DON'T FRUIT THE BEER?! ONLY if THAT AIN'T STRAWBERRY!

What's ALE-ing You?

"DON'T FRUIT THE BEER?!" ?

ONLY if
THAT AIN'T STRAWBERRY!

April 2010

In This Issue

Adjuncts & Flavorings

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Adjuncts & Flavorings

Fruits and spices are key ingredients in some beer styles. While fruit beers and herb beers are often listed as style categories unto themselves, fruits and spices are sometimes used to contribute to the flavour and aroma profile of other styles. Vegetables have also been used in beers. Honey, molasses, candy sugar, or other fermentable sugars may be added to impart their distinct flavours to a beer. While not an ingredient per se, some brewers have experimented with aging their beer in barrels previously used for bourbon or other distilled spirits, imparting the flavour of both the wood and the spirit to the beer.

A number of traditional beer styles are brewed with spices. For example, Belgian witbier is brewed with coriander, Finnish sahti is brewed with juniper berries, and traditional beers in Britain are brewed with honey and spices. Also, some strong winter beers are flavoured with nutmeg and/or cinnamon, while ginger is a popular flavouring for a range of beers. Many commercially available pumpkin ales are made with pumpkin pie spices without any actual pumpkin.
Spices may be added to the wort during the boil or spices or spice extract may be added at any time during fermentation depending on desired results.
Spices used in brewing include:

Juniper berries or boughs

Licorice

Nutmeg

Orange or Lemon peel

Spruce needles or twigs (see spruce beer)

Yarrow

Other, less common flavourings include chocolate, coffee, milk, chile peppers and even oysters.

Fruits have been used as a beer adjunct or flavouring for centuries, especially with Belgian lambic styles. Cherry, raspberry, and peach are a common addition to this style of beer. Modern breweries may add only flavoured extracts to the finished product, rather than actually fermenting the fruit.

Contemporary breweries produce beers flavoured with tequila from blue agave nectar, a tequila-flavoured beer popular among German and French youth, and pumpkin-flavored beers brewed seasonally in the autumn in North America.
Chile pepper is used to flavor pale lagers. One of the most popular American chile beers is produced in Taos, New Mexico; made with New Mexico roasted green chiles.
And a brewery in Arizona features the only internationally marketed chile beer.

Sahti - from Finland; a distincly 'banana' tlavor, due to the yeast

Greetings!

Here we are at a great Spring weekend after Earth Day, and my birthday; so it feels like the right time to write about Spring flavors for custom small batch crafted Flavored Ales.

We were just out at one of our favorite local San Diego Brewery pubs for our almost ritual "wing night" when I found their weekly special in-house brewed craft ales list - three of which were flavored. We know the trend, and we have an entire history of brewers' flavors and adjuncts most used as fruits, herbs and spices; in this case it was interesting to note some usual suspects on the craft beers menu board: Blueberry - yep! Raspberry, of course; and something made with marshmallows. I went with Marshmallow, because we have flavors that stem from a 37 year history in research on every flavor, from the leisure destination, amusement park and candy store markets. So I needed to taste what this marshmallow as made would do to something otherwise not so hoppy. As delivered right from the tap, it had a pink-reddiish toned head on an otherwise rich golden hue, and when I tasted it, I found a very light 'sweetness' with a tad creme hue in the nose that disappeared very quickly. A-hA! What I realized is that we could have easily stepped this brew up a notch, because while I was willing to bet that NO one really wanted a true lingering marshmallow flavored ale, our seven derivations of Marshmallow would have infused this puppy with a distinct taste reminiscent of true custom classic marshmallow. By that, I mean your visualized smokey campfires...Halloween... Easter Bunnies in April, a fresh warm out of the bag, first date powdered 'chalkiness', to an in the nose marshmallow punch that still disappears, but truly gives your palate the sense of the Carnival or Old Time Fairgrounds fun. This brew, though very nice, just basically had a pink hue and "sweetness" to it, a quick fall off the palate, but Marshmallows have so much more niche and nuance of flavor, and an attribute life experience, rather than just being "sweet" - as the one time flavor contribution one off.

Thinking about taste qualities, and each of of our 327 flavors, this brings me to my nose, and really, to my good friend Al Weist, may he Rest In Peace. His nose and taste buds were amazing; Award winning in fact. This brings us to one of the great Crusaders of taste, flavors and syrups of all time, so let me introduce you to my very good friend and unexpected team partner, Al Weist.

Award Winning Flavors since 1984

Al Weist - the Guru of Flavor Magic