Advice For Homebrewers

Use Local Fruit “Local fruit is the right way to do it. To know your grower is to learn a lot about the fruit: Work with the farmer and get it at peak ripeness.” Casey recommends to homebrewers that they explore their local farmers’ markets for fruit-beer inspiration. “That’s how we find a lot of our growers.”

Use Whole Fruit All of the fruit in Casey beers is whole fruit. “Puree makes great beer; it’s just not as unique. Using the least adulterated fruit is important to me because that’s flavor you can’t get any other way.”

Using whole fruit can create some challenges in separation and, ultimately, some chunks of fruit in your final product. “We don’t squeeze the fruit. It either rises to the top of the tank or drops to the bottom, so we pump out of the middle and use a small strainer for the larger fruit chunks. Often you’ll find small pieces of fruit in our beer, and consumers are okay with that,” Casey says. “Mashed potatoes with zero lumps weren’t hand-mashed. Consumers want lumps; They want that authenticity. It’s just like people wanting to see haze from their hops because that translates to more flavorful beer.”

In most cases, whole fruit doesn’t put your beer at risk of unexpected souring. “I don’t think we’ve ever gotten off-flavors from using whole fruit,” Casey says. “I’m of the belief that anything on the fruit skin is aerobic, so it will want oxygen. The amount of culture we’re already adding to our beer will help compete against any wild yeast or bacteria that might be on the fruit.”

Be Patient It seems the secret sauce in Casey’s beers is patience. His beers age anywhere from 3 to 24 months in barrels, and the beer-making process begins long before that. “It takes time to cultivate relationships with farmers, time for the fruit to grow, time to anticipate peak ripeness and then harvest,” he says. “Then it takes time to age beers, time to bottle condition, and then time to sell them. This isn’t something you can rush.”