I'm thinking of trying to brew a Blueberry and Maple Porter this winter, but I've never brewed with maple or blueberries before. I want both flavors there, but not overpowering and mostly in the aftertaste. This is what I came up with, but I don't know if the amount of maple syrup and blueberries are correct to accomplish this. Any ideas?

6lbs light DME
1lb Caramunich III malt
1lb pure Maple Syrup
0.5lb Chocolate malt
0.5lb Peated malt
0.25lb Brown malt
0.125lb Roasted Barley
1oz Galena (60min)
0.5oz Goldings (30min)
WLP023 (Burton Ale)
1 quart of blueberries added to the secondary



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It looks good though I don't believe you have nearly enough blue berries.

Most fruit beers use at least two or three pounds if not more of fruit and then they generally have a fairly insipid beer as the base beer style.

I suspect with a porter as you base style you will not really be able to pick out the blue berries.

Even with an insipid style such as a cream ale I believe you might have problems detecting only a quart blue berries.

I'd suggest using at least a pound or two of berries and even then I suspect the blue berry character will like be very subtle.

I hope this helps.

- Scott

I've been thinking of brewing a berry beer and a lot of the recipes I have found call for 5 to 6 pounds of fruit. I don't want a real strong berry taste either. Your recipe looks good. Try it and let us know if you get the flavor you wanted.. Good luck.

So my brews are piling up a bit so I've had more time to look into this. I found a blueberry porter recipe at byo ( http://byo.com/component/resource/artic ... rry-porter ) that used 4lbs of blueberries and said it had a noticeable flavor and aroma. So with the maple and extra malt in mine, I'm guessing I'm going to have to use a similar amount like suggested to get the subtle effect I want. Think blueberry pancakes.

Unless I put this off so long there's cheap blueberries out, I'll probably end up using frozen ones. I've found two different methods to use them: 1) briefly microwave them to thaw them and get the juices flowing or 2) lightly crush them and put them in a bowl of water with 1/2 campden tab (to sterilize) and a few drops of pectin enzyme (to reduce haze). Has anyone tried either of these methods or another?

Also, is two weeks long enough to leave the beer racked on the berries to get all the flavor and aroma out?

Ever since my first porter, I have been thinking about making a maple porter. I'm not exactally sure where the idea came from, but it sounded good. Blueberries would certinly impart an interesting charcteristic, but i think i'd like to try this recipie without any fruits to simply attempt a maple porter. Would using pure maple syrup be the best way to accomplish this?

I made a Maple Ale aka "Male" this winter and it turned out really good. One thing I added was 1/4 lb of Maltodextrin which really helps to enhance the Maple Syrup flavors. I also ended up using 40 Fl. oz. of Spring Tree Pure Maple Syrup, 2 lb. of 60 L Crystal, 1 oz northern brew pellet hops along with the yeast. When I primed the bottles I also used maple syrup in an effort to add more flavor to the beer. Since the fermentation process uses up most of the Maple flavor it is recommended to use the Maltodextrin (I have also heard of people using maple water which is the pre maple syrup product collected from maple trees. Being that I am from the city, this was not feasible for me). The one thing I would like to add if making this type of beer is let it age for at least a month. I initially let it age for two weeks and it was decent but as they aged longer they tasted much better. I wanted to do some kind of fruit with this as well, but I ended up throwing that idea out because a buddy of mine told me not too - next winner cometh the blueberry! One last thing, these beers are pretty strong since the maple syrup contains more than 10x the amount of sugar content by volume in comparison to regular sugar.

Good advice. I will probably get started on my maple porter in the next week or so now. My biggest hangup is what type of maple syrup to use. I'm guessing the more expensive, the better, but . . . ouch. Maybe I'll pick up some maltodextrin too. I think I'll brew the porter as normal, and then add the maple syrup in secondary as to not lose volatile flavors. I was also thinking of priming with the syrup.