earl grey flavor

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Dycokac

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So one of my local breweries has this wheat beer in the summer and it has an earl grey like flavor in it.

I was curious if there's a Hop that imparts a simliar flavor of if maybe the've just used bitter orange in the recipe as I found in one of the threads in here about using tea in a brew.

Any suggestions on a guideline how to get that type of flavor into my brew?
 
I have been drinking a fair bit of the Sam Adams Imperial Pilsner, which I think has a nice tea aroma, it uses all Hallertauer hops, which are also commonly used in Hefe's and Wheat beers.
 
The earl grey taste (in the tea) comes from the addition of bergamot to the black tea. Try adding some Bergamot (it's a plant) to your beer.
 
Would I want to add the bergamont at like the bittering point, or maybe 15-20 minutes towards the end? I'm going more for a flavor than an aroma.

Next question, I have a funny feeling that my LBHS wont have bergamot, so I'll have to find some herb store?
 
Actually the bergamot in earl grey is not the herb of the same name--it's the extract from a bitter citrus rind called a bergamot orange. They're italian. I don't know what precisely the herb tastes like, but if you want earl grey flavor I would try some bitter orange peel.
 
ah yes, and I've found on northerbrewer bitter orange peel by the ounce or pound :)

I'm guessing i'd use it similar to hop quantities, by using just an ounce or 2?
 
I think an ounce or two at the end of the boil would be noticeable in a five gallon batch--though it really depends on the amount & type of flavoring hops you use. Lots of people use orange peel in belgians, but they're usually hopped quite modestly.
 
You can buy "oil of bergamot" at places that sell essential oils like patchouley,lavender, etc. The earl grey tea is really about the aroma not much of a bergamot flavor in it. If you like your results with the bitter orange peel, you may want to try for some aroma using the essential oil into your secondary, probably as close as possible to time of bottling/kegging...
 
I might give that a try, This wheat beer I drank had a peppery finish very similar to the peppery flavor of earl grey, I don't remember any aroma of earl grey nose wise really.

The other thing is i need to figure out how they got it so straw yellow, my tries with John Palmers three weisse guy's durned out more golden than straw yellow :).
 

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