Fruit Brews - need suggestions

[Kiltlifter]

I'm thinking of doing up another batch of beer when I get back home from my upcoming work assignment to Tucson. Anyway I'd like to do a raspberry flavored oatmeal stout. What I'm looking for is suggestions on how much fruit (either frozen or essence) to add to the brew.

My "target" is to get a brew that has a hint of raspberry to the oatmeal stout flavor rather than a raspberry beer with a hint of oatmeal stout. I've viewed some recipes online but they seemed more "heavy" on the raspberry flavor than I'm shooting for.

Anyone done a raspberry IPA? What you think about a raspberry bite to the citrusy hop flavor? An alternate would be to do a Christmas Ale ... if you've got some good recipes you'd be willing to share, let me know.

[fuji6100]

my experience with fruit is limeted, though I just got done making a peach-wheat ale. I used 2 four-ounce containers of peach extract and there is a very heavy peach aroma and taste. It is the first and last thing that hits your tastebuds. In the future I would probably only use one container, and I'd add it at bottling time rather than to the secondary.

I would expect that using just the one 4-oz bottle would give you the "hint of fruit" aftertaste, rather than "fruit in your face." like I've got now.

I'm unsure of the brand of extract I used though, so I guess that's not much help :\

[Brownbeard]

I just did a cherry wheat, used one 4oz container of cherry extract, it was nice and cherry flavored at bottling, but 2 weeks later, the cherry flavor was gone.

[Beerconnoisseur]

Originally posted by Kiltlifter
I'm thinking of doing up another batch of beer when I get back home from my upcoming work assignment to Tucson. Anyway I'd like to do a raspberry flavored oatmeal stout. What I'm looking for is suggestions on how much fruit (either frozen or essence) to add to the brew.

My "target" is to get a brew that has a hint of raspberry to the oatmeal stout flavor rather than a raspberry beer with a hint of oatmeal stout. I've viewed some recipes online but they seemed more "heavy" on the raspberry flavor than I'm shooting for.

Anyone done a raspberry IPA? What you think about a raspberry bite to the citrusy hop flavor? An alternate would be to do a Christmas Ale ... if you've got some good recipes you'd be willing to share, let me know.

You should start with a 4 oz bottle of raspberry extract (added at bottling), and move up from there. MoreBeer (http://www.morebeer.com/catalog.php3?secID=fruitb&secName=Fruit+Flavorings+%26+Purees) has a full page of flavorings/purees for you to play around with.

Further note: I have tried brewing both the extract and all-grain versions of their "Berry Beer" kit, and I seemed to get better results with the extract recipe. However, I haven't done many all-grain batches yet, so take this for what it's worth; that may be a lack of experience on my part...

I haven't done a raspberry IPA (yet!), but my apricot IPA recently finished, and the taste is simply fantastic. The bitterness of the Columbus/Magnum hops really accentuate the fruity flavor quite well.

If you really want to go crazy, you could try mixing up a 10 gallon batch, and add two different flavorings. Whee! Have fun and good luck! :)