i finally had an idea for a pastry style beer involving almond extract. any thougjts on making a cakey beer, 3ven a stout if thats what youre used to??
I don’t have much to add other than you probably can use any malty style as a base. Brown Ale, Märzen, Dunkel and Old Ale come to mind if you want to choose a non-stout as a base. Dunkelweizen might be ok, but you’d probably want a yeast that you know well so you can control the phenolic/ester balance.
thinking it through, yes - maerzen came to mind, using vienna and a bit of munich, but then sort of capping off that raw dough/grain with
victory malt, crystal, flaked barley, small roasted.
i have
38% vienna
30% 2row
8% flaked barley
8% munich II
7% victory
7% crystal 40
2% brown malt
aiming for very sweet, like certainly a “dessert” beer. using a maltotriose negative yeast like WLP002 -
1.084 down to 1.028
but i want to use this as a base to add almond extract and see how that goes. i really love the taste of almond, marzipan and especially almond extract.
i was looking up the almond extract flavour molecule - benzaldehyde - and it has no negative health concerns. im thinking of just going ahead with an almond extract i enjoy, ive been using a basic one with marzipan/almond flour pastries for years of course. and thats the kind of taste im looking for.
cherry flavour is probably out there and if i could get a small amount i could imagine that accentuating this. or even using that liqueur made from apricot pits tht people mistake for almond-liqueuer. amaretto
the pdf below discusses raw almond vs roasted almond. and i think i wont complicate this by soaking real and/or toasted almonds in ethanol to extract flavour.