Rose beer??

So about a month ago I bought 2 oz of rose buds and petals from a local festival. I'd like to use them in a beer, but don't really know the best application. Is 2 oz enough to even make a difference?? I'll be making a 5 gal batch using extract and steeping grains. Maybe stovetop PM, but my luck with that hasn't been anything to write home about.

Also - I just got a chest freezer off CL for ferm control, so I'd like to lager it if appropriate. Your advice would be very much appreciated. Thanks!

A rose beer...like the flower??

Uh huh! I imagine a hefe would lend itself well to it's light flavoring. My main concern when to add it to the boil to extract it's flavor, and make sure it isn't overshadowed by hops.

I would make a rose water/tea soaking them in vodka and then add that to secondary or bottling bucket to target the flavor. Last year I had a manhattan somewhere in Chicago that used rose water or some type of rose flavored liquor. It was interesting but really good. It was a quite intense flavor, if I remember correctly, druck, they put a few medicine droppers worth of the rose water and that was it, stood up well to the bourbon. Good luck and let us know how it turns out.

maybe treat it like a hibiscus saison?

jlpred55 said:

I would make a rose water/tea soaking them in vodka and then add that to secondary or bottling bucket to target the flavor. Last year I had a manhattan somewhere in Chicago that used rose water or some type of rose flavored liquor. It was interesting but really good. It was a quite intense flavor, if I remember correctly, druck, they put a few medicine droppers worth of the rose water and that was it, stood up well to the bourbon. Good luck and let us know how it turns out.

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+1 on the tea idea

ive thought about a rose beer. I would use "rose water" though, as the flavor addition, and the base beer would be a cream ale, with IBU around 15. Here is the rose water you can get from any middle eastern grocery store:

http://www.mylebanesegrocer.com/index.php/rose-water-10-oz.html?___store=default


i know ur not supposed to boil rose water, it loses its flavor if you do, so I would probably add it at bottling time, possibly boiling it for a few minutes with the priming sugar?...

I'm going to boil this out tonight. A pretty simple recipe to make sure it's focus isn't lost with the rose.

5 Gal batch

8lbs Wheat LME
1lb Crystal 10L
1oz Saaz hops @ 60

White Labs Hefeweizen IV yeast

I'm doing the rose tea idea with vodka. I'll let it soak for two weeks, then add at bottling. I'm pretty excited to see how this one turns out.

I decided to soak 1.5oz rose buds/petals in 1 cup vodka, and boil .5oz rose for 20 min. It made the house smell AMAZING.

My question is this: will the flavor of that much vodka shine through?? If it does, will it subside with time??

Many thanks!

I had a taste of this rose beer the other week:
"Caldera Rose Pedal Imperial Golden Ale: Made with 11 pounds of rose pedals and two liters of Bulgarian rose water, brewer Jim Mills says “this beers tastes like a party at Grandma’s house.” This is the only keg of this taproom exclusive beer to reach Portland and is dangerously delicious!"

I thought the rose aroma and flavor were totally over done, I would not drink a pint of that beer. I would advise caution to avoid that "Grandma’s house." taste.

Here it is, finishing up fermentation:



And the vodka getting the goodness out of the rose petals:



Hopefully the vodka taste gets masked. I'm still unsure if it'll be too much or not, I'll taste at bottling to see if I wanna add it.

A brew pub in Boston (Boston Beer Works) had one and it was eh for me, I like the heffenwizen idea though.

greencoat said:

Here it is, finishing up fermentation:

Hopefully the vodka taste gets masked. I'm still unsure if it'll be too much or not, I'll taste at bottling to see if I wanna add it.

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I don't think you'll have anything to worry about re: the vodka. Vodka doesn't really have flavor beyond "alcohol", which shouldn't stand out in your beer if you're only adding a cup.

gxm said:

I had a taste of this rose beer the other week:
"Caldera Rose Pedal Imperial Golden Ale: Made with 11 pounds of rose pedals and two liters of Bulgarian rose water, brewer Jim Mills says “this beers tastes like a party at Grandma’s house.” This is the only keg of this taproom exclusive beer to reach Portland and is dangerously delicious!"

I thought the rose aroma and flavor were totally over done, I would not drink a pint of that beer. I would advise caution to avoid that "Grandma’s house." taste.

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I made a mead with hibiscus tea and rose water. It smells a little nicer than Grandma's house, but it's not the best drink.

Looks like she's stuck @ 1.026. I racked it to secondary so I can have my primary back, hopefully that'll kick-start it back up. The sample was delicious, the rose wasn't strong at all. Barely noticeable, really.

I'm very interested in your results. Being from Columbus originally, and planning a trip to Pasadena, I want to make a special beer for our Rose Bowl tailgating.

When you say the rose wasn't strong at all, have you already added the tea? Barely noticeable is about what I'm thinking. Enough that you get a hint of it in the aroma. If the name implies that it's made with roses, just a hint will go a long ways when someone tries it, I think.

cul8rv8 said:

I'm very interested in your results. Being from Columbus originally, and planning a trip to Pasadena, I want to make a special beer for our Rose Bowl tailgating.

When you say the rose wasn't strong at all, have you already added the tea? Barely noticeable is about what I'm thinking. Enough that you get a hint of it in the aroma. If the name implies that it's made with roses, just a hint will go a long ways when someone tries it, I think.

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It was barely noticeable without the tea. If you didn't know there was rose in the boil, you wouldn't be able to notice it. The hydro sample tasted great, and you could tell there was something unusual in it, but I'd be highly impressed if someone could point out it was rose. We'll see what happens after the tea (in whole or part) is added at bottle time.

Good to know. I think that's about what I'm looking for. I look forward to reading your end results!

Any news on this one? One of my brewing partners is also an OSU fan. We went with the Hefeweizen route as well. Did you add the vodka rose tea to the secondary or at bottling? How did it come out?

Bump! How did this turn out?

I believe we soaked 8 oz of rose petals in vodka for about a week, then transferred the vodka to the secondary.

Honestly, all I think it did was provide a light red hue to the color of the beer, but we couldn't pinpoint a taste or aroma it provided. Maybe we have to add more rose petals.

If anyone is toying with the idea of using rose water, I'd like to add a word of caution.

I brewed a 5gal saison (OG 1.055, FG 1.004 (yup, .004)) and added 5 tbs dried lavender and 3 tbs rose water to secondary. Mistake. The lavender is perfect, there's a thread here that broke it down (1 tbs/gal for subtle, 2 tbs/gal for prominent in secondary) but 3 tbs of rose water makes the beer taste like perfume. Granted a beer that dry will accentuate anything you add to it, but believe me when I say, you will be debating whether to drink your beer or use it for shampoo.

So far my research has told me that rose water: should never be boiled, and added tsp by tsp to taste at bottling.

Sorry if this repeats anything already said here, but I figure I'd share my all too familiar experience with the dangers of rose water.

Side note, I think someone mentioned the use of rose hips... rose hips actually impart more of a citrus character than floral, delicious but not what you're looking for when you want "rose"

greencoat said:

I decided to soak 1.5oz rose buds/petals in 1 cup vodka, and boil .5oz rose for 20 min. It made the house smell AMAZING.

My question is this: will the flavor of that much vodka shine through?? If it does, will it subside with time??

Many thanks!

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Any verdict?

Anyone managed to create something with a a nice rose aroma that's still drinkable? Using which process?

I've had mine place in a couple competitions. It is based off a Sierra Nevada beer camp project a few years back. Deep on the interwebs is a PDF of the recipe. It uses rose hips on a pale ale recipe and a delicate rose pedal dry hop. I add a very small amount of rose water to it as well to add a little bitterness.

I made a cream ale and kegged it. Then bought a squirt bottle of rose water and tried to find the right mix of rose water to beer ratio. Turns out there isn't one. So I turned the rest into a peach cream ale using some flavor extract from the brew store. That turned out to be one of my favorite summer chugger beers

meemerbrewco said:

Then bought a squirt bottle of rose water and tried to find the right mix of rose water to beer ratio. Turns out there isn't one.

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There isn't one? Or you just didn't find it...

So if I were to a 5g batch of a cream ale or American Wheat, how much rose water would be recommended in bottling bucket? sounds potent. Like 2 tbs?

Well we'll see what happens. I'm doing a small batch (2.375G in fermenter) to test this out. It is going to be an American Wheat and I'm gonna add 2 oz. of rose water to bottling bucket and see what happens.

I know a lot of people have been advocating rose water, but I've had great luck with rose extract: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00EWT8TVC/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20

It's expensive at $25 for 4 oz, but worked like a dream for making a abbey style ale with rose hip tea and this extract. I only added about 12 drops to a 2.5 gallon batch so the taste and aroma is very subtle. I'll definitely be making another batch this winter!

brewed a very simple Wheat AG and dry-hopped with 8 oz of dried rose.
The beer tastes very sour, very light (not much flavor) and had a nice white film on top of the kreusen prior to kegging.
I won't be doing this one again and will probably dump the batch I have now.

(Last time I listen to the wife and her "great ideas" for a beer)

Yeah, there's too much "stuff" on the actual petals. I think you would need rose-infused vodka or real rose water/extract. Using the petals themselves post-boil is going to result in something funky if not infected.

WSB-MBC said:

brewed a very simple Wheat AG and dry-hopped with 8 oz of dried rose.

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I guess you need more ingredients to do something like this:
https://www.beermenus.com/beers/39344-birrificio-italiano-fleurette

Grazie didinho
That looks fantastic!

I brewed a 2.25g batch (American Wheat style) and added about 3 oz. of Rose Water at bottling. I actually kind of like the beer on hot days. Its like a very strong floral hopped beer in my opinion, but the rose water is the dominant floral flavor. Nice rose aroma. I maybe would drop the rose water to like 2 oz next time.

Reaction has been kind of mixed. Its a good small batch one-off summer brew.

Very interesting thread. I am thinking of doing a saison with rose water and was searching for learnings from fellow brewers. I want a very subtle aroma, hoping people would tell its floral without knowing exactly it is rose. I am wondering if rose water is too "soapy". Also thinking of adding hibiscus and rose hips. what hops do you think could be cool to dry hop that beer?