Blueberry Blonde Ale - Tart and Astringent - Normal?

[cbfan87]

I did my first fruit beer by taking a kit for a blonde ale, let it complete primary fermentation and after a total of 8 days from brew day adding a can of Vintner's Harvest Fruit Puree - Blueberry and 3 additional lbs of thawed bagged frozen blueberries from the grocery store.

It's been about 11 days since then and I bottled today. On the nose its smells fine, like beer/fruit wine. On first taste it has a strong tartness with astringency up front and then you can taste the typical beer maltiness on the backend.

The sample a took post priming sugar addition was a gravity of 1.012. The starting gravity prior to any blueberry additions was 1.049.

I do treat my water with calcium salts and saurmalz to get my PH in range but I don't have a PH meter. I rely on brun water calculations.

I used Nottingham yeast and mashed around 151.

Fermented in a chest freezer with a temperature controller set to 65

Recipe included 9 3/4 lb 2 row and 1/2 lb Crystal 10 L malt.

I have had infections before, but the sourness with those was different. Those were acidic, made my tongue water, and had an odd odor coming out of the fermenter.

This tartness is more comparable to the tartness and astringency you get with cranberry /juice.

Can anyone with fruit brewing experience chime in? Is this typical of adding fruit to a beer, with a relatively dry profile?

 

[JF_HBrews]

This is typical of fruit beers. The sugars from the fruit ferment out and you have flavors reminiscent of the fruit and tartness. If you really want the fresh fruit flavor to be there you can add fruit extracts like Brewer's Best. they come in little 4 oz bottles. You can also try to inhibit fermentation and add more fruit or fruit juice to your beer. But, a lot of effort and care must be taken to not create bottle grenades or a foamy worthless keg.