Cupcake Beer?

I've been thinking about how much I like cupcakes and beer, and wondered if anyone had ever thought to make a cupcake flavored beer? Or is it even possible? If you have suggestions, let me know. Still new to the experimental brewing scene.

Not in the mental state to contemplate this at the moment, but I like where your head is at





Reminds me of my uncle telling me about he and his buddy being called "The BO Boys" because they drank beer while eating Oreos out of their highschool locker.

I would think a good place to start would be a chocolate oatmeal stout. Not sure where to go from there though.

Toss 'em in the mash and take pictures of it.

I may have to play around with it this weekend then. SWMBO is having some girlfriends over to bake. She can make cupcakes and I'll start on the beer.

Do you think maybe it would be better to put a finished product in or just use the batter? I'm assuming it would need a vanilla flavor, or a bread like consistency(obviously not thick though)

What about something like:
60% pale malt
20% Golden promise
10% honey malt or perhaps oats if they honey flavor isn't what you're after
8% crystal 20 or 40
2% special B

40min addition of EKG or other clean/dark/spice hops

Something to get you around 20 IBUs, Mash pretty high like 156-58. Definitely add vanilla bean to secondary. I've never really tried adding finished products to beer. Keep in mind something like cupcakes are going to absorb some of your precious beer. That shouldn't stop you from experiment, just plan accordingly. You could try splitting it into 1 gallon batches at some point depending on what factors your playing with.

Rogue has the voodoo bacon doughnut and Brooklyn has the doughnut beers, both include coconut....maybe a German chocolate coconut porter? If you haven't skimmed the Brooklyn brewery book, might try it for some off the wall ideas.

Vanilla Beans soaked in Rum will be a must have ingredient. I've used a Madagascar Vanilla bean with good results in a porter, want to try some other varieties.

Leithoa said:

What about something like:
60% pale malt
20% Golden promise
10% honey malt or perhaps oats if they honey flavor isn't what you're after
8% crystal 20 or 40
2% special B

40min addition of EKG or other clean/dark/spice hops

Something to get you around 20 IBUs, Mash pretty high like 156-58. Definitely add vanilla bean to secondary. I've never really tried adding finished products to beer. Keep in mind something like cupcakes are going to absorb some of your precious beer. That shouldn't stop you from experiment, just plan accordingly. You could try splitting it into 1 gallon batches at some point depending on what factors your playing with.

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I like this, it's a good start for sure. I would probably stay away from honey since I'd want a vanilla flavor. I would definitely attempt several ways of doing this though.

What about yeast? I can't do a lager, I don't have the equipment for that. So it would have to be ale. Maybe Safale S-04, just to play it safe?

If you have not tried Honey Malt before, I would highly suggest it. in smaller quantities it adds a nice residual sweetness, in higher quantities it is a pronounced honey flavor.

S-04 is what I'd start with probably, just to avoid buying 4 different strains of liquid yeast to find the one I liked. Though if you had some 1056 American Ale, 1098 British Ale , or 1968 London ESB f you could keep the temps in the low-mid 60's to suppress the fruitiness, I think any of those'd be worth a try. . There's also the option of waiting a month or two until it's cold enough to lager in your garage. Even a pseudo lager yeast like the Koelsch strain if you don't have the patience to wait until it's consistently in the low 40s. There are a couple other ale strains that work around 50-65 too.
I'd also thought about bottling with a Belgian candi syrup infused with vanilla to help with the taste/aroma.

starrfish said:

If you have not tried Honey Malt before, I would highly suggest it. in smaller quantities it adds a nice residual sweetness, in higher quantities it is a pronounced honey flavor.

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Thanks I'll have to check into it. I'm always worried about adding too much of a grain that's going to give me a different flavor than I expected. But I'll look into it at my LHBS.

I am definitely interested in this. I am a huge fan of dessert beers and I get extremely excited when I think of one I haven't thought of or hear about one I haven't heard about before. I think cake batter would be a great way to get the flavor you're after, but you'd have to make it without oil, eggs or milk, but at that point it's not really cake batter anymore, so that'll be an issue. A shortcut would be to use a flavoring, but I personally prefer the challenge of getting the flavor right without the pre-made flavoring. I'm subscribed, so please keep us posted.

Chocolate malt! I did a porter with a pound of it, had folks at a homebrew taste as if I'd brewed with actual cocoa or chocolate.

...of course, you could also just add actual cocoa or chocolate. :-|

Also, maybe do a bit of a sour mash, to get that little bit of cream cheese twang you'd get from a cream-cheese-based frosting? After reading the whole *%$#@! bananas foster thread, I'll refrain from suggesting you throw in actual cream cheese.

This is definitely an interesting concept. I like the idea of German chocolate coconut cupcake. What about some biscuit malt to add some of the bready-ness taste and some oats to make is a bit silky maybe? Still new at this but thought I'd throw some ideas out.

DuckiesRevenge said:

This is definitely an interesting concept. I like the idea of German chocolate coconut cupcake. What about some biscuit malt to add some of the bready-ness taste and some oats to make is a bit silky maybe? Still new at this but thought I'd throw some ideas out.

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Those are good ideas. I'm not sure what direction I would take with this though, but as with most experimental beers, the best thing you can do is give it a shot based on an educated guess. I currently have a banana split imperial stout in secondary, but I don't expect it to come out the way I am imagining.

Okay so I've been talking with SWMBO about this brew. And we came up a thought about using icing as a priming source. Would that be enough for carbonation and would it impart the flavor of icing into the beer as it carb'd? Any thoughts?

Im thinking really hard about this post because I'd really like to see what we could come up with and I've not heard about a cupcake beer before. Anyone in the Boston Cambridge area? Maybe we could work on this?

velatim said:

Im thinking really hard about this post because I'd really like to see what we could come up with and I've not heard about a cupcake beer before. Anyone in the Boston Cambridge area? Maybe we could work on this?

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I'm in CT. Kinda far, but not absurdly so. I'm in Groton, about 1.5-2 hours away.

About the icing, I'm not sure it would work, but it's worth a shot. Just as long as it's not cream cheese based, cause after the sugar's gone, you'll just be left with cream cheese beer.

And we came up a thought about using icing as a priming source.

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Well, there's certainly enough sugar in it. Icing as priming crossed my mind as well, that's why I suggested the vanilla infused candi syrup. That came more from a practical standpoint: How do you know how much sugar you're priming with? Sure you could read the icing label or figure it out from the recipe but it'd be much simpler to just make a priming solution from scratch.
I'd start with powdered/confectioners sugar and vanilla extract ( if you're going for a vanilla cupcake). If you're up for the work try a few different priming methods.

Leithoa said:

Well, there's certainly enough sugar in it. Icing as priming crossed my mind as well, that's why I suggested the vanilla infused candi syrup. That came more from a practical standpoint: How do you know how much sugar you're priming with? Sure you could read the icing label or figure it out from the recipe but it'd be much simpler to just make a priming solution from scratch.
I'd start with powdered/confectioners sugar and vanilla extract ( if you're going for a vanilla cupcake). If you're up for the work try a few different priming methods.

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We always make our own icing for our cupcakes(worked in a bakery). So I would be able to measure how much sugar goes into the icing. The only thing is that I'm not sure how confection sugar would be compared to your every day sugar.

My understanding is that it's just ye olde table sugar that's been powdered very finely, combine with a small amount of an anti-caking agent. That's what I've always used in icing since it dissolves faster but it sounds like you've got a recipe in mind.

Leithoa said:

My understanding is that it's just ye olde table sugar that's been powdered very finely, combine with a small amount of an anti-caking agent. That's what I've always used in icing since it dissolves faster but it sounds like you've got a recipe in mind.

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It's a pretty basic Recipe. I would pretty much just do a powdered sugar/milk/vanilla extract combination. Could add butter for a buttercream icing, but I think this would be better. But would you up the amount of powdered sugar then?

Thanks for all of the input by the way. I will probably use the recipe you posted either this weekend or next. Maybe use both the honey and the oats, see what it does.

I don't have any experience with adding dairy products to beer, but I'd imagine it would lead to problems. You could try adding some lactose to aid in sugar and body.
Does anybody know how powdered milk or non-dairy creamer fairs if added to beer?
As far as the amount of sugar to add, there are a couple ways to do it.
1. Make the icing like you normally would but also measure each ingredient by weight(assuming you normally use volume measurements) and then figure out how much of you icing you need to get the carbonation level you're looking for.
2. Figure out your carbonation level first and make the icing based on that amount of sugar. This seems like the easier route if you're only making the icing to carbonate your beer.
I think a low level of carbonation on par with a stout or perhaps a bit less. 1.5 volumes would probably serve well enough until you get everything else dialed in.
Regarding Oats, if you use a high amount 10-20% you get a nice silky texture which could be nice for a cupcake beer. You also get the oaty-graininess as you get closer to and exceed 20%. Maybe something between 7-15% would be a happy medium where you still get the silky smooth texture but limit the graininess.

No problem, I really enjoy recipe creation but don't have the time to brew or ability to drink enough to keep up with some of the recipes.

Not sure what the point of the icing is.... the sugar will all ferment, leaving just vanilla (which is going in anyway) and dairy (which you'll end up having to skim off, unless you want "beer cheese" floating in your bottles... I'll again refer you to the bananas foster thread).

Mash high and use plenty of crystal for the sweetness, and just prime with sugar, unless the whole point is being able to write "primed with icing!" on the label, in which case, don't let me stand in the way of your dream!

feinbera said:

Not sure what the point of the icing is.... the sugar will all ferment, leaving just vanilla (which is going in anyway) and dairy (which you'll end up having to skim off, unless you want "beer cheese" floating in your bottles... I'll again refer you to the bananas foster thread).

Mash high and use plenty of crystal for the sweetness, and just prime with sugar, unless the whole point is being able to write "primed with icing!" on the label, in which case, don't let me stand in the way of your dream!

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Haha, no the point is not to be able to write that! (Although it would be fun) That would just be silly. This this guy --->

That's good to know, I didn't even think about that. I want to get a good cupcake flavor. It doesn't have to be perfect, but as close as possible. So I will just leave out the icing and then use Vanilla in the secondary. This is all experimental so I'm not expecting anything awesome the first batch anyway.

If you give up on bottle carbing, you could just make a good chocolate stout, crash or filter the yeast out, and then flavor with vanilla/icing/whatever.

It might be better to save the icing and sprinkles as a topping when you serve - or just put sprinkles on the head.

Awesome thread!

A guy in my homebrew club makes a German Chocolate Cake Stout and Earth Bread and Brewery in Mt. Airy PA makes a Red Velvet Cake Ale that is tasty/inspiring. It uses an English Dark Mild as a base and manages to mimic the flavor of cream cheese frosting / butter cream!

I was in a pub in Norwich, Eng called the Fat Cat (awesome place if you get to go). But the bar sells a cookie beer.

I like the idea of a cookie beer!

I was thinking a chocolate cupcake beer would be decently easy to do in comparison to a vanilla cupcake beer. I think I'm going to attempt the cupcake beer this weekend using Leithoa's suggestions with a few slight changes. If it turns out good, I'll let you know in a few weeks. If it's bad, I never tried it...

I'm thinking you need to add some oats, flaked maze, carapils or something similar in a mini mash for body. Oats would be my choice. They would help make the beer thick. Vanilla bourbon in the secondary should help with the icing flavor. Definitely lots of crystal and maybe even some honey malt for sweetness. In my mind I'm thinking it needs to basically be a Vanilla bourbon stout BUT take out all the roasted malts and add more sweet malts.

I just remembered something. If you are doing vanilla beans in the secondary, first soak them in vodka...
UV makes a vodka that tastes like cake! Has a bit of the frosting flavor as well imo. Might be a good addition. I have no idea how much, maybe around a half to full cup?

I'd use multiple kinds of wheat malt and a lot of crystal.

I'd do a nice bready, sweet ESB with the Fuller's yeast and add vanilla beans after fermentation. Could toy around with spices too if that wasn't enough.