Weirdest Brew

What's the weirdest brew you have ever made (or thought about making)?

I've seen stouts with lemon juice in them, brewed beer with juniper, and read about ancient gruits.

What have you done? How'd it turn out???

My friend has made a oyster stout, smoked salmon porter, and a bacon porter. All were pretty good but the bacon porter was my favorite. The oyster stout won the local pro-am contest 2 years ago.

ben the brewman said:

My friend has made a oyster stout, smoked salmon porter, and a bacon porter. All were pretty good but the bacon porter was my favorite. The oyster stout won the local pro-am contest 2 years ago.

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ugg. I guess if that's your thing. but IMO why ruin perfectly good beer.

Special Hops said:

ugg. I guess if that's your thing. but IMO why ruin perfectly good beer.

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without experimentation we'd never have innovation

A ginger beer with chamomile or maybe the 6% ABV root beer. The latter took a fair amount of back-sweetening to taste right.

I always wanted to try alcoholic root beer. Recipe, possibly?

Oyster stout. That is blowing my mind.

danweasel said:

I always wanted to try alcoholic root beer. Recipe, possibly?

Oyster stout. That is blowing my mind.

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Oyster stout is a pretty common style, actually.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stout#Oyster_stout

They fall under BJCP style 13B, "Sweet Stouts"--the BJCP guidelines list Marston’s Oyster Stout as an example of a sweet stout.

Michael Jackson wrote about them here: http://www.beerhunter.com/documents/19133-001521.html

I've found a few at random bars in the DC areas over the years.

Still, I think I'd put that one right up there with "toothpaste stout"

Lots of beer with different candy, the red-hot beer was not bad. Candy corn beer not so much. Lucky Charms in stout on St. Patties days seems popular at my local brew pub. One guy made ants on a log beer, which was supposed to taste like peanut butter, raises and celery, was not a fan.
I've always said home brewers will try just about anything, and why not it's just beer.
One of these days I'm going to make a dirt beer, here's the label:

love that it's a "permium" brew!

When I was doing extracts back in college, the local brew store was going out of business, so I grabbed one of everything for an extrqact brew with no real recipe in mind.

Toward the end of the boil, I grabbed for some loose-leaf Lapsang Souchong smoked tea. This Chinese tea is smoked over pinewood embers.

The final beer had a defnite "campfire" aftertaste.

This was before I'd ever heard of smoked beer before. I liked my approach.

I've done a few gruits, they were strange, not beer like you'd know them.

SumnerH said:

Oyster stout is a pretty common style, actually.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stout#Oyster_stout

They fall under BJCP style 13B, "Sweet Stouts"--the BJCP guidelines list Marston’s Oyster Stout as an example of a sweet stout.

Michael Jackson wrote about them here: http://www.beerhunter.com/documents/19133-001521.html

I've found a few at random bars in the DC areas over the years.

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Harpoon did one recently, and it may be relatively easy to find for anyone who hasn't tried one. I liked it...though it wasn't sweet.

ben the brewman said:

My friend has made a oyster stout, smoked salmon porter, and a bacon porter. All were pretty good but the bacon porter was my favorite. The oyster stout won the local pro-am contest 2 years ago.

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i always find that schlenkerla marzen reminds me 100% of smoked salmon.. i really want to try to make something like that but with a salty taste too, maybe with actual salt

Freezeblade said:

I've done a few gruits, they were strange, not beer like you'd know them.

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what were the ingredients you tried and which ones worked out best? i would lvoe to try making a gruit beer sometime

blagoe said:

Lots of beer with different candy, the red-hot beer was not bad. Candy corn beer not so much. Lucky Charms in stout on St. Patties days seems popular at my local brew pub. One guy made ants on a log beer, which was supposed to taste like peanut butter, raises and celery, was not a fan.
I've always said home brewers will try just about anything, and why not it's just beer.
One of these days I'm going to make a dirt beer, here's the label:

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Actually, this can be done. It would take some effort, but you can do this. Pool filters use sand as a filtering agent. i use it in my aquarium as gravel. It takes a LOT of time to clean the dust and silt from it, but i see no reason why you couldn't use it to filter a brew. I doubt it'd affect the flavor, but might add minerals to it in trace amounts that could affect the quality of the finished beer. You'd probably need to sanitize it and have a way to filter out the sand itself. Perhaps in a hopback?


And to JS about that Lapsang Souchong...can you post or PM me details on your method? I have this same style of brew on my to-do list.

dirt beer, mmmmm.

we brought juniper berries and hibiscus home from the pike place market while in seattle and i decided to dedicate a batch to 'em. the juniper berries add a sour tang to the beer that is added to by the slight berry aroma from the hibiscus. saison yeast added yet another dimension to the delighful brew. in all an interesting creation about 4 months after brewday i finally got to try RR consecration. i'm in no way claiming RR status, but they tasted eerily similar!!

fredthecat said:

what were the ingredients you tried and which ones worked out best? i would lvoe to try making a gruit beer sometime

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So far I've used Yarrow and wormwood as bittering agents, they were both strange, I'd suggest yarrow over wormwood though, as such a small amount goes a long way, and instead of a smooth bitter like hops give, I got a harsh and arid bitter. Maybe it would work well in a dry stout? like, a 1/8 oz in a 5 gallon batch.

The idea of meat in beer kinda blows my mind... How does one get any head retention in a bacon beer, for example? It would seem like the fat would pretty severely retard head retention... Plus, it seems like it would taste kinda gross...

ftlstrings said:

The idea of meat in beer kinda blows my mind... How does one get any head retention in a bacon beer, for example? It would seem like the fat would pretty severely retard head retention... Plus, it seems like it would taste kinda gross...

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He cooked the bacon until it was very crispy and patted it down with paper towels until it was as dry as he could get it. It didnt have the best head retention but it wasnt bad. It had a good flavor not really that bacony but more of a smokey flavor to it.