Hi all. First message in the group. I’m looking to create a beer, though I’m not sure what style it should be in. I’m looking to make a beer that gives the flavors of a lemon bar with blueberries. So lemon, blueberries, and shortbread. I want to be somewhere in the 4-6% range. After talking to some people, some have suggested it should be a wheat ale, others as a sour. I’m not sure which way to go. I’ve made a few beers, but not enough to create a recipe from nothing. Just looking for some ideas as far as what I can use to bring out the flavors I want (basically about 60% lemon, 25% blueberry, 15% shortbread). I do not have the equipment (or the know-how) to do all grain. I searched for previous posts and got information on certain hops that provide fruit flavors, but didn’t see anything else. Ideas?
Ok – I’m no expert, but I’ll take a stab at this. My suggestion:
80% Briess Bavarian Wheat DME
10% Biscuit Malt (steeping)
10% coconut sugar
Scale for your batch size to give an OG around 1.055.
Lemondrop hops at 30 and 15 minutes to give you ~20 calculated IBUs.
PhillySour at 1 g / L ; ferment 1 month at 70°F ish.
Add 200-300 g / L thawed frozen wild blueberries for 2-4 weeks.
Package however you usually do.
You might just want to make the beer per Drewch or similar and then add small amounts of lemon extract and blueberry extract to achieve your desired taste in a glass and work backwards to scale the additive to the full batch.
That’s true, too. I was trying to build the flavors into the base ingredients but there’s nothing morally wrong with just using extracts. Make your favorite blonde or wheat ale and dose it with blueberry, lemon, and maybe a touch of vanilla? for the shortbread.
The tough part is getting the shortbread right because the flavor comes from butter, sugar and vanilla, but it isn’t buttery like a flaky crust. This is probably the time where adding lactose to a fruit beer really makes sense, together with some vanilla. Crystal 20 also kinda gives that feel if you use it in a hefty amount, like 15-20% of the grain bill.
There are good lemon extracts out there but you could get this done without extract if you want. Lemondrop hops are a good option as Drewch suggests. Lemon peel is also a good option. Lemon peel plus lemondrop hops might not be a bad idea.
I think this is a pretty good assessment.
Normally I would recommend torrified wheat for a “cookie” flavor in a beer, but I think shortbread is much lighter in flavor than the toasted flavors that you get from torrified wheat. I’d use a base of pilsner with wheat, and maybe a bit of light crystal malt. Lemon zest comes through very well in beer, but blueberry does not. Personally I’d use lemon zest and a vanilla bean at the tail end of fermentation, then add a good blueberry extract to taste right before packaging.
Thank you all for the suggestions. I did not have notifications on, or I would have seen these replies sooner. I’ll give it a try!
Agreed with ynotbrusum. I had tried few days back to enjoy the lemon flavor. You can take a try to lemon and blueberry extract to find the desired taste and flavor.