I was cleaning out my freezer the other day and noticed that I had a lot of frozen figs laying around that I would like to do something with and the first thing that came to mind was to use them in a sour beer. I am looking to brew a blonde sour ale and after deliberating on what to pair with the figs I have tentatively decided on ginger and blackberries. I will be doing a 5 gallon batch and the advice that I am looking for is: 1) How much of each of the ingredients do you think I should add? When just brewing a fruit beer I have seen recommendations of anywhere from 3 lbs per 5 gallon batch to 2 lb per gallon. 2) Should I use fresh ginger, dried ginger, or candied ginger? Most ginger beer recipes I have seen call for fresh ginger, but I don't want the ginger to overpower the other flavors (although this could resolved simply by using much less ginger than figs or blackberries). Thanks in advance!
1oz of fresh ginger works good for me. I used 3oz one time. It was very spicy at first, but matured into a good ginger flavor after a few months in the bottle. Figs? Not sure. Never used them, but if I did it would be in a Belgian dark strong ale, not a sour. Blackberry depends on how strong you want it. Try 1# fresh fruit per gallon or one 3lb can of puree for a noticeable, but not super strong flavor. Honestly, I don't think the three ingredients together would be good in a sour. Maybe they would be? I haven't tried it, so I can't say for sure. Blackberry makes a good sour.
Figs sound interesting, but I don't get the ginger or blackberries. Where is this combo coming from? Do you have a similar commercial beer in mind? Or even a dessert in mind? I googled and found recipes for fig/ginger compote and spiced figs, but nothing came up with blackberries. I could see blackberry and ginger or fig and ginger, but not all three together. As far as how much ginger, I would look for ginger beer recipes to get an idea. I did a couple ginger beers in the beginning (no recipes on hand) and from what I remember, one came out very subtle and one came out spicy as hell. I think I used roughly the same amount of fresh ginger in both. My assumption is that there is a lot of variation in fresh ginger you might try http://madfermentationist.blogspot.com/ sorry, not much help
I have seen numerous drinks/desserts with either figs and ginger or figs and blackberry. I have also seen one or two desserts with all three. I thought about doing either figs and ginger or figs and blackberry, but I did not want any one flavor to overpower the other(s) which led me to potentially doing all three together. I may end doing only two, but both figs and blackberry tend to have "soft" flavors and I wanted something a little stronger to accent the other flavor(s). The fig inspiration comes from Figaro from Cascade which is a blonde sour with figs and lemon peel that is then aged in Chardonnay barrels.
