With the temperature in Oklahoma routinely topping 100 degrees, I figured a good summer beer would be a Blackberry Wheat. Sam Adams sells a Blackberry Wheat that I really like. Just a hint of fruit flavor and just perfect for a scorching day.
After some investigation I bought a kit from Northern Brewer for my first fruit beer. Well… I think this will be the last fruit beer “kit” I try for awhile. Don’t get me wrong, this is not an awful beer. The wheat part of the beer turned out great, but I screwed up on the blackberry part. I’ll explain.
When the kit arrived I noticed that I could smell the blackberry extract as soon as I opened the box. It was pretty strong. In fact the smell of the extract left a faint blackberry scent throughout the house for the first couple of days after it arrived. I apparently didn’t take this as a warning sign when adding it to my wheat beer.
The bottle said that it was the correct size for a 5-gallon batch, but it also mentioned that the extract should be used “to taste.” Therefore, I added the entire bottle. Stupid me.
I was a little worried that the beer would end up over-saturated with blackberry the moment I added it to the keg, but I hoped that the flavor would settle out after a couple of weeks.
Well, it hasn’t… really. Maybe a little, but not really.
Every time I draw a glass of the this beer the first thing I notice is the strong scent of the extract when I bring up the glass. The actual taste of the beer isn’t overtly fruity, but the strong scent overpowers the flavor before you get the chance to even take a sip.
I let my brother-in-law try a glass, and he didn’t really care for it. He finished it, but it wasn’t his favorite. For the next round I used his same glass for another beer. The exact scent lingered to the point of tainting the flavor of the next beer as well.
The moral of the story is that the next time I try a fruit beer I will use real fruit, and not an extract kit. The extract is just a little too potent for my taste.
Now I just need to finish the rest of this beer to clear out some keg space. I still can’t bring myself to dump it… so I’ll drink my mistake for the next couple of months.
Cheers.