I have an idea for a beer I’m entering into a small local competition. It’s a pretty cool comp. The idea is this. The head brewer at a local microbrewery is doing 2 mashes with 100% pilsner malt for a golden barley wine. He will only use the 1st runnings from both mashes since he needs a very high gravity, but there’s plenty of sugars left in the second runnings. So, my brew club broke up into 20 teams. Each team shows up at the brewery this saturday with a sanitized bucket to get 5 gallons of second runnings wort. We need to use this wort to make a different, interesting beer. The deal is we can only add 2lbs of base malt (pils, 2-row, MO, munich, etc) or extract. And we can add as much specialty/roasted malts and adjuncts as we want. Including fruits, spices, whatever. The head brewer, a member from our club and a few local beer bloggers/writers will be the judges in 2 months. The idea is to come up with something different and to be creative.
So, my idea is for a Hawaiian LuALE beer. I’m thinking smoked malt for that smoked pork flavor and adding pineapple and cherry to the secondary. My question is, who’s added pineapple and/or cherries to a beer? What type of recipe was it? How much, what type, and when did you add it? I’m thinking of adding the fruit to the secondary so the sugars don’t all ferment out. I’ve never used fruit (outside of some zest in the boil) and I’d love to get some input from the more experienced. Thanks for any input!
Make a tincture of real bacon (cooked crisp, then patted dry, soaked in vodka) and add it along with fruit extracts to the beer right before the competition.
Very interesting… The only problem I see with that and I should have mentioned this in my first post, is that the winning beer with be brewed and served in the brewery. I’m not sure if the head brewer would have the ability to pull off such a technique on such a large scale.
That would certainly be different and creative. Not sure I would enjoy it but that doesn’t mean it can’t be done well. I’ve never used anything like that other than a little cherry extract for NB’s Cherry Stout recipe; it was alright.
I would suggest fermenting with a lambic blend, and adding your fruit after a week. At two months it will be a nice cherry/fruit flavored beer with a little funk, and I think a little smoke would not be out of place. Then you can keep the rest for a year and it will be a nice kriek.
[quote=“dobe12”] I’m not sure if the head brewer would have the ability to pull off such a technique on such a large scale.[/quote]All he has to do is scale it up from your recipe.
At the very least, can I offer a name? “ComeOnIWannaLeiYaAle”
On a serious note you might consider a Papaya puree. Here in Northern Cuba, where I live you can get it frozen at the grocery store. Papaya might prove to be less sweet and more subtle but definitely aromatic.
Yeah, but how much bacon and/or vodka would he want to use in a recipe? At what point would the cost be too much? I don’t think it’s as simple as you make it seem.
[quote=“dobe12”]Yeah, but how much bacon and/or vodka would he want to use in a recipe? At what point would the cost be too much? I don’t think it’s as simple as you make it seem.[/quote]The brewer would have to decide if it’s worth the extra money, but the actual cost of beer ingredients is tiny compared to the other costs of making and selling beer, so it’s probably not a big deal. At typical draft pint prices, the vodka will pay for itself, too.
