If you’re going to make a kettle-acidified fruit beer, make it well. For Wiley Roots cofounder and head brewer Kyle Carbaugh, that means everything from using rustic unsalted wheat from a farmer friend to creating their own fruit pureés from fresh whole fruit. After all, you can’t drive novel, engaging fruit flavor that stands out if you do things the exact same way as every other brewer out there.
In this episode, Carbaugh discusses their fruit beer program as well as their barrel-aged stout program (which produced one of Craft Beer & Brewing’s best 20 beers in 2022), and along the way he touches on:
moving past “if you brew it, they will come”
creating transition beers to get people into more “advanced” styles
developing the fruit beer category with different brands that explore everything from leaner fermented fruit profiles to sweeter smoothie approaches
designing a brewhouse with kettle acidifying in mind
blending purée and juice concentrates for well-rounded fruit flavors
creating purée from whole fruit with a commercial food processor and masticating juicer
stabilizing fruit beers at various pH levels
building heft in stouts with additional fermentables
adjusting through the aging process for best barrel-aged results
And more.
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