally sourced honey.

I now have 6 pounds of wild plums in the freezer that I'd like to put in a beer. I have three base beers I'm thinking about using the plums in the secondary after hitting them with Pectic Enzyme and campden tablets for 24 hours:

Cream Ale: Clean tasting beer that would let the plums shine, but would the acidty of the plum be too much?

Belgian Dubbel: Seems like a good choice considering the flavor profile of a Dubbel is raisins and plums, but would the plums make it too sweet?

Porter: Chocolate and plums sounds good!

What base would you choose for Wild Plums? Does anybody have any experience with plums and beer?

Thanks!

 

[cladinshadows]

I have no experience with wild plums, much less wild plums in beer. You've got a few views on this post but no responses, so I'll give it a go anyway.

If it were me I'd go with a Dubbel as the base beer. A fruity, spicy, high alcohol beer seems like it is just more "special" and the addition of wild plums adds further interest. As long as you go for a traditional, very well-attenuated Dubbel the plums should not make it too sweet.

This, of course, depends on how confident you are in your Dubbel brewing... if you've never brewed a Dubbel but have a consistently awesome cream ale I might go for that instead, just because then you can really appreciate the addition of the plums, versus being really disappointed that you just wasted your wild plums on a beer that you didn't like to begin with.

The porter could be good, but achieving the perfect roast intensity might be tough, and I think there's more risk of overpowering the plums than there is in a Dubbel.

 

[mrdauber64]

Thanks for the reply, you basically outlined my exact thoughts. I've never brewed a Dubbel, and I've had mixed results with Belgian beers in general, so I'm nervous about getting the proper attenuation and making a sweet beer. And you are right about the Porter, it would have to be more of a chocolate porter over a roasty porter.

I'll have to do some more thinking on where I want them to go.

Thanks! for the reply!

 

[mrdauber64]

Hi, just an update. I ended up brewing a Dubbel with 6 lbs of plums and an oz of plum extract in the secondary. It is very plummy, but good! The plums added a nice acidity. My wife said it tasted almost like a sour beer without the twang.

If I were to do this again I would choose a different yeast that didn't give off a dark/stone fruit flavor. It would be better to have a contrasting flavor instead of being one dimensional. I ended up using wyeast 1214. The next time I might try 3787.

 

[Revvy]

I know I'm way late on this, but when I'm doing an initial experiment with most fruits (or other ingredients) I usually opt for the lightest grainbill/beer possible to let that ingredient shine through... Same with a new hop often... something to test the flavor without over-riding it.

In my case, depending on the ingredient I will usually opt in order from lightest to heaviest either one of 3 "house" base beer recipes that I've developed over the years- Kolsch, Belgian Wit, and Belgian Blonde (My leffe clone)

The Kolsch would be obviously for something really subtle, something delicate like (I've never done it, just off the top of my head) Rose Petals or maybe a really light tasting fruit or vegetable like Cucumber, Jackfruit, Dragon Fruit, or Paw Paws (which is actually on my to brew list) or maybe even bananas.

With the Wit I usually do something a little more assertive in flavor, but still relatively subtle, like Pomegranate, or what I just did 2 weeks ago which was Hibiscus, Blood Orange and Sichuan Peppercorns. Peaches would probably be here...

And my Blonde would be used for the most assertive flavors for example I've used it with Mesquite Smoked Pineapples which made for an amazing beer.... the maltiness of the blonde is a strong back bone for a lot of flavors.

I would probably used the plums with the blonde....

Berries can fit I think either with the WIT or the Blonde I think it really depends on how much you use with them... You could do a heavy raspberry blonde... but you could also back off with them and just barely flavor a witbier with them.

Anyway just food for future brewthought.