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
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NOTES:

*  When racked into the secondary fermentor all the blueberry paritcles were
   floating along the top. The beer was so chunky that it was unrackable. It 
   had to be gently poured through a sanitized sparging bag and into another
   container. This was then racked into the secondary ... Great purple color
   at this point.

*  Some funky bubbles starting forming on the top of the glass secondary. 
   these were trub bubbles I guess and went away if the secondary was jostled.
   Kind of spooky! Yikes! 

*  This beer needs to be aged like a fine wine I believe. I left it in the 
   fridge for two months and after that it was extremely yummy.

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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:

	    His				     	    Mine   
   *  O.G.:	1.060				O.G.:	1.040
   *  R.G.: 	1.008 (rack gravity)		R.G.:	1.014
   *  F.G.: 	1.007				F.G.:	1.011