Crazy Beer Recipe: Smoked Blueberry Tea Beer

So i had a crazy brew day yesterday. My first attempt at all-grain brew in a bag was with a classic rauchbier:

3lbs rauchmalt
5 lbs marris otter
1 lb crystal 40
1 lb victory
.25 lb chocolate

My mash schedule was hectic to say the least. The temperature was fluctuating between 145 and 160 constantly for 90 minutes. Estimated OG was 1.055. Measured gravity was 1.035 at the end. I believe the efficiency was something like 50%.

So here's what I did. I had a few beers and got creative, and decided to add 2 lbs of cane sugar to bump the gravity up to where it was supposed to be. Then I saw 2 lbs of blueberries that weer almost gone bad in my fridge and decided to boil those up and throw them in too. Then I saw some ginger peach black tea bags and tossed two of those in there. Oh yea.

That leaves us with:

Base beer recipe (smoked rauchbier) with a bad mash
2 lbs cane sugar
2 lbs blueberries (boiled and smashed)
2 bags packets of ginger peach black tea
:rockin:

What do y'all think? Is this beer going to be drinkable? Did i get drunk and do too much crazy stuff? Is it ruined because I didn't mash efficiently? I brewed yesterday and it's bubbling away healthy now, I used a good starter of German Ale yeast. Thoughts?

Cheers!

Daniel G
AHA Intern

Cmon someone's gotta have an opinion on this

Hahaha. I hope it turns out great for you. Getting drunk and mixing a bunch of ingredients together is a hobby of mine. Havent done it while brewing though.

I am all for experimenting as long as you put what you learn to use in future batches. And drink the crap out of it.

I say what the hell...go for it. Sam C made a beer out of corn and spit. May your drunken creativity leave you as successful

dgrabstein said:

Cmon someone's gotta have an opinion on this

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My opinion is that it sounds...uh...interesting. Can't tell without tasting, but I'd guess that it will take a while to finish the whole batch.

Definitely sounds like an odd combination to me. 2# of blueberries really isn't much in a five gallon batch. If you used the same amount in a wheat beer, you'd probably just get a hint of blueberry if you were lucky. I'm guessing it'll add more coloring than flavor or aroma. I'm not a tea drinker so I don't have any experience with it, but I don't think that's much either for five gallons. My guess is it will be fairly dry and will taste more or less like a rauchbier but you'll get a hint of something that will be hard to identify.

Good luck, sounds gross. Don't mind me though, not a fan of fruit in my beer.

microbusbrewery said:

Definitely sounds like an odd combination to me. 2# of blueberries really isn't much in a five gallon batch. If you used the same amount in a wheat beer, you'd probably just get a hint of blueberry if you were lucky. I'm guessing it'll add more coloring than flavor or aroma. I'm not a tea drinker so I don't have any experience with it, but I don't think that's much either for five gallons. My guess is it will be fairly dry and will taste more or less like a rauchbier but you'll get a hint of something that will be hard to identify.

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+1. Especially 2lbs in the boil. Can't see it hurting anything but I wouldn't expect many(any?) characteristics that you can point to as being due to the blueberries. But considering they weren't going to any other use it was an honorable burial at sea.

You forgot the eye of newt and the dragons finger nails. If it doesn't turn out, just give them out as Xmas gifts to co workers you don't like lol

so how did it turn out?

It will be fine...

We just did a beer with some base malt extract and 3LBS of concentrated organic fruit...But the kicker is there was a blend of blackberry,strawberry,blueberry...

The most redeeming feature of home brewing is drinking what is not on the shelves...I tire of the standard IPA...Stout...Amber...Pale...Lager etc...

Your on the right track. Which type of Rauch malt did you use? The Weyermann in the white and red sacks is quite nice...It's effectively spicey without giving you the bacon flavor. Briess smoked malt has a much more pronounced character.

Good luck. I use rauch malt in almost everything...a touch of smoke is just fascinating to thing about. I mean I'm drinking smoke from germany here in CA....how cool is that.