Candy Cane in X-mas beer?

So, I'm brewing a x-mas beer this weekend and I'm mulling over my recipe trying to spice it up a bit.

I'm concidering using candy cane, but I'm not quite sure how to go about it. Are they basically cane sugar sticks with flavoring? Does anyone know the % of sugar in them if not?

I'm thinking they would go great with a Belgian. Anyone have experience with candy canes in beer?

Have you thought about peppermint oil?

No concerns about sugar content and you control the intensity.

Never used it before, but I think there are some recipes out there with it.

Just a thought.

Second thought would be dry hopped mint leaves, though they might give your beer a "green" flavor. Unless that is what you want.

Never tried it. I suppose it could work...

My nephew, who was the vinter of his homebrew/homewinemaking club used to play around with making his own schnapps using a basic liquor base and flavoring them, he used to use jolly ranchers for apple, grape, cherry, etc, and use hard candy mints (those brachs or whatever disks.)

What he would do is melt them down on his stove in a double boiler, basically just two pans, the lower one with water, and the upper one with the candies and a couple cups of water. And just heat it til he got a pan of flavored sugar syrup.

I would have to assume they are nearly 100% sugar.

Beerrific said:

I would have to assume they are nearly 100% sugar.

Click to expand...

Yup, sugar, flavoring and coloring.

+1 on trying peppermint extract instead... an health/nutrition store should have some. We used it once in cookies and a little goes a LOOONG way. Seems like a few drops of that might be much easier than melting candy, and you don't have to worry about scorching, excess sugar, and the like.

That being said, I have no idea what a proper amount would be, but if that "Candy cane taste" is what you're going for, peppermint extract is exactly it.

It looks like sugar, corn syrup, and a "little" starch

http://www.spanglercandy.com/spangler/products/canemaking2.php