I wouldn’t do a pale ale with fruit or citrus. If you are looking for something like that, do it with hops. Use amarillo, citra, centennial or any other “citrus” hop to get that flavor. Dry hop in secondary if you really want to get the aroma and flavor out of it.

If you do add fruit, doing it during the boil won’t do anything. To get any flavors to come out you need to add at the end of primary or when you move to secondary. Toss the fruit in a sanitized blender, blend the heck out of it, and add it to the beer. Not sure how much to add for 5 gals, I’ve only done 1 fruit beer and it was 3 gallons.

To put your own stamp on a kit, add some hops that you pick out, dry hop or move on to steeping or partial mash. Even just steeping some carapils in an extract batch will make it your own and make the beer better. Good luck!!

First off, congrats on your new and highly addictive hobby! There’s nothing wrong with starting off with kits to develop/dial in your process, in fact I recommend it in the beginning. Branching out is easy to do, even a little at a time. There are a ton of clone recipes as well as a show dedicated to just brewing clone beers (search ‘Can You Brew It?’ at The Brewing Network). Additionally a good brewing software (although not required when brewing extract) aids greatly in helping one to understand how different ingredients will affect the beer, so keep that in mind too.

Asking if you can/should put something in a beer is a loaded question and can often times yield a plethora of varying responses, especially when you ask homebrewers. In your case I would want to know more of what you are trying to achieve. If you want a solid fruit presence in your beer, a pale ale that usually is more balanced to the hop side can have a muddled flavor if the right hop/fruit combination isn’t chosen (and this can be tricky with all the varieties to choose from), which is why often times fruit beers are made with a light beer base (wheat, blond, etc).

All that said, here’s my recommendations for ingredients:
• first off, pick one flavor to add to the beer
• if that flavor is raspberry, apricot, etc you have a couple of options here. You can use a canned product (such as Oregon fruit) which can be found at your local grocery store. These are a great product to add and can be done either towards the end of the boil, at ‘flameout’, or even in a secondary fermentor. Note: this will be adding additional sugars so be sure to account for them. Another option is using a fruit extract (which can be found at your local homebrew supply). This would be added after fermentation (in the secondary if you do one) say, 4-5 days prior to bottling. Each has their pros/cons. The actual fruit tends to give a better fruit flavor but not a lot of aroma whereas the extract works almost opposite. FYI, the best fruit beers I have tasted use both.
• Lastly, for a great lemony/citrus flavor you can get this by simply using Sorachi Ace, a newer hop widely known for those characteristics and quickly becoming a favorite.

FWIW, I’d make a pale ale with Sorachi Ace and then see how you feel about venturing into the ‘fruit beers’ next. Good luck and cheers!

I agree with Bob. Dry-hopping is the way to go for a fruity, citrusy pale ale. Amarillo, Citra, Cascade, and Centennial are all excellent choices for dry hopping. Which one to use will depend on the hops in your recipe. For pale ales I typically add 1 oz of pellet hops to the fermenter after about 2-3 weeks (make sure active fermentation is finished), and then bottle a week after dry hopping.

For what it’s worth, Austin Homebrew Supply’s Greenbelt Pale Ale kit is awesome. I believe it’s dry hopped with Centennial, and it was probably the best pale ale I’ve ever made (I made the mini-mash kit). I would describe its fruitiness as very juicy and jammy. Good luck!

After re-reading my response I failed to mention quantities and since I’m always one to ramble on (especially about beer and the process of making it)…

If you opt for actual fruit like the canned Oregon fruit I mentioned, go with ~ 3lb (49oz can). Since it is sterilized when packaged you don’t have to add it to the boil and can wait until primary fermenation is over with and add it to the secondary instead (you’ll have better fruit flavor come through the beer this way). There are enough sugars in the puree to boost your ABV up a few points but I wouldn’t worry about it. It can be calculated if you really want to know…again, this is where brewing software comes in handy.

There are a plethora of hops that throw great citrus/mango/grapefruit flavors. Like mentioned, Amarillo, Cascade, Centennial and Citra, are great (and very popular) for giving those citrus characteristics. Summit and Columbus are good for that too. Citra gives a nice mango character (especially if used in quantity), Sierra Nevada’s key with ‘Torpedo’ no doubt and surely a main reason why this hop is so sought after currently. The beer that won the Southern Plains craft beer festival pale ale competition last year was brewed exclusively with Citra.

The key to great flavor/aroma from hops is larger quantities added late in the boil and following that up with a good dry hop. I don’t know what hop that is included in the Brewer’s Best kit (the recipe only shows quantity, which is 1.5oz added with 5min left) but if it is a hop you want to use, I’d buy another 2oz of that hop to throw into the secondary. If you’d like to substitute another hop you could get away with just buying 3oz of whatever hop, use 1oz in the last 5min and put the other 2oz in the secondary. Cheers!