Done correctly, fruit and beer can be a truly heavenly combination. Fruit beers have become hugely popular in recent years, with everything from pastry stouts and milkshake IPAs to fruited sours – and not least the famous mango IPA that Norwegians have taken to their hearts. Even the big commercial breweries have jumped on the trend and taken the market by storm.
Why use fruit in beer?
Done right, adding fruit can lift a beer to entirely new levels. There is of course enormous room for experimentation, but if the balance isn't there, it can turn into an unpleasant experience. First and foremost, think about which beer styles go with which fruits, and which flavours you will get from the malt, the hops and not least the yeast. A good approach is to think about the flavours the beer itself gives, and what they would pair with if it were a dish or a dessert.
Some examples of fruits that can work in beer:
Dark beers often have roasted flavours and plenty of chocolate. Think about which fruits go well with roasted chocolate flavours. Perhaps they could be combined with some citrus, such as orange, or maybe passion fruit could fit in? Plums, or what about blueberries? Or could the same flavour be achieved with the right hop addition?
Wheat beers tend to have bready and biscuity flavours, often with banana and spice from the yeast. Then we can think about which flavours combine well with this, such as red berries, or something more tropical like mango or apricot?
Sour beer styles can often have quite a dominant flavour profile, so delicate fruits tend to fade into the background. Here, fruit with lots of flavour, preferably tart fruits such as raspberry or passion fruit, will be the right choice. But also bear in mind that the acidity from both can become TOO strong, leaving you feeling as if the enamel has been etched off your teeth.
How much fruit should I use in my beer?
It is easy to think of fruit simply as flavours you want to add to your beer, but it is also important to remember that it contains water, sugar and not least acid. Take strawberries as an example: a berry with a very light flavour profile and a lot of water. In other words, you could quickly find yourself having to add very large quantities to get any noticeable flavour at all. That can easily result in watery beer with little alcohol and little flavour – often with a slightly artificial feel to the whole thing.
Once again it comes down to overall balance, and the amount of flavour, sugar and not least acid in the fruit determines the quantity. Also bear in mind that fruit contains a fair amount of acid. The sweet taste we associate with pineapple, for example, can quickly become very tart and even bitter once the yeast has eaten up the sugar – while the actual pineapple flavour may have disappeared with the sugar.
In other words, it is hard to give a precise answer on how much fruit will work in your particular beer, so experimentation is the best approach. As a very rough guide, it is common to use 1–4 kg of fruit purée in around 25 litres of beer.
Using fresh fruit in beer
Fresh fruit is full of bacteria and wild yeast from nature itself, so cleanliness is important if you are adding it to a clean beer. Some brewers add whole fruit directly to the fermenter, but there is definitely a risk of microorganisms growing. Even at a high alcohol percentage, fruit that is not covered by liquid can be a breeding ground for infections.
First, the fruit must be washed thoroughly. Rinse under clean running water and remove any leaves, stalks and anything else you don't want in the fermenter. After this, the fruit should be peeled – depending, of course, on which fruit or berry you have chosen. Some varieties, such as cherries or plums, can be used with the stone, but in most cases stones and skins don't contribute good flavours. To get the most out of the fruit, it can be an advantage to blitz it into a purée with a hand blender or similar.
Finally, it should be sanitised, either with heat or with cold. Some brewers choose to freeze and thaw the purée several times. This helps get rid of microorganisms, and also breaks down the cell walls of the fruit so that more flavour and sugar are released. In most cases this will work, but there is no guarantee that all microorganisms are eliminated with this method.
To be completely safe, it is recommended to pasteurise the fruit purée before adding it. This means heating it gently to around 75–80°C and holding that temperature for at least 15 minutes, before cooling it quickly and adding it to the fermenter. You can also choose to boil the fruit if you like, but then expect a somewhat different flavour profile (think of the taste of uncooked jam versus cooked jam for comparison).
Fruit purée
Our fruit purées from the French producer Fruit Rouges Co are already cleaned, puréed and not least pasteurised. This means you can pour them directly into the fermenter without doing anything else to them. It is an incredibly simple and convenient solution, and one we highly recommend.
Fruit essences
Essences are potent flavour bombs and can be a good choice in the right quantities. Be aware that they don't necessarily give quite the same flavours as fresh fruit, but sometimes that slightly artificial flavour is exactly what you want. Think, for example, of the most popular fruit beers on the market today, such as Mango IPA or Kronenbourg 1664 Blanc. These have fairly «perfumed» fruit flavours that give an interesting flavour profile, and essences can be a good alternative if you want to try brewing a clone of them. Our natural fruit essences from Totally Natural Solutions contain no sugar or other additives, so they can even be added directly to the beer in the keg without affecting anything other than flavour.
When should the fruit be added when brewing?
Fruit is usually added directly to the fermenter once high krausen has subsided, after about a week of fermentation. It can be added earlier, but it is debatable whether much of the flavour and aroma is then blown out through the airlock during vigorous fermentation.
Because fruit contains a fair amount of sugar that the yeast will want to get at, it is best to let this ferment out afterwards. It is therefore recommended to add fruit after about a week of fermentation, and then let the beer ferment for at least another week before bottling or kegging. It is also important that no fruit remnants are carried over, as these may contain sugar that is released after bottling, which can lead to over-carbonated beer or, in the worst case, bottle bombs.
Fruit essence can be added after fermentation is complete, for example straight into the Cornelius keg.
Beer kits with fruit
Our range of all-grain beer kits also includes several with fruit. Here are some of the most popular:
