While in Mellow Mushroom last weekend I noticed a few blended beers on their beer list. I don’t remember the specifics but one was a stout blended with another beer called a “Dirty Hippie”. On a couple of occasions I have mixed a home-brew with a store bought beer. Such as Cream Ale with Wild Black blackberry lager which is 8% abv. Other than the obvious Black and Tans has anybody come up with some other interesting tasty blends? If so share please.
:cheers:
Last night I blended an American Sour (brewed with the new De Bom strain) with a Belgian Saison. Tasted a lot like Goose Island’s Sophie and was delicious.
Check out The Rare Barrel brewery. All they do is blend, wort production is outsourced. Many believe it to be a lost art…I believe it to be alive and well.
I hope it stays alive. Get tired of nothing but IPAs. Don’t get me wrong I love a good IPA but there is so much more out there. I can brew some descent brew but some of these concoctions no way. That’s a whole different level of brewing. The brewer above has been aging his beers for a long time before he even opened his brewery. His old ale is actually old. Or at least blended with old which is from what I understand how it was done historically
Blending beers can be quite interesting.
Back in the early 1990s, at my local hang I used to like to blend drafts of Fullers ESB (the keg version exported to the US) and SN Pale Ale (or SN Celebration when it was on tap). The richness of the Fullers and the fresh hoppiness of the SN married very nicely. Both both those brews are certainly great on their own…but both were also enhanced by the blend.
Kind of reminds me of an uncle back in the 1960s who liked a half and half blend of Ballantine XXX ale and Guinness Extra.
I remember having a conversation with Matt Reich about blending sometime in the very early 1980s (he was marketing New Amsterdam Amber). He said that when he and brewing consultant Joe Owades were working up the flavor profile of New Amsterdam, they actually began by blending various combinations of commercial beers to explore different flavor profiles. The product they ultimately came up with–especially the version brewed at the very short lived (less than 12 months!) New Amsterdam brewery on 10th Avenue in NYC-- was a remarkably rich and tasty amber lager.
:cheers:
I blend at my tap quite often. Usually its an IPA blended with a pale ale or a red with a IPA to kick it up a bit.
I thought blending was done before carbonation.
I love a Chesty Girl. It’s a blend of Liftbridge’s Chestnut Hill Brown Ale with their Farmgirl Saison. Do a 50/50 blend of a brown with a saison to make your own with any brown ale and saison. I think you’ll be pleased.
It can be…but it can definitely be done at serving time just as effecively (and by the latter method, you’re also not committing to an entire blended batch).
Quite a few of my brews end up as minor blends kind of by default: if I feel like topping up a new batch of beer, I’ll sometimes just top it up with a beer I might have in another keg. I’ll mostly do that with darker brews like porter, or my annual holiday brew (which is technically already a blend of sorts since it comprises 23 years of saving a portion of each year’s brew to add to next year’s).
[quote=“The Professor”]I’ll mostly do that with darker brews like porter, or my annual holiday brew (which is technically already a blend of sorts since it comprises 23 years of saving a portion of each year’s brew to add to next year’s).[/quote]Interesting idea. I like it. :cheers:
The best way to build your blending (done batch-size, before carbonation) is to practice your blending with finished beers. I had a too-sour farmhouse on tap, but mixed with 1/3 Dogfish Head Festina Peche, it became something way better than either beer alone.
I’m finding myself blending at the keg all the time now. Cream Ale with store bought Pale Ales and IPAs. Haven’t found a bad combination yet. It’s fun to experiment.
