Who's used rosemary?

I am growing my own hops, and I'm beginning to make a few pale ale recipes to showcase these new, fresh, amazingly delicious hops. After getting simple recipes out of the way, I wanted to try something with Rosemary in it. It has such a great, spicy, piney flavor that I think would go nicely in an IPA. I've had an idea for a Thai Pale Ale with lemongrass and basil floating around in my head for awhile, but I'm a bit more interested in rosemary. At least at first.

Who's successfully used rosemary? How much did you use?

Never used it in beer, love to use it in food.

I have a great bread recipe with it but nothing with beer.

i have never used it but if you need some i have a huge rosemary plant in my front yard. just let me know

Could be good.

I did a basil lemon ale and it actually turned out great. Not as harsh or odd as you would think. Basil lemongrass is a great idea.

I've never used it, but I've had some rosemary beers. A little goes a looooong way, let me tell you.


TL

The brewmaster @ Defiant Brewing Co in NY brews a beer called Rosemary's Baby... its an American Saison brewed with Rosemary. I have rosemary and other herbs growing as well and after having tried this brew... i plan to use rosemary in the next beer in the pipeline.

Thinking it would work great in a Wit, APA, Saison or possibly an IPA or imperial.

Could go for a darker style too. meh, il have to just play around. to the drawing board!

I will be saturday in a saison, also with basil and other herbs.

I haven't decided how much I'm using yet, probably in the 0.5oz range for a 5 gallon brew. But I have heard that a little rosemary goes a long way

Beernik said:

I will be saturday in a saison, also with basil and other herbs.

I haven't decided how much I'm using yet, probably in the 0.5oz range for a 5 gallon brew. But I have heard that a little rosemary goes a long way

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never used rosemary, but my gut tells me even 0.5 ounces would be a lot.

I never used Rosemary. She knew what we were getting into when she accepted the cash.

Extreme Brewing recommends 1.5oz in a grain bag and putting it in the last 10 minutes of the boil. Radical Brewing recommends 1 gram (0.25 tsp) and using in a vodka tea at bottling or no grain bag and added at flameout.

Neither mentions if it's dried or fresh. That makes a huge difference in potency.

1 gram to 1.5 ounce is quite a range.

I'm going to add it in the last 10 minutes of the boil. I'm going to have a lot of other flavors for it to meld with.

It's going to be an in the moment decision and how it plays with the other herbs and if it looks like I'm going to pick too many leafs off my plant.

I think I'll start with about a teaspoon instead of 0.5 ounce and adjust from there.

used 5g (leaves off 4" of fresh stem) for 1 week "dryhopped" in 5 gallons of IIPA. WAY TOO MUCH. Super perfume-y with the rosemary. Id do 3g for 3 days, or just monitor the hell out of it.

MarsColonist said:

used 5g (leaves off 4" of fresh stem) for 1 week "dryhopped" in 5 gallons of IIPA. WAY TOO MUCH. Super perfume-y with the rosemary. Id do 3g for 3 days, or just monitor the hell out of it.

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just to emphasize how little this is... 5g = 0.17oz

JLem said:

just to emphasize how little this is... 5g = 0.17oz

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I've looked at some more recipies. I've come to the conclusion: if it's dried spice rack Rosemary, it's 1 - 2oz. If it's fresh picked Rosemary, it's 1 - 5 grams (1 sprig).

I ended up using a 5" sprig or rosemary, 3 sprigs thyme, 6 licorice basil leaves, and 6 leaves of sage.

Going into the fermentor, the taste was strong but not over powering.

Sounds like good stuff.

Where do you source licorice basil leaves?

I added 1 fresh 4" spring with 8 min left on the boil but only left it in for 2 minutes in a Nugget and williamette esb.. its there no one can tell what it is until i say hmmm rosemary then everyone say ohh yeah!! Interesting for sure.. i deff would not want it in there longer though..

Anybody got some more reviews of their beers from this thread? Looking to do a beer with fresh rosemary and thyme for the summer. I have my own plants. It's good to clarify how long the "sprig" is, the one's on my plant are 2-3 feet long!

Probably just a few inches.

Rosemary would definitely be good in a saison. Probably good in a beer with brett b.

I think I'll have to try this! We grow a ton of herbs in the garden, so I might do a SMaSHaSH (single malt, single hop, single herb) series with different herbs

Has anyone tried just using the flowers when in bloom, instead of the needles. I muddle these when making lemon drops. It adds the perfect amount of essence without being too oily or resinous. I am not sure about the quantities to add for a 5 gallon patch, especially a darker robust beer like a stout. Just a thought. In a month or so I may toy around with the idea of a quaffable summer blonde ale or wheat that is citrusy with hint of rosemary. If I get around to it, I will update.

I've used dried needles in a saison and an IPA. I did about a tbsp at flameout in each. It's present, but not very much so. People generally like the flavor it adds but most have a hard time picking out Rosemary if I don't say it.

I just made a Rosemary-Valencia Saison yesterday. It's sitting in the primary, now. I used one fresh herb package from the grocery store in the last five minutes of the boil, then pulled them out. I used an equal weight of Organic Valencia Zest. I expect the flavor to be HUGE, and I kind of want that, actually.

My wife and I make a tea from fresh rosemary. We use fresh rosemary from the garden, in large handfuls, brought to a boil in a full pot of water, with between half a cup and a cup of sugar. stir in the sugar and let it boil for just a minute, or two, then let it steep and cool. It's great iced on a summer day!

Rosemary is related to mint, and the herbs play well together. If you want to increase the zip in your tea (and I presume in your beer) a small touch of mint works wonders to enhance the pine.

Sage also plays really well with Rosemary in brews and our simple sweet tea. Last year, my most popular beer was a Rosemary-Sage Saison. 1/2 oz of fresh rosemary and 1 oz of fresh Sage, in a medium-brown honey saison. It's the same ratio we use when we make a sweet herb tea from the fresh plants.

Regarding the flower usage: I strongly discourage that in general, except in proven cases from master brewers where the recipe calls for the flowers. When the plant flowers - farmers call this "bolting" - the stalk and leaves get really, really bitter. If anything, at your home garden, clip the flowers right away when you see them forming to discourage your plant from flowering whenever possible, and if you are harvesting stalks and leaves, avoid those stalks that are flowering. I'm sure the flower is lovely, because the plant is throwing so much energy into it, but the rest of the plant will *not* be good. If one does use the flowers, I don't think any other part of the plant should be used.

badducky, For the saison you made last year, did you leave them in or pull them out? I think saison sounds like an awesome style for rosemary, but I'm going to do a blonde this time. I'm worried it will be overpowering. Doing 10 gallons, btw.

I added the rosemary at flameout, with the sage, and left them in the primary, as best I could. You see, this time I added the herbs to the boil, because the krausen in my last herbed saison pushed all the herbs out into the blowoff (as if the beer was vomiting up the herbs!) so this time, it went into the boil and I filtered them out. But, I've since learned that folks use weighted muslin bags for these things, and it seems like a much better idea after watching the yeast push it all out and away.

i've used it in an IPA. Cutting sprigs straight from the plant. 8" sprig in boil for 10 mins (gives some bitterness). Dry "hopped" with about a 3" sprig for 2 weeks. Rosemary was very pronounced - but lots of people liked it.

Thank you both for that info. I've thought about doing an IPA also, but want to keep it light for this one. I think I'm going to do about a 5" sprig @ 10 minutes and leave it in the primary. I'm doing 10 gallons, but I plan on making a pretty light pale ale/blonde type thing... maybe an extra pale ale so I don't want it to overpower. I figure piney hops are the way to go for complements, but I'll keep them on end of the spectrum.

I brewed a beer last year with Rosemary from my garden. I LOVED it. It wasn't over powering at all and many people could taste only a hint of it. I put it in the secondary and I used 5 sprigs. Great beer.

I just bottled my rosemary-valencia saison, today. I tasted a bit. It's very young, and hard to tell what amount of rosemary will make through in a couple weeks when the belgian yeast flavors calm down, but at the moment I could barely taste any rosemary at all. It's there, but subtle. Hopefully that will change when the bottles age a little. We'll see.

This was a little over .66 ounces of rosemary at 10 minutes in the boil.

I've been sitting on this one for a while, but finally posted in the recipe section. You can also see the original thread about the recipe in my signature. It's a nice, crisp saison with good, balanced rosemary flavor.

My rosemary-orange saison came out really nice, though it is still a touch on the young side. A simple, simple recipe.

6 pounds of Pilsner DME, half a pound of 90l, and a pound of orange honey. 1 ounce of Amarillo at 60 minutes. In the last 5 minutes, add one >half an ounce package of rosemary from the store, 1/2 teaspoon of coriander, 1/2 teaspoon of peppercorns, and the zest of one fresh, ripe Valencia. Leave them in during the chill down, then filter out into the primary. I used Wyeast French Saison.

The rosemary isn't overpowering, at all, but it's there and it's very pleasant!

Have you had Saison du Buff (collaboration between Stone, Dogfish Head, and Victory)? It uses parsley, sage, ROSEMARY, and thyme. Great brew! brewed a clone last year that I REALLY liked, and did fairly well in competition...called mine Saison Garfunkel.

The Stone book that came recently has a homebrew recipe for Saison du Buff. I brewed mine using pieced together info off of HBT and experience. I plan to try the stone recipe this year...

BTW, I used 1/3 oz of fresh rosemary. strong aroma...judges notes advised cutting back on all herbs. (FWIW it was 0.3 oz rosemary, thyme, and sage and 1.0 oz parsley all at knockout)

I absolutely love Saison du Buff. I try to get a few bottles every time I see it. It's funny, I actually spent a good bit of time online looking for a du buff recipe and finally gave up. I had Stone's book in my nightstand the whole time, just never got around to reading it (yet). I see they have lots of good recipes in there. Old Guardian FTW!