During a recent visit to 3 Fonteinen, the guide said that there are 2 types of fruit in relationship to beer: fruit in which the flavor components are attached to the sugars, and fruit where this is not the case. When fruit of the first type is added to beer (e.g. a lambic), the flavor components will be eaten by the yeast, together with the sugars. When fruit of the second type is added to beer, the flavor components will stay in the beer. First type fruits: apples, bananas, strawberries. Second type fruit: sour cherries, raspberries.
Can anyone confirm? And is there any relationship with glycosides (Glycoside - Wikipedia)? I’d say not because the flavor components are mostly esters?
What are “flavor components”? How do they attach to the sugar? Why would the yeast eat this sugar-derived compound?
Where’s the chemistry in any of this? Sounds more like empyrical “godisgoode” experience to me, which doesn’t mean there’s no truth in it at all.
That being said: I take you are now the proud owner of at least 1 bottle of Zenne y Frontera?
Fruit flavors in fruit are (generally) enhanced by the natural presence of sugar or acid. Fruit with sugar as an enhancer generally do not work well in beer because you’re fermenting out the sugar and the fruit flavor gets lost. Acid rich fruit go the other direction because the acid stays in the beer. When you add those fruit to beer the acidity in the beer enhances the fruit flavor. Just think about the kinds of beer you commonly see with sour cherries and raspberries (sour/dry beers) and those beers with bananas or strawberries (backsweetened beers).
Apples are a weird fit there because they rely on both sugar and acidity and when you ferment out the sugar you keep that dry acidity that has a different apple flavor from fresh apple or backsweetened cider.
+1. It’s the fruit’s acidity that makes it pop in beer. Look at peaches - good ones are amazing to eat, but they all but disappear in beer due to their low acidity. But use half that amount of cherry or raspberry and the fruit character is right there.
I suspect that there may be acid differences (pH variations), but further the timing of the fruit additions seems to be in play - each year I brew a Saison and add fresh macerated (by blender) blackberries as they come in season. I like to add Brett with the Blackberries (a Brett starter slurry). I get some very interesting flavor profiles, depending on the Brett strain. This year I am using Brett Vrie and I will be kegging in October (beer was brewed in early July, fully fermented out to 1.001, then blackberries added in mid-August right off the vine - 11 pounds to a five gallon batch).
Last year it turned out fantastic and the fruit was there as a layer of complexity - very noticeable, but not overwhelming.
There’s something going on, what it is who knows. I did bing cherries in a belgian dark strong and it was awesome with the dark sweet cherry coming through nicely. Then I tried them in a sour and they all but disappeared. This year my cherry sour (6 gallons) got about 2 1/2 gallons of Oregon Fruit puree tart red cherries. Watch, that one will have too much cherry flavor lol.
There may be a relationship to acidity. The glycoside thing is still up in the air. I think it obvious that different brett strains interact with different sugars and esters in various ways, including with hops, but I dont think its linear or predictable unless you have personal experience with that certain combo. Thats part of what makes American sour beers such a new frontier. Theres a lot to be discovered still.
Regarding various fruit, I think some are just better than others when it comes to fermentation period. Unless artificially flavored, I’ve never been a fan of strawberry or worse yet, watermellon. Fermented watermelon just tastes like puke to me. Even 21A’s take on it leaves much to be desired, despite the hype. The only thing that makes it tolerable is that the watermelon is way in the background.
I think with some fruits ripeness makes a much bigger difference than others. I will only buy strawberries at the store in June, and only US-grown ones. With raspberries, I can’t think I’ve ever had any that were seriously lacking flavor the way out-of-season strawberries can be. I don’t know how that translates to beer, but I suspect that it comes into play somehow.
I really don’t think that’s true. I assume that Hanssens’ Oudbeitje, an strawberry lambic, is made with the ripest possible strawberries, and still the strawberry flavor is faint. Even though it is rumored that Hanssens adds some kind of strawberry syrup to enhance the flavor.
I can’t speak to specific acid content of any fruit but you need to look at not just the volume of acid but the type of acid. We would all likely agree that raspberries are far more acidic by perception than strawberries so we’ve got to look beyond simply the ph–as one needs when canning fruit–and look at how the acids interact with the fruit.
Just look at the way each berry is usually eaten. When strawberries are prepared in recipes they are usually enhanced by adding sweetness (either sugar or fat) and that sweetness amplifies the strawberry flavor. You can add some acidity and sweetness to them (e.g. balsamic vinegar) but there is a small range of sweet-sour where it really works. Raspberries, on the other hand, are usually the acid component in a dish. You can also add some sugar to raspberries, often to balance the acidity, but when you add too much you lose the raspberry flavor and end up with that generic mixed berry flavor.
[EDIT: whoops, apparently missed erockrph’s identical link posted above]
Sugar and acid contents of fruit from www.brewery.org/brewery/library/SugAcid.html (but had to use Google cache)
So raspberries and strawberries are identical…
I agree, and there is more: this simple combination makes him the leading contender for the 2015 Voldermort Award: a brilliant, deeply disturbing idea from a brilliant, deeply disturbed mind.
So the best explanation so far why strawberries and raspberries are different in beer is because their acids are different. Well, I guess it’s something…
