Billy Bob's Blueberry Bitter

Classification: fruit beer, blueberry ale, bitter, all-grain

Source: David P. Brockington (bronyaur@stein2.u.washington.edu), r.c.b., 9/1/93

Here is the blueberry bitter I brewed up last summer. I was quite happy with it -- the blueberry flavor came through nicely, yet the malt/hops were evident enough that it tasted like beer.

The finished beer was quite striking in appearance -- purple color and purple head. (The head color was kinda cool.) The hopping was relatively light -- I would definately use a low-alpha hop for bittering. The flavor hop (I used a half ounce of Cascade for 30) could probably be eliminated. It was yummy, but I don't think it ages well.

Ingredients:

9 pounds English Pale 2-row
1.5 oz Cascade hops for 60 minutes
0.5 oz Cascade hops for 30 minutes
1.0 oz Kent Goldings hops for 1 minute
1 tsp. gypsum added to mash
2 tsp. Irish Moss added 30 minutes prior to end of boil
10 pounds fresh blueberries
Wyeast American Ale yeast -- no starter

Procedure:

Mashed in single infusion. Starch conversion around 156F for 60 minutes. Mash out at 168F for five. Sparge water @ 170F. Exact amount of sparge water unknown; I simply sparger until desired yield was reached.

The blueberries were crushed prior to adding to wort. They were added to wort after the end of boil, when temperature of wort was lower than 180F. The blueberries were allowed to sit in hot wort for 15 minutes. The wort was then chilled with an immersion chiller. Then, the whole shebang (fruit, hops, and all) were poured into a plastic fermenter for primary fermentation. Primary done for seven days, following which the beer was racked off of the gunk into glass. I think I left it in the glass for two days; fermentation was pretty much complete. Oh -- a tsp. of polyclar added 24 hours prior to bottling.

Specifics:

O.G.: 1.060
R.G.: 1.008 (rack gravity)
F.G.: 1.007