I found a qt. of pure maple syrup in the pantry the other day, since I don’t bother to make pancakes or waffles any more I figured I’d use it in a beer. Any great suggestions?
My suggestion would be to save it for something else. It’s notoriously difficult to get maple flavor into beer by using syrup. For that, you’re better off using a good quality maple extract.
You can use fenugreek seed for maple flavor. It tastes more like maple than maple itself does, much more intense, and it’s often what they actually use to flavor pancake syrup. But if the syrup is just going to waste, it’s a perfectly good option as a brewing sugar, just like cane syrup or any other sugar it will lighten body and increase fermentability.
I agree with the other Denny and Robert. I have tried brewing with maple syrup and gained nothing from it. Then, I read an article in BYO a number of years ago and, according to the study, the best way to get that wonderful maple flavor in your beer is to use what they referred to as “maple water”, which is the stuff that leaks from the tree before it’s boiled down into syrup. Further, the article stated you would use the maple water to fully replace the water you would normally use for brewing; and that can be very expensive.
Last year I used a quart of maple syrup in a Scotch ale hoping to get a hint of maple, I got nothing from it. At best it added a little more fermentable sugar, absolutely no maple flavor. I am not nearly as experienced as others, but my limited experience tells me one quart will do very little.