Looking for recommendations of what some of you think would be some fruits that would go well with a Sour Ale lightly hopped (around 12IBUs)and then dry hopped with El Dorado and Huell Melon. Was thinking about Mango. Thoughts? Ideas? Comments? Recipe can be posted if that helps.
Mango would be nice. I’ve used it before in a Pale Sour. I have also used a combination of mango, pineapple, and guava that came out very nice. I really like the flavor of tropical fruit mixed with sour beers.
How much mango would you recommend? It’s a 3 gallon batch.
1-2 lbs per gallon.
Raspberries are like my go to, or berries in general. 3 packs in the last 10 minutes of the boil.
Next time I’ll probably do 4, maybe, because the reviews were not enough fruit. Fruit was here, but was supposed to be fruit beer. Not a Berliner with fruit. Taste mighty fine.
For pale ale I’d probably go grapefruit.
Apricots work well in pale sour beers. Not sure if they would go with the melon or not.
I have had a few sours with blackberries that I thought were excellent. Not sure if they would work well with your hops though.
Peche (peach) was a traditional choice for lambics, and some of the best American wild/sour beers I’ve had have been golden sours with peach - with or without dry hops.
I’ve used mango a lot and I really like it. It’s subtle but not so much so that it’s barely noticable. I puree it and freeze it, freezing does something that seems to make it better for some reason. I mix mango and peach too and love it.
I also always freeze fruit before I add it to the beer. It breaks up the cell membranes which helps with extracting the juice without having to purée it.
Raspberry is my go to choice for similar brews. Blueberry is interesting too and often comes out very raspberryish with some hops. Cantaloupe might be another choice I have enjoyed.
The other unique fruits I have found to be less pleasing
Avoid boiling the fruit to maximize flavor. Just rack your nearly fermented beer on top of the fruit.
One small word of caution - there may be wild yeast on the fruit that could take your beer in a direction that you may not like. I am not saying it is a problem necessarily, just be ready for the wild yeast influence inthis setting. Alternatively you can dose the fruit as puréed with Camden or other similar yeast killer, then after it sits a day or so, add the specific souring microbe that you want to finish it.
Cheers.
I boil to pasteurize. In the future I will rack onto fruit.
Another fruit you could try could be strawberry, papaya, guava, kiwi. I guess it depends what you want. I’m not huge on hibiscus but when it’s not strong I like that character.
[quote author] Cantaloupe might be another choice
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Many years ago I accidentally brewed a sour cantaloupe wheat beer. I saved some of the juice to add as part of the bottle priming and it got left out at room temperature.
It actually turned out pretty good.
Check out the “Milk the Funk” group and wiki.