I am starting to think of the next beer to brew where I can actually be creative instead of brewing a style for my homebrew club. I’d like to do something I have never done before just to see what I come up with.
I have 1# of mittelfrüh and would like to use some of those, other than that, free range to experiment.
What are some the funnest beers you have made, or most interesting ingredient?
Open for suggestions, any grain bill, any yeast, candy sugar, lactose, spices, etc. give me yo best!
Cheers.
Someone in our club made a stuffing beer (think turkey stuffing) It was ok (not something I would drink 5 gallons of) I told her if she makes it again, it should be served through a randall of cranberries
Looking for fun. Not gag and spit, lol. Trying to drink 5 gallons of tastiness, not dump 5 gallons. I like adding different additions of hops, sometimes fruit, etc.
Trying to think out of the box here, but within some limits.
Both those beers sounded interesting though. Not really my style.
I’ve been loving these milkshake IPAs with vanilla and lactose. My next batch will be one of those with some fruit puree in the mix. Fun? Yes. Tasty? Hopefully!
A brewery told me to go for a neopolitan beer, strawberry vanilla and chocolate. Sounds fun. The milkshake IPA just has me wondering why I would add lactose to an ipa.
Why IPA though? Just for hop flavor/aroma?
When you use vanilla do you use extract? And how much? I heard the beans are very expensive.
I haven’t brewed one yet, it’ll be my next batch… will reply here with an answer when I brew. Yup, all of them I’ve had are the very low bitterness, all excessive late hop/dry hop additions purely for flavor and aroma. Then the addition of lactose back sweetens it to further enhance that effect. So it ends up not really being much of a “traditional” IPA at all.
Yes, vanilla beans are very expensive! I recently brewed a vanilla porter using 5 fresh vanilla beans from Mexico. The beer finished and I could not taste any of the vanilla at all because I used a little too much Brown Malt in the grain bill it masked the flavor of the beans. The porter did, however, have a very nice roasted flavor!
My point is, if you choose to use vanilla, I would suggest real beans, split open and allowed to sit in a very small amount of vodka for a short time (2-3 days) before introducing them to the beer. Also, I highly recommend beans from Madagascar; they are a bit more expensive, but they carry much more vanilla flavor.
I’ve been really into playing around with the lighter colored Belgian styles like Single, Pale, and Blonde (and to a slightly lesser extent Tripel and Strong Golden).
You can make some awesome beer with simple ingredients: blend of continental pilsner and pale malts, various sugars, a handful of hop varieties (EKG, Saaz and Styrian Goldings) and your favorite Belgian Ale strain (mine is 3787 at the moment).
I could just brew those over and over without getting bored for a long time.
I don’t often get too out there, but I’ve brewed a few batches of Black Saison. Once, I secondaried in a corny keg with the dregs of two bottles of Orval and let it sour for 5 months. And once, I racked half a batch into a corny keg on top of some cherry puree. I was really happy with both of those batches.
Out there (for me anyway) ideas for the future:
A Belgian Dubbel brewed with homemade date syrup;
A rum/raisin Belgian Dubbel brewed with homemade raisin syrup and either using dark rum at packaging or a sugar product that produces a rummy flavor (it looks like MoreBeer still sells the dark candi sugar rocks, which I think would work); and
Black Champagne - a dark, highly carbonated beer that finishes dry and with a vinous character: all pilsner and refined sugar, a clean yet attenuative yeast (maybe a blend of 3711 and 1056 fermented cool?), Nelson Sauvin hops, and something to darken it (maybe Sinamar or blackprinz?).
I don’t know if you even need 1056 for that one. 3711/Belle Saison leaves me with the impression of a dry white wine for most beers that I brew with it. For that reason, I use my table saison recipe as the base for all my fruit beers, and my Pink Beer as well (saison with hibiscus).
You can even try to brew a non-alcoholic beer, by the way. As far as I know, it’s even harder, because you have to be more specific with the proportions, but after all, you can brew a very tasteful beer with some special exotic flavors, for example. I have recently seen a website about alcohol free beer best non alcoholic beer and I think you have to take a look on it. There are lots of advises and some of them are really great, in my humble opinion. You can brew whatever you want, but if you want it to be tasteful and simply amazing, go and see this place! You won’t regret it!
I made a Peppermint Patty Sweet Stout a couple years ago. Came out great and my neighbor loved it. I took some to a party at their house and after she gave everyone a taste of it carried the growler around like it was a baby and finished it off. Nobody else could get even within a few feet of the growler! We still laugh about that one!
