I need help on this one. For me, the consumption of a fruit beer is a rare event. My daughter has requested a cherry beer for her 23rd birthday party. I want to brew something she and her friends will enjoy. It would be a bonus if it was also interesting to real beer drinkers (like myself, for example).

Anybody got a cherry beer recipe they really like?

The party is on June 5th.

-Kent

Pretty quick timeline, especially if you aren't kegging it.

What commercial example(s) of a cherry beer does she like?

I'd probably go with an American Wheat as a base and use a decent amount of cherries (maybe 1-2# per gallon) if given time. With your deadline cherry extract might work better.

Costco has dried Montmorecy (pie cherries) for about $8/20oz or Trader Joes has them for 2.99 for an 8 oz bag. Brew your favorite, low hoped beer, and add the dried fruit in the secondary. A friend had a beer he really did not like so he added a Costco bag and some frozen sweet cherries (i think 1 bag) to a 5 gallon batch and since the beer was already fermented and in the fridge, he ended up with a New Glarus style cherry beer, it was pretty damn tasty.

For as much as i don't like Sam Adams, they do have a tasty Cherry Wheat. You have to decide, though. Do you want the "stereotypical" cherry flavor you'd get with liquid extract? Or do you want the "true" cherry flavor (kinda sour) you'd get with real cherries?

Going the real cherry route, I don't think your going to hit your deadline - as you have to add the fruit to the secondary, and give it some time to work then filter/tertiary. To hit your deadline, your best bet is to use the liquid extract added to a batch at bottling/kegging time.

I have to agree with Garrett. I like to add real fruit to mine ,but it takes several weeks to really get the flavor.

Thanks for the comments all. I picked up some cherry extract. I am toying with the idea of adding it to a Fat Tire clone.