Spice, Herb, or Vegetable Beer Northern Lights Juniper Rye Pale Ale

This was the first beer I've made using Rye and/or Juniper berries. I think it came out pretty well and I'll be making it again when the juniper is ripe for picking.
Recipe based on 75% brew house efficiency

7 lbs American 2-row
1.75 lbs Rye
1 lb of Vienna
.5 lb Crystal 60
4oz Flaked Barley
Mash grains at 150F with about 4 gallons of water for 1 hour.

.75 oz Magnum 10.6% aa for 60 min boil
.5 oz Cascade 6.1%aa last 15 min of boil
.25 oz Chinook 11.4% aa last 15 min of boil
1 tsp of Irish Moss last 15 min of boil
1 oz crushed Juniper berries last 15 min of boil
at flame out add:
.5 oz Cascade 6.1% aa
.25 oz Chinook 11.4% aa

Chill to pitching temps and sprinkle US-05 yeast into fermenter, aerate as usual.

This recipe got 3rd place in the "West Division" 2011 HBT Competition for category 21A

Huh, interesting recipe. I'd like to try that some time.

Have you had any experience using juniper in an amber or copper ale?

I have not but I am pretty sure it would work quite well. I'm considering doing a Juniper Kolsch right now, hopefully the juniper isn't too overpowering for the style.

Im thinking a load of caramunich and honey malt with munich and vienna as base. Magnum bittering, hallertau aroma, wyeast 2565 or white labs kolsch yeast.
Og: 1.08ish with juniper in the mash and perhaps in the boil. Srm 20 ish ibu 20 ish. Mash 154ish. Im thinking that the juniper will play nicely with the caramel chewiness and the rye. What do you think?

Paul, that sounds pretty good. Let me know how it turns out if you make it. I'm interested to see how mashing the juniper works out for you.

Will do. Planning on brewing it tomorrow.

Plans fell through. I ended up picking up two couches and driving them halfway across the city.

Brew day is tomorrow.

Will post results.

Well brew day went really smoothly (first brew day in an apartment on an electric range). I got a stuck sparge from the thick mash and the rye, but after blowing back through the manifold and psuedo-fly sparging I was able to hit all of my numbers!
I put 0.5 oz crushed juniper in the mash for 30 min. That didn't do much, so I added another 0.5 oz at 15 in the boil. The juniper is really subtle, so I am going to see how the fermentation plays out on the flavors. I might add a half ounce to an ounce in the secondary or as a tea at bottling time.

I don't have internet at my new place (been posting from my phone), but when I do I will start a dedicated thread, and a recipe if it turns out good!

Would flaked rye work ok? Im thinking about making this but only have flaked rye. Im thinking the rye and juniper would show more with age as the hops mellow out? Also, do you think there are certain hops that work better with juniper,i have different hops and right now i have alot of german and noble hops but have a few american type.
Have you saved any of bottles if you condtion to see how they age and develope?

PaulTheGhost said:

Im thinking a load of caramunich and honey malt with munich and vienna as base. Magnum bittering, hallertau aroma, wyeast 2565 or white labs kolsch yeast.
Og: 1.08ish with juniper in the mash and perhaps in the boil. Srm 20 ish ibu 20 ish. Mash 154ish. Im thinking that the juniper will play nicely with the caramel chewiness and the rye. What do you think?

Click to expand...

I like the idea of honeymalt and vienna but not a ton of caramunich. If you have used a ton of caramunich before and like it though ,go for it.

I have no idea what flaked rye would do, I have never used it. I can only imagine it would be even gummier than regular rye in the mash tun and possibly cause a stuck mash.

I used Cascade in this because I thought the citrus notes of it would compliment the juniper. If you want the juniper to really stand out I would suggest you use some of your german/noble hops. They are more subtle and would prevent you from having to store the beer as long waiting for the hops to mellow out. Unfortunately I don't think any of these beers lasted much over a year in the bottle but the last one I drank didn't seem to have drastically changed so I would say no, the juniper and rye most likely will not come through much more with aging.

On a separate note: I recently made a Juniper Porter by using crushed juniper berries in the secondary. It was experimental so I only used 2 gallons of porter. I crushed 3/8oz of juniper berries, I let those sit for one week and didn't notice them much. Let it go for 3 more weeks and still didn't notice much. Let that go for two more weeks and good lord was there a lot of juniper going on! Too much for my tastes. If you decide to "dryhop" with juniper make sure you taste it frequently to get the right amount, I was surprised how quickly that snuck up in the end.

THanks much.Very imformative,makes me wonder if you could do 3X as much for dryhopp but only for a week or two to get the same effects.
The mash wont effect me i do biab but ive only heard rye flakes impartes more of a spicey dryness to it,not shure though.

How do you feel about FWH with juniper and some last 15? Do you think .5 oz would be much for a 1.7 gal batch and would 30 min to wort cool be too long to chill with juniper still in the wort? I feel when i do last min additons because it takes me 30 min to chill that i really only flavor hop because of this.
I used a little victory and caramunich hope this turns out good i cant see what would go wrong.

I can't comment on the FWH either, I've never done that with hops or juniper. In the last 15 min of the boil is what I have in the recipe anyway, I think that is perfectly fine. I chose 15 min to ensure that any bacteria/yeast on the juiper would be killed in the boil. I do not think a 30 min chill would be bad for the beer either. That is about the amount of time it took me to chill beer when I wrote this recipe. Honestly, I wouldn't be afraind of adding both flavor and aroma hops to your beers with a 30 min. chill. That really isn't excessively long. I bet if you ask around that is what it takes a lot of the brewers on these forums.

Any thoughts on adding half of the juniper berries at the 15 min. point and the remaining half after 2 weeks into the fermentor? A fellow brewer suggested this and I was curious what others would say. Looking to brew this beer in about a week

This is in the vein of Finnish Sahti, an ancient beer that dogfish did a version of. But here in Finland, rye is a bigger part of the grain bill

Just wanted to mention that I brewed this back in Feb and cracked the keg a week or two ago - this is by far one of my favorite beers Ive made - the juniper flavor is just the perfect amount. I will be keeping this on tap pretty regularly as my wife and friends love it too. Thanks for a great recipe!

What kind of flavor does the juniper give?