Curry Ale???
 

So I want to brew a curry ale . . . a mix of cardomom, cumin and coriander and maybe a bit of tumeric as well. Its gonna be an experimental batch.

Any thoughts and ideas about what grains and yeast and all to use? I have no idea. Perhaps something akin to a pale ale??? Any advice out there?

I'm not a curry fan....but, I wonder if you could get some of those flavors from the yeast and hops as well? Sounds almost like a belgian... :D

I'm interested to hear the results, if you find a recipe.

If you go with black cardamom go easy, we used 3 grams in 15 gallons of big/dark/funky saison, and it was almost too much.

Cardamom and coriander I can see. Hell, I even think turmeric might be ok. But cumin? Don't do it man!

i was gonna go light on the cumin. its a pretty essential ingredient in curry.

I guess it depends on the kind of curry. Fish sauce is an essential ingredient in thai curry but I wouldn't put that in my beer either! :D

But if you really want to do it I think your best bet would be to make a lager to showcase the flavors. Indian beers tend to be light colored lagers and I think that would allow the spices to take the forefront. Go light on the grain bill with pilsner malt making up the majority of fermentable with perhaps a little vienna for some complexity and to fill out the flavor. Bitter very lightly, probably 15-20 IBU and use no late hops as I think they will clash with the spices. W-34/70 is a very good dry yeast that makes great lagers. I'd go with that.

I would go with a garam masala. "The composition of garam masala differs regionally, with wide variety across India. Some common ingredients are black & white peppercorns, cloves, malabar leaves, long pepper (also known as pippali), black cumin (known as shahi jeera), cumin seeds, cinnamon, black, brown, & green cardamom, nutmeg, star anise and coriander seeds. Varying combinations of these and other spices are used in regional variants of garam masala,[1] none of which is considered more authentic than another" from wikipedia.

I would use a Belgian Strong Dark Ale or Belgian Strong Golden Ale malt and yeast. Wostyntje is brewed with mustard seed so that might be a good base beer to try.

You could experiment with buying a few commercial beers, icing them down till near freezing. Open them up, dump some spices in and reseal them. It would be a good bench mark to get you started.

Cumin is apparently the "secret" spice is some Belgian wits from what I have read (although I like chamomile).

For example: http://www.portsmouthbrewery.com/our_beers_brewery/traditional_ales.html

WIT
A touch of sweet & bitter: orange, coriander, pepper & cumin along with a special yeast make this summer wheat ale crisp & refreshing!

In Papazian's Homebrewer's Companion there's a recipe for curried hefeweizen that sounds like a good starting point.

Here's somebody else's post on the forum about it:

http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f12/coconut-curry-hefeweizen-89518/