Mixing Fruit Juices with IPAs

Honestly, the only reason for me saying this sounds like "the pussification of beer" is because that's what everyone seems to want in their beer these days. This site seems to shit on beers that are not described as super citrus tropical sunshine in my mouth, or chocolate vanilla milkshake barrel aged coffee stout. I'm all for experimentation, but the beer culture is honestly making me want to separate myself from the crowd, because it's becoming closed-minded in that regard.

 

Never tried it with fruit but I've put maple syrup in a few barrel aged stouts and it was quite tasty.

 

IF your making Brass Monkeys!!! Please use 40 oz of like Old E (8ball), Private Stck, or Colt 45. Dont use IPAs people please for the love of God dont do it!

 

I don't see the correlation between experimentation and "pussification". Your anger about closed-midedness is both hypocritical and misplaced. I don't think this site "shits on beers that are not described as super citrus tropical sunshine in my mouth, or chocolate vanilla milkshake barrel aged coffee stout." Some things are just more popular than others. To oversimplify, that's how a free market works. No need to take offense.

 

I think you are seeing these comments, because this "fruit juice into an IPA" thing seems very hypocritical.

Most beer geeks would frown on those drinkers putting an orange slice in a Blue Moon, or a lime in a Corona, or drinking Bud Light Lime-a-rita. How is this any different?

To me, it's not. Beer shouldn't taste like a wine cooler.

 

Germany has been making shadies and radlers for centuries. Adding things like chocolate or honey to alcoholic beverages extends through the Aztec empire to Ancient Egypt. Lambics have been around for almost five hundred years or something. Only in America is beer somehow less beer if quality adjunct ingredients are added to it. Only in America is Budweiser (5% abv) more manly than say a 12oz DIPA w/2oz of juice added to it (minimum 7% abv even after the juice addition).

I know the German Reinheitsgebot has a lot to do with it, but, come on, guys, it's the 21st century. We know beer doesn't even need hops to be considered beer. Hops are just a spice (an awesome one) for the fermented barley product we all know and love. Some (all) brewers like to use them. Some like to use other stuff like coffee, raspberries, or chocolate. Some like to use all of the spices together. It doesn't make a brewer a ***** for spicing their beer with orange peel does it? No, and a drinker isn't also a ***** for liking a 6:1 blend of citrusy hopped IPA w/natural fruit juice either.

 

I don't know any beer geeks that would frown on non-beer geeks for putting an orange slice into a Blue Moon, or a lime in a Corona. If anything the beer geek would likely agree that the fruit addition is a marked improvement over the base beer. If the beer geek was going to frown at anything, it wouldn't be adding fruit to those beers, it would be at the drinking of a Corona in the first place. Personally, and I'm definitely a food/beverage snob, I wouldn't consider either Blue Moon or Corona to be drinkable without the fruit additions (though I would rather drink something else entirely if possible).

Adding juice to an IPA is different because the IPA taste good by itself (I mean, hopefully, right? Otherwise, why bother?) before bothering to add anything to it. Sometimes adding the juice to the IPA may also create a marked improvement over the base beer, in which case the resulting beverage is elevated to a new level far surpassing the orange wedge'd Blue Moon. Sometimes it's just different but still as good, making it still on par with the base IPA that we'd rather be drinking than the fruited Blue Moon anyway. And maybe sometimes it's terrible, especially if the experimenter doesn't know how to pair flavors up well.

 

This makes me want to mix a little maple syrup into a shot of espresso, spike a breakfast stout with it, then let it sit in an empty bottle of JD for a couple hours before drinking.

 

Like many on here I'm a pretty big fan of this juicy/turbid IPA trend, but sadly, I'm on the West Coast and am a little lacking in supply.

Has anyone tried taking a common but decent IPA, like Stone for instance, and adding OJ to it to up that juicy character a bit?

I really have no idea if it would work, but the thought occurred to me and I figured someone must have tried it here. If so, what beer did you use, what ratio, and was it any good?

If no one has I may have to conduct the experiment myself...

 

Don't use juice, use frozen concentrate.

 

Stone has an Enjoy By 10/31 with tangerine.

 

Shorts Freedom 78 this summer was packed with guava puree and it made for an awesome beer. I can totally see doing this, esp to some IPAs that might be a bit past their prime.

 

There's a different line for everyone when it comes to the "do you actually enjoy drinking beer?" question, but adding fruit juice to IPAs is crossing it for me personally. I can do the barrel-aged this, stout brewed with that, IPA hopped with X, Y, Z hops to intentionally taste "juicy". But adding fruit juice ito "good" beer is something I can't get my head round.

I can't speak for Radlers as I'm not German. But as far as shandies / lager tops in the UK go (at least from when I started going to pubs in 1995 to when I left Scotland in 2008; actually can move that start date back to 1986 as I grew up in a pub my parents owned) - shandies are a case of putting some lemonade (more comparable to sprite in the US, than American lemonade) into a macro lager (Carling, Fosters, Carlsberg, Tennents etc). Not quite the same as putting some OJ in a Heady.

People drink mixed drinks in Scotland as well. Such as whisky/coke. But the whisky is something like grants, not a single malt. Do you guys mix single malts with your soda of choice too?

A lot of the beers being mentioned in this thread, are too good, too limited, and/or too expensive to even begin contemplating mixing.

Edit - people on here want the larger world to think of beer as a "serious" beverage - what with correct glassware, serving temps, food pairings, tastings etc. So a question - are any of you massively into wine? If so are there discussions about what fruit juices people like to mix in with their favourite wines, on the BA equivalent for wine?

 

Well, shandies (with an "n") are British in origin but the history of Radlers dates back only to the 1920s, when it was created for bicyclists to drink (radler = bicyclist in a German dialect). So just coming up to a century.

 

Just get the Ballast Point fruit IPA concoctions if you really need to do this. Otherwise, don't ruin good beer

 

People mix OJ with Champagne and call it a Mimosa. Mostly done at brunch.

 

Fruit + wine = sangria. But to your point, nobody is taking a Bordeaux and making sangria with it.

But to his point, they're not doing it with Dom Perignon.

 

@elucas730 got there first

And additionally - not asking if it happens. Tinto de Verano is another instance for example. Asking if it gets discussed on wine advocacy / appreciation sites, in the context of using good quality, sought after wines

 

Maybe but I've seen it done with bottles that cost $50.00 or more.