Beer Dry Hopped with tomato

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TOO FUNNY!!!!
I just said to my wife a couple of weeks ago: "We should make a tomato beer!!"
She just stared at me for a minute and then said: EEEWWW!!! YUUUKKK!!!

Geeze! Some people... NO sense of adventure!!!

anyway, my thinking would be something low acid and maybe a pale ale base beer.
Yellow tomatoes tend to be low acid. I might try Romas, but would just want a hint in the back ground. Maybe one?? in the boil?

You could maybe secondary for a couple of days on a small amount of Contidina (or similar) paste...
I'm CERTAIN a small amount would go a LOOOOONG way!
 
You're going to want some basil too. Maybe a bit of rosemary for good measure
 
I'm always willing to try crazy beer ideas, but out of curiosity, what base style were you thinking of, and what gave you the idea? I'd think you would want a fairly light, refreshing, low gravity beer for something like this...there was that one beer by Dogfish Head though (Portamarillo) that was a porter style. I seem to remember that the tamarillo is a bit different that north American tomatoes...

My mind immediately jumped to the 'clamato' type stuff I've occasionally seen in gas stations/convenience stores...

I do like the idea of using sun dried tomatoes...
 
Pizza flavored Pringles are awesome, I don't see why you couldn't go for Pizza beer too! I like the Sun Dried recommendation.
 
You might want to try oven roasted tomatos.

Take a dozen or so roma (the long ones, not the round ones) and cut them in half, length wise.

Take a baking dish and fill it with about a half inch of salt.

Place the tomatos in the backing dish skin side down.

Roast for 8 hours at 250.

Between the salt and the roasting you hopefully will have a product that is closer to sanitary and most of the moisture will be pulled out of the tomato. But not so much that the beer can't get into it and extract the tomato flavor.
 
You could make an extract with sun dried tomatoes & vodka...
Vodka releases a flavor from tomatoes not otherwise available.

If it turns out not to be the best "drinking" beer... it would be great for cooking sausages!!!
 
sieglere said:
You're going to want some basil too. Maybe a bit of rosemary for good measure

Had a Rosemary IPA at Savor last weekend, it was AWESOME...
 
Roasting to dehydrate, like the blaster said, might be good...
probably would caramelize some unfermentable sugars & add a little body?
I'm not so sure about the salt though...
 
This is dumb. I could just eat tomatoes while drinking beer.

The sausage and tomato combination sounds great though.

So what about cutting up the tomatoes and putting in secondary? Would they need to be dried first? My kids love for me to dry spaghetti sauce for backpacking. I use an alcohol stove to cook the pasta and some of the leftover water for rehydrating the sauce. The stove is made from 2 pop cans and weighs about as much as a fly's fart.
 
Very interesting idea! Back in the day, BMC ( - we didn't know better back then ;) ) with a shot or two of tomato juice was THE drink.
 
I have oven roasted tomatos a few dozen times (they are great in pasta or on crostini - in beer? who knows...)

The moisture leeches into the salt creating a hard crust. No salt is absorbed into the tomato itself. Sometimes a few grains will stick to the skin, but those can be easily seen and easily brushed off (one of the reasons why it must be skin side down). Personally, I peel the skins after roasting. They slide right off and the skins don't add any value.

I'm confident that if the beer sucks, it won't be the salt that is to blame!
 
If you're set on fresh tomatoes, I would either oven roast them or grill them (it is summer after all) until the skin is blistered and slightly charred. It'll lend a nice smoky flavor as well as softening up the tomatoes.

While you're at it, make some extra and eat them too!
 
Personally, I peel the skins after roasting. They slide right off and the skins don't add any value.

Lots of potentially cancer-fighting lycopene in those skins.

When I roast tomatoes, I don't bother with salt. I just fill up a cookie sheet with cut tomatoes and some heads of garlic, drizzle with olive oil and roast at 250 till they look the way I want (6-8 hours).

They're a great sauce base, great on toast, and great with eggs in the morning.
 
If you are going to dry hop with tomato, you are going to need tomato hops. You are probably going to have to graft some hops and some tomato plants together. Or are you looking to selective breed some hops that smell like tomatoes?

EDIT: If you are talking about simply adding tomatoes to your beer, this would be a fruit beer. :D
 
I don't know...HBngNOK mentioned a tomato flavored American style light lager...sounds delicious...(unsubtle sarcasm)

To be a bit more productive, I would suggest seeding the tomatoes before you use them. That should help with acidity. Also local vine ripened tomatoes tend to be great. As are most ripe cherry tomatoes
 
Part of me is wary that the the OP - know for having a funny bone - is pulling everyone's leg with this topic.

Perhaps I'm just a cynic.
 
I plan on making a bloody Mary pale ale soon. I was gonna add tomatoes to the boil along with some peppers. Then I would add peppers soaked in vodka to the secondary.
 
Sprecher brewing company once had a pizza beer I believe. I think it was made with tomato an oregano. They called it the mama mia! Pizza beer. It was brewed for a local pizzeria here

It doesn't surprise me that they don't make it anymore
 
HBngNOK said:
Very interesting idea! Back in the day, BMC ( - we didn't know better back then ;) ) with a shot or two of tomato juice was THE drink.

I still do this, call the red beers. Great morning after drink. 😉
 
What about green tomatoes? I haven't had them since I was a kid visiting grandma, and other than the movie (which, SPOILER ALERT, wasn't much about the title subject), I know nothing about them.

I'm assuming since they are not ripe they would be even more acidic?

I was going to plant some tomatoes this year but didn't get around to it. I still have some heirloom tomatoes from last year that might have been good. We only got a few to fruit last year to due to poor care.

Maybe it would be better to juice them and strain the seeds and pulp instead of dry tomatoing them? (tomato as a verb is strange...)
 
Some friends of ours make a tomato wine. I can ask how they do do it and let you know. I remember it is clear with a slight redish tint, basically the juice with all the pulp removed. It was not gawd awful either.
 
You could make an extract with sun dried tomatoes & vodka...
Vodka releases a flavor from tomatoes not otherwise available.

This would be my advice as well. Tomato flavor is pretty delicate, you'd have to have a ton in there to get anything, while a small amount of sun-dried soak in vodka for a week .... awesome flavor. For testing, you could also use a drop or two of that homemade sun-dried tomato extract in a few styles of beer you have at home to see how much flavor is good, or if it only works in certain styles.
 
This has probably already been posted but I used to drink "Red Beer" all the time. It was half V8 juice and half Coors or Bud light. Pretty tasty actually. Maybe a 1 gallon tester is in order.
 
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