Peppermint Pale Ale

So, I just finished brewing my first batch with a friend of mine. Oatmeal Stout from a recipe. It looked great and tasted awesome, and my buddy tells me it is puttering away in the carboy as we speak. So far, so good. We'll see what it's like in a few weeks...

Anyway, it's probably intelligent to stick to tested recipes for the first few beers, but personally, I don't want to. I decided to start homebrewing in order to make my own weird concoctions. Peated Scotch Ales, Raspberry Browns, Steam Eis Bocks, etc... So, I'm trying to put together my first recipe for whenever we rack the Oatmeal Stout to secondary. The idea to make a mint beer popped into my head a couple of weeks ago, and I decided I wanted to make something thematically similar to S.S. Winter Welcome (in that it is a lighter Winter Warmer, rather than a stout - not that I somehow think that WW has mint in it).

I don't know exactly what I'm doing, but I'm trying to figure out what I want *before* I go to the homebrew store (my partner in crime went by himself to get ingredients last time - I had to work), and have been researching stuff (online and at the library) for a couple of weeks. Therefore the hop AAU% are approximate, and I'm not sure what "Pilsner Extract Lager" is, much less if it will be available here, but here's a first crack at it. Please help me out. Tell me what I'm about to screw up, and let me know if you even think it's a good idea to brew with mint... :cross:


Peppermint Pale Ale

6 lbs. Pilsner Malt Extract Syrup
2.5 lbs. Crystal 20L
.5 lb. Belgian Wheat
.5 lb. Cara-Pils

1 tsp. Gypsum
1 Tbsp. Irish Moss

.7 oz. Northern Brewer ~8% AAU (60 min. boil)
1 oz. Mount Hood ~5% AAU (15 min. boil)
2 oz. Fresh Mint (15 min. boil)
3 oz. Fresh Mint (dry-"hopped")

EugeneStyles said:

It's probably intelligent to stick to tested recipes for the first few beers, but personally, I don't want to. I decided to start homebrewing in order to make my own weird concoctions. Peated Scotch Ales, ...

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Well, you're going to do what you want to do, but I would rethink sticking to the "intelligent" strategy. Until you have a soild grasp on the basics and can produce good 'normal and boring' beers repeatedly and with high confidence, you are in a great position to start tinkering.

Imagine that one of your experiements turns out a horrible beer. Was it the fault of the base recipe, your techiniques, or the weird thing you tried? I don't know, and you might not know either.

(oh... and a peated scotch ale is not really a weird or unique thing. )

EugeneStyles said:

The idea to make a mint beer popped into my head a couple of weeks ago...

I don't know exactly what I'm doing, but I'm trying to figure out what I want *before* I go to the homebrew store (my partner in crime went by himself to get ingredients last time - I had to work), and have been researching stuff (online and at the library) for a couple of weeks. Therefore the hop AAU% are approximate, and I'm not sure what "Pilsner Extract Lager" is, much less if it will be available here, but here's a first crack at it. Please help me out. Tell me what I'm about to screw up, and let me know if you even think it's a good idea to brew with mint... :cross:

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I'll admit thay I have considered spiking a pale ale with some mint. I wanted to see if it would give a crisp, cooling flavor to the beer. A few things stopped me from carrying the plan out:

(1) I was afraid the oils in the mint would destroy the head formation/retention of the brew. I like a head on my pale ales.

(2) I was hesitant to take up a cycle in my brew pipeline, spend the money on a batch, and have it turn out terribly.

(3) I had the misfortune of tasting Cool Mint Colt 45 back in the early/mid 1990's. It was wretched.

What I ended up doing (and I strongly suggest trying things THIS way before brewing a whole batch of something) is to brew a boring normal batch and add your mint (or lemon, or basil, or cumin, or whatever) to a glass of the brew and see what you think. If you hate the mint in your brew, it's better to dump 1 pint than it is to dump 40 pints. (Personally, I just tried some spearmint and peppermint in a commercial pale ale... i found that I kind of liked it sometimes, but in general I did not like it.)

When it comes down to it... if what you are adding does not ferment, it doesn't make a lot of difference when you add it in the process; kettle, primary, secondary, bottle, or directly in the glass.


A few comments on your recipe....

pilsner malt extract is really just going to be an extra light extract. I bought pilsner DME in bulk, and it really doesn't taste any different that 'regular' extract I have used. I chose the pilsner DME because it has a very VERY light color (appx. 3 Lovibond) so I can make whatever color beer I want with it.

The 2.5 lbs of crystal is going to leave behind a lot of sweetness. I've never use more than 1.5 lbs in a batch. I think this sweetness combined with the mint might leave you with a candy tasting beverage.

Other than the mint and (IMHO) large amount of crystal, it looks like a decent pale ale recipe.



My $0.02.

-walker

If I ever was to try something like this I think a nuetral sort of American Wheat beer might be a better choice. Hops and peppermint just don't do it for me.

Or a peppermint stout or porter. In fact I may make a mint porter sometime this fall.

Blender said:

If I ever was to try something like this I think a nuetral sort of American Wheat beer might be a better choice. Hops and peppermint just don't do it for me.

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I really like piney-tasting hops (I think I would LOVE a spruce ale), and piney is pretty close to minty on my pallette. Thats why I considered it.

I appreciate you taking the time to write-out a response. And you seem to know what you're talking about (and that's before I saw your post count!)...

Walker-san said:

Well, you're going to do what you want to do, but I would rethink sticking to the "intelligent" strategy. Until you have a soild grasp on the basics and can produce good 'normal and boring' beers repeatedly and with high confidence, you are in a great position to start tinkering.

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That's true. But it seems like the "intelligent" strategy is to buy beer that I like from the store. It seems like the whole idea of homebrewing is to get beer the hard way, the way that takes experimentation and work and might end in failure. That said, it probably *is* more reasonable to go with tested recipes for a while at first, but hey, it's mostly about fun and experiementation anyway, so I figured that while we've got something relatively safe in the secondary, we can try something wacky.

(oh... and a peated scotch ale is not really a weird or unique thing. )

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Well, in the grand scheme of beers, it's a lot weirder than, say, a pale ale, or an amber, or an oatmeal stout. But then again, if you say it's not really very unique (yes, I have heard other people talk about making one, but I've never had one - at least not a heavily peated one), then maybe that should be our next attempt instead. On the other hand, there just seem to be a lot more variables with a scotch ale. Amber malt, caramel, biscuit, peated, chocalate, and others... which ones to use, lots of options on proportions, how peaty is too peaty? Do we add a little bit of Talisker to kick it up a little? Do we want it biscuity like Belhaven Wee Heavy, heavy and sweet like Skullsplitter, bland like so many other scotch ales I've had? And color - anything from amber to black seems reasonable. Of course, all of these styles have been tried before, and I'm sure I can find tested recipes for any of them, so maybe we should give that a try first. I haven't yet heard of anyone making a mint beer, other than mint chocolate stout, and all of the recipes for that say at the end that the author didn't think he used enough mint - so perhaps "blazing new ground" can wait for a while.

(Personally, I just tried some spearmint and peppermint in a commercial pale ale... i found that I kind of liked it sometimes, but in general I did not like it.)

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Okay, that seems easy enough. I suppose the least I can do is try it first before wasting 5 gallons of it.

When it comes down to it... if what you are adding does not ferment, it doesn't make a lot of difference when you add it in the process; kettle, primary, secondary, bottle, or directly in the glass.

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I was thinking, and there is no basis for this, just a thought... that boiling the mint might break down some of the oils, and reduce the flavor and aroma impact, leaving a crispness that would relate to the "bitterness" of the hops. That was the thought with adding 2 oz. to the boil and 3 oz. to the secondary. Don't know if it would make much difference, but if I go grab an English Pale Ale and add a mint leaf to it, and then actually *do* make this beer and then drink it, I'll have some frame of reference on what happens to mint in the boil.

The 2.5 lbs of crystal is going to leave behind a lot of sweetness. I've never use more than 1.5 lbs in a batch. I think this sweetness combined with the mint might leave you with a candy tasting beverage.

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Well, that's part of the point. A candy-cane beer for the holidays. Papazian suggests a maximum of 20% Crystal malts, and in the above recipe, Crystal accounts for exactly 20% of the target gravity. On the other hand, if the most you've used is 1.5 lbs. and that leaves behind "some" sweetness, then 2.5 is probably way to much, as you said. It would have to be cut down to, at most, 2 lbs., or maybe 1.5, and the balance made up for in either Belgian Wheat, extract, or maybe something like Munich or English 2-row or something.


If you're still reading this - what about the hops? Northern Brewer and Mt. Hood are the only hops that I've heard referred to as having a "slightly minty" taste, although not everyone says that (basically one reference said Mt. Hood had it, and one other reference said that Northern Brewer had it). I've had Anchor Steam, but I've obviously never brewed with either one (and am not sure I recall having any beers that used Mt. Hood). The main thing, I think, is avoiding the citrusy or grassy tasting hops, and preferrably getting a nice, balanced crispness.

EugeneStyles said:

I appreciate you taking the time to write-out a response. And you seem to know what you're talking about (and that's before I saw your post count!)...

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Don't mistake someone who talks a lot for someone who knows a lot.

I'm fairly knowledgable, but there are tons of guys on here who know a hell of a lot more than me and rarely ever post.

EugeneStyles said:

it seems like the "intelligent" strategy is to buy beer that I like from the store.

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That might be an intelligent beer drinker's strategy, but not an intelligent brewer's strategy. You're a brewer now, not just a drinker.

EugeneStyles said:

It seems like the whole idea of homebrewing is to get beer the hard way, the way that takes experimentation and work and might end in failure. That said, it probably *is* more reasonable to go with tested recipes for a while at first, but hey, it's mostly about fun and experiementation anyway, so I figured that while we've got something relatively safe in the secondary, we can try something wacky.

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Sure. That's cool. You are master of your own domain. I'm just giving you some info about my own domain.

Don't get me wrong, I like to experiment with my brews, too; Caramel Porter (complete failure), Raspberry Pale Ale (complete success), etc, but I really stuck to the basics for the first few years until I was comfortable.

EugeneStyles said:

(regarding peated scotch ale) Well, in the grand scheme of beers, it's a lot weirder than, say, a pale ale, or an amber, or an oatmeal stout. But then again, if you say it's not really very unique (yes, I have heard other people talk about making one, but I've never had one - at least not a heavily peated one), then maybe that should be our next attempt instead.

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Try a Belhaven Scottish Ale or Magic Hat's Jinx. Both are peated, but Belhaven's is much more pronounced (and it is an EXCELLENT beer.)

EugeneStyles said:

I haven't yet heard of anyone making a mint beer, other than mint chocolate stout, and all of the recipes for that say at the end that the author didn't think he used enough mint - so perhaps "blazing new ground" can wait for a while.

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Well, the only commercial mint beer I ever saw was that Colt 45 swill. It still gives me shivers when I think about the slug of it I had. *blech*

EugeneStyles said:

(regarding the sweetness) Well, that's part of the point. A candy-cane beer for the holidays. Papazian suggests a maximum of 20% Crystal malts, and in the above recipe, Crystal accounts for exactly 20% of the target gravity. On the other hand, if the most you've used is 1.5 lbs. and that leaves behind "some" sweetness, then 2.5 is probably way to much, as you said. It would have to be cut down to, at most, 2 lbs., or maybe 1.5, and the balance made up for in either Belgian Wheat, extract, or maybe something like Munich or English 2-row or something.

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If you are making this as a christmas 'treat', then I'd just go for it and make it sweet and minty. I don't want to discourage you... you should brew what you want, how you want, and when you want.

EugeneStyles said:

If you're still reading this - what about the hops? Northern Brewer and Mt. Hood are the only hops that I've heard referred to as having a "slightly minty" taste, although not everyone says that (basically one reference said Mt. Hood had it, and one other reference said that Northern Brewer had it). I've had Anchor Steam, but I've obviously never brewed with either one (and am not sure I recall having any beers that used Mt. Hood). The main thing, I think, is avoiding the citrusy or grassy tasting hops, and preferrably getting a nice, balanced crispness.

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Northern Brewer is heavily used in my IPA, and I personally believe it has a disctinctly Piney (almost minty) taste.

brew on:rockin:

-walker

I actually used mint in lieu of hops once in a generic Golden Ale extract brew from AHS (they mailed the wrong recipe). It did nothing for the flavor of the ale, period. In fact, I wound up hating the beer for no reason other than the mint - for which I had high hopes - let me down.

However, this was before I fully understood the whole boiling/timing links and boiled fresh mint tips for 45 minutes, then cooled and dumped in the fermenter.

Oh well, I like the mint concept.....

I had some Whitbread Pale Ale with mint leaves in it. It was awesome. Subtle, but the flavors blended with the beer *very* nicely. In fact, I made some adjustments to the recipe just to make it a little bit more like Whitbread (not that I'm attempting any sort of clone, I have nowhere near enough experience to attempt that, but I thought to try and bring out the flavors that seemed to meld well with the mint), and also some adjustments based on availability of ingredients (namely, the brew store was out of Belgian Wheat, so I got American White Wheat... they were also out of Mt. Hood, but after buying Wilamette to substitute, I found some Mt. Hood at another store).

Anyway, this week we went ahead and brewed my recipe for "Kiltsplitter Wee Heavy", which involved smoking our own malt by burning firewood and dousing the flames with soaked peat moss (too impatient to wait for ordered malt, and just crazed enough to give it a try). I was very afraid that it was going to turn out undrinkable, but the wort tasted very good and sweet, and we may be on our way to a nice Scots Brown Ale from the looks of it. But I digress. Anyway, we brewed the Scotch Ale this week and will try the Peppermint Pale Ale next week. When finished, I'll post my observations and the final recipe. Probably 1lb. Crystal, 1lb. British Pale, 1/2 lb. American White Wheat, 1/4 lb. Biscuit, and somewhere in the neighborhood of 5 lbs. extract. I wonder if the name "Yellow Snow" has been beat to death yet? Probably, but I guess that's what it's called until I think of something better.

Reading through this thread made me remember a beer I saw in one of my books that I have wanted to try, I think you may be interested in it . . .

Grandma's House Christmas Chocolate Mint Stout
6.66# dark LME
2# dark DME
1# crystal malt 60L
.5# roasted barley
.5# black patent malt
1.5oz Cascade hops (60)
.5oz Hallertauer hops (5)
2 teaspoons Gypsum
6 oz semisweet baking chocolate (30)
4oz FRESH mint leaves
Irish Ale yeast
1.25cups DME to prime

steep grains and gypsum at 155 for 30 minutes
add extracts
boil for 60 minutes
Hops and chocolate added as noted above
Ferment 7-10 days
rack to secondary onto mint for another 7 days
Prime and bottle
bottle age for 2 weeks

OG 1.063

The Homebrewers Recipe Guide - page 151
Higgins, Kilgore, & Hertlein
Simon and Schuster Publishing - copyright 1996

Walker-san said:

Northern Brewer is heavily used in my IPA, and I personally believe it has a disctinctly Piney (almost minty) taste.

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I get that too! I was going to brew a dry stout with Sasquach and I asked him what he wanted it to taste like and he said Murphy's because it tasted "minty." When I found a clone recipe for it the only difference it had from the dry stout recipe I had was that it used all NB hops. Sure enough come brew day, the wort had a distinctly mintish tang. Not overpowering but it was there. It's still in primary right now, but I'll update on how the finished beer tastes.

It's all starting to make sense to me now...

Here's the revised recipe that I brewed a week and a half ago...

6.6 lbs. Extra Light LME
1 lb. Crystal 20L
1 lb. UK Pale Malt (2-row)
.5 lbs. American White Wheat
.5 lbs. Cara-pils
.25 lbs. Biscuit Malt

1 oz. Northern Brewer @ 60 min.
.5 oz. Northern Brewer @ 15 min.
1 oz. Mt. Hood @ 15 min.
2 oz. Fresh Mint @ 15 min.

1 oz. Fresh Mint in secondary

1 pkg. Wyeast British Ale yeast #1098


Racking from primary to secondary, I decided that adding the 15 min. addition of Northern Brewer was a mistake. The uncarbonated beer tasted slightly more "dank" than I was hoping for, but hopefully that will mellow out, and will be covered a little by the mint in secondary. Other than that, it tastes great - the mint is evident but very, very subtle.

Currently debating whether to tertiary this to remove some more of the sediment that's making it a deep amber color instead of the lighter color I was going for, or just to bottle it on Tuesday. Either way, will update once it's been conditioned and drunk.

That Christmas Chocolate Mint Stout sounds good. I like the ideas of the mint with the sweet maltiness of a stout and adding the mint leaves to the secondary. That way you’re using the alcohol content in the beer to extract the mint oils instead of boiling them out in the wort. I’ll have to add this one to my collection.

Another option that would be safer would be to add peppermint extract just before bottling.

Yeah, I have a Winter Mint Chocolate Stout that I'll be brewing soon as well. Need to pick up some pure cocoa powder first.

Pumbaa said:

Reading through this thread made me remember a beer I saw in one of my books that I have wanted to try, I think you may be interested in it . . .

Grandma's House Christmas Chocolate Mint Stout
6.66# dark LME
2# dark DME
1# crystal malt 60L
.5# roasted barley
.5# black patent malt
1.5oz Cascade hops (60)
.5oz Hallertauer hops (5)
2 teaspoons Gypsum
6 oz semisweet baking chocolate (30)
4oz FRESH mint leaves
Irish Ale yeast
1.25cups DME to prime

steep grains and gypsum at 155 for 30 minutes
add extracts
boil for 60 minutes
Hops and chocolate added as noted above
Ferment 7-10 days
rack to secondary onto mint for another 7 days
Prime and bottle
bottle age for 2 weeks
OG 1.063

The Homebrewers Recipe Guide - page 151
Higgins, Kilgore, & Hertlein
Simon and Schuster Publishing - copyright 1996

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I know what I'm brewing this weekend!Thank's...

Pumbaa that recipe sounds incredible! I made a Chocolate ale and it was real good, but forget about getting any head. Not that it was not real good. We had talked about it at the time and the thought was the oils from the chocolate distroys it.

*bump*

so how did it turn out? i'm thinking of doing a small 1 gallon batch of this to experiment.