If you could only brew with ingredients found at the supermarket, what would you use?

Say you wanted to make some sort of beer with only items found at your grocer, and barring ciders or other fruit based concoctions what would you use?

Corn Syrup as the main fermentable
Brown Sugar/Molasses as adjuncts
Steeped Oats for body & mouth feel
Sage/Licorice Root for bittering
Bread yeast

At first this sounded like an interesting experiment, but after looking at the list I think it may just turn out horrible. Who knows though.

EDIT - I bet you could also use some sort of herbal tea in the bittering.

I'm thinking rice and corn.
cane sugar (for making belgian candi sugar)
oats
raid the soup section for dried barley
I'm sure I can think of more.

This is an interesting little experiment. I guess I would try to make some sort of chocolate stout with oatmeal, honey, and chocolate. I wonder what kind of beer you'd get with bread yeast?

I saw a cider experiment where they used many different ale and wine yeasts as well as bread yeast. In the end it was found that the cider w/ bread yeast was in the top three.

Also, looking to Gruit recipes for examples I found that Rosemary was pretty common.

I'd use some Ovaltine or find some other products made with dry malt extract

I was walking through Fred Meyer the other day grocery shopping and this very same thing popped into my mind. They have lots of grains and honey's and what not that could be used for brewing if one was so inclined. I know with some careful planning, and the right grocery store, you could make a drinkable brew.

Grape Nuts. If you look at the ingredients, it even lists yeast.

I think that it would definately depend on the grocery store. Some grocery stores that carry bulk bin items have a decent selection of heirloom grains/flours, etc... might have alot to offer in the way of brewing. I'm half tempted to take a look around next time I'm out and around and see what I could find to brew with.

I like this idea, kind of a what if prohibition were brought back. bread yeast, culturing wild yeast, fruits and fruit juice, all types of sugar, maple syrup, honey. Id stick with the fruit juice and honey for anything of quality but any of it will suffice if your just looking to get drunk.

Next time I go, I am going to get some stuff and see what I can come up with. I like the idea of a Rosemary flavored beer actually, at least in theory. Maybe I will get enough to make a one gallon batch and see how it goes.

Tenchiro said:

Next time I go, I am going to get some stuff and see what I can come up with. I like the idea of a Rosemary flavored beer actually, at least in theory. Maybe I will get enough to make a one gallon batch and see how it goes.

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I was thinking about Rosemary flavored beer, I have a huge plant out on the deck. Keep us updated!

My local grocery stores have a half way decent beer selection, so I'd grab a sixer or two of one of the unfiltered beers they carry and harvest yeast before using bread yeast. Would that be considered cheating in this experiment?

c.n.budz said:

My local grocery stores have a half way decent beer selection, so I'd grab a sixer or two of one of the unfiltered beers they carry and harvest yeast before using bread yeast. Would that be considered cheating in this experiment?

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If it could be harvested and cultured using in store ingredients I think it would fall within the guidelines.

Alot of people on the boards have done SmaSH, Now I think we need to do a GaP (Grocery and Produce) Beer. We need rules.
#1 Yeast, only bread yeast or natural yeast.
#2 Fermentables, everything but fruit juice, unless its a fruit flavored beer.
#3 hops whatever you want

anything else. I am more then willing to try this out. Christ, it has to be cheaper then making a beer with dme

Very simple. Applejuice & bread yeast. It would be an acquired taste, but it would be good and simple.

Ya know I figured you would pop in and throw that one in Ed. But lets make this a little more complicated, No fruit Juice. Anyone can pitch yeast into any number of juices. Lets see some mashing of cereal grains, or maybe just cereal!.

Edit:no fruit juice unless its a fruit flavored beer!!

Arneba28 said:

Ya know I figured you would pop in and throw that one in Ed. But lets make this a little more complicated, No fruit Juice. Anyone can pitch yeast into any number of juices. Lets see some mashing of cereal grains, or maybe just cereal!.

Edit:no fruit juice unless its a fruit flavored beer!!

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I think hops should be out as well, after all who has a supermarket or grocer that carries em?

Ok ill agree with that. No hops, we want to do an exchange at the end of this? Damn Ill go out and get stuff tomorrow for this. Im excited.

Arneba28 said:

Damn Ill go out and get stuff tomorrow for this. Im excited.

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I'm in also. This could be really fun. Even if this doesn't produce a good brew, it'll at least help me to expand my horizons and maybe even discover a brilliant ingredient for future brews.

I am in, should we make a new thread about it?

EDIT - Made a thread here.

Tenchiro said:

Next time I go, I am going to get some stuff and see what I can come up with. I like the idea of a Rosemary flavored beer actually, at least in theory. Maybe I will get enough to make a one gallon batch and see how it goes.

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Danger! Danger, Will Robinson!

The rosemary in your garden and the rosemary in the grocery is not the marsh rosemary used in gruit ales. Completely different plant. The grocery variety is useless as a brewing herb. Trust me on this one; it tastes utterly FOUL.

Cheers,

Bob

I've seen this around in a few grocery stores:
http://www.edenfoods.com/store/product_info.php?products_id=104050
You could probably make a pretty good beer with that. The only thing is the hops. They're not so easily replacable.

EDIT: Even better, see the detailed description:
http://www.edenfoods.com/store/product_details.php?products_id=104050&eID=879a2dcdc3ea0b5e8a36b1d2b24afe6b
"It can also be used in homebrewing."

menschmaschine said:

I've seen this around in a few grocery stores:
http://www.edenfoods.com/store/product_info.php?products_id=104050
You could probably make a pretty good beer with that. The only thing is the hops. They're not so easily replacable.

EDIT: Even better, see the detailed description:
http://www.edenfoods.com/store/product_details.php?products_id=104050&eID=879a2dcdc3ea0b5e8a36b1d2b24afe6b
"It can also be used in homebrewing."

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This guy found cans of actual Premier Malt Extract (makers the original prohibition homebrewer's staple Blue Ribbon Malt Extract) at his grocery store...

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showpost.php?p=711840&postcount=1

Revvy said:

This guy found cans of actual Premier Malt Extract (makers the original prohibition homebrewer's staple Blue Ribbon Malt Extract) at his grocery store...

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showpost.php?p=711840&postcount=1

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Hey, now that's cheating!

I'm thinking along the lines of mashing sweet potatoes and squash. Apparently Brazilians did the sweet potato thing. I'm going to go with some more traditional ingredients like oats as well, just to give it a more traditional beer like character.

menschmaschine said:

Hey, now that's cheating!

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Not if it's found in the grocery store...If it's being sold in the baking aisle of your grocery store than I say go for it...

ALthough it is not as much fun as trying this from scratch.

I'm leaning towards malted corn, I'm actually going to try to roast it (see what happens) rolled oats, couscous for the wheat or possibly malt-o-meal, wild rice, honey, and some bittering spices (yarrow, star anise, allspice) I plan on making a few different recepies in small batches, we'll see how it turns out.

interesting idea...if i had the time i'd join. to tell you the truth, tho, if it came down to it i would grow my own malt. i already grow hops.

anything i'd get from store would be to make cider and mead

I'd use fresh fruit for the yeast, probably. No beer in grocery stores here. But fresh fruit skins are covered in natural yeast.

Careful with anise. It takes over.

Kai said:

Careful with anise. It takes over.

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the one you really gotta watch out for is wormwood, I used just a tiny pinch in the one gallon of gruit I've got aging, and its quite bitter, I'll probably step it back a little bit for next time.

A lot of grocers sell bulk grains. As long as you could find raw grains (oftentimes, buckwheat or kashi can be found raw, esp. in heath food stores) they can be germinated at home; see this article for how.
From there, you can roast said grains to your desired toastiness, and mash as usual (though I would use a step mash for home malted grains).
As for yeast....I have seen "brewer's yeast" at my local health food store, but you could use bread yeast.
To sub for hops....though I have, again, seen "hops" at the same HFS. I'd try to take my inspiration from gruit recipies.
Health food grocers rock...

One more thread to make my already screwed up brain think of brewing even more then i do. Someone else posted somthing similar to this. I cant look at anything now with out wanting to turn it into a alcoholic beverage. fruit veggies sugar juice spices i mean i cant even go grocery shopping hardly.

Agave Nectar