Blackberry/Blueberry Pale Ale aka Black and Blue

Ok, it has been way too long since I updated my blog and I wanted to make sure y'all knew that I am still brewing and coming up with some crazy ideas still. This latest one is not one of my craziest but I do believe it to be one of my favorites. Every year around this time, I make one summer time beer, this one is a bit late but I know it wont go to waste. In every summer beer I make I try and put some type of fruit in the beer. One of my first fruit beers was a raspberry wheat when I was still making beer from extract. I have also made one with fresh watermelon that was an ipa that I love and the other a wheat which was good too. Now, this summer I wanted to make a beer that was refreshing, light, and tasted like blueberry lemon tart. Two problems occurred in the process of making this beer. One, my local homebrew store did not have any blueberry puree though their website said they did. This resulted in a blackberry ale. Second, when I mashed my beer, I did not mash at the right temperature because I recently upgraded my mash tun from a 10 gallon gatorade cooler to a 17.5 gallon flat bed cooler. This transition resulted in my wort having more surface area which results in a cooler resting temperature. It rested at 148 F instead of 152. I lost some available sugars in the mash but recovered it by adding honey and more yeast to the secondary. I added about 42 ounces of honey that was harvested from Charlotte. The yeast is my own concoction from previous beers I made, the brews from my black ipa, imperial amber, and barleywine (all of which are on this blog). If not, you can find them on my hopville page with the same name bensbrews. Since this yeast was fermenting beers that where very high in alcohol I dont think there will be a problem with it fermenting a 7 or less percent beer.

Now back to this current beer! Previously I would just copy and past the recipe but I believe the best option is just give you the link to the website I do most of my work with brewing beer. http://hopville.com/recipe/747291/american-pale-ale-recipes/american-brewmasters-pale-ale-with-blueberries

Obviously I didn't brew the beer with blueberries but I did it with blackberries same amount 3 pounds and they did not go into the boil but in the primary. I know that this will result in less fruit flavor but don't worry I will fix this problem by adding blackberry or blueberry flavoring at the time of bottling. The amount i put at bottling will depend on how much fruit flavor I taste before I bottle, if it needs all 4 ozs that's what I will put, but I have heard people saying that 4 ounces is too much, we will see! At this moment, the beer is in the secondary with the honey and added yeast doing it's thing popping away! I also dried hoped with a special hop Sorache Ace which is stated on the recipe but the numbers are a bit off on how much hops I put in the boil and dry hopped. I will update this soon! Trying to be able to bottle this brew by friday, but the beer is still going.... Update soon to follow on how it taste and anything else that might happen.

Till then enjoy the summer the best way possible - aka feet in the sand and craft beer in hand!

Cheers!

Ben