Tea Beer

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ChickenBeer

ChickenBeer

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I know our good friend charlie Papazian would say most things have been done before so i figured i would ask before i try to rack my brain and brew. Anyone ever made a Tea beer before? I'm not sure if there are any fermentables that could be extracted from tea leaves or if it would strictly be a flavor thing. I am also not sure if it would be any good. I suspect that It would kind of be a recipe of a little carapils, and some really easy SRM (5 or lower) base grain. With tea leaves added at the end of the boil or some kind of "dry hopped" tea leaves in the secondary. Thoughts????
 
I used Thai tea in a beer that turned out very good. I suggest you don't really want to boil the tea. I steeped the tea leaves in hot water for the last ~15 minutes of the boil. I added the tea to the kettle after I had let it cool a bit. Give it a good stir and let the whirlpool take care of pulling out most of the break material and then transfer to the fermenter.

I suppose the type of tea leaves you intend to use would probably change how you use them though. Chamomile tea could probably be added to the boil with less astringincy than say Earl Grey tea.
 
I regularly make a Green Tea Honey Kolsch. its by far one of my favorite creations. tastes like an alcoholic versiobn of Arizonas Green tea (which is pretty much all I drink)

When i do it I steep a hop bag of green tea leaves for the last 10 minutes of the boil, then throw another bag in the secondary. For the honey I put a chunk of honey comb at the bottom of the keg when kegging so as its drawn it pulls honey up with the beer
 
Wow! that sounds amazing I love that stuff too. I knew the alcoholic version of their arnold palmer mix was called a John Daly, (funny and true) but I would love the recipe for your Kolsch. Is it basically just a Kolsch with the tea specifications you listed? anyone still have any idea about fermentables? or is the tea just give you a different flavor.
 
We (SWMBO and I) do a mostly chamomile tea beer that's great as long as you like the herbs we use. In fact there is 10 gallons of it in primary right now! We have also done a Rooibos Red ale that was pretty good.

The Chamomile version is modeled after Celestial Seasonings' Sleepy Time tea. We have used those tea bags before, but they contain too much spearmint IMO.

We upped the chamomile, which is really hard to overdo. It imparts an amazingly sweet aroma. We reduced the spearmint. Last is lemongrass, which so far hasn't asserted itself much in the amounts we've used it. We make a tea in the french press and add it before we pitch the yeast.

The underlying beer is basically a maltier, bigger-bodied, low alcohol blonde. It lets the herbs shine but has enough backbone to let you know you're drinking beer, not tea.
 
ChickenBeer said:
Wow! that sounds amazing I love that stuff too. I knew the alcoholic version of their arnold palmer mix was called a John Daly, (funny and true) but I would love the recipe for your Kolsch. Is it basically just a Kolsch with the tea specifications you listed? anyone still have any idea about fermentables? or is the tea just give you a different flavor.
Click to expand...

yeah thats basically it. I took my basic Kolsch recipe (that I also make all the time) and played around with the Tea and honey additions. It does take a decent amount of tea leaves to flavor a 5 gallon batch though. dont have Beer Alchemy in front of me but off the top of my head I want to say I used 4 ounce additions. so 4 ounce last ten of the boil and another 4 ounces in the secondary.
 
I was playing with the idea of making a beer and using tea as the mash and sparge water. I haven't had time to tinker with it much yet, but it is on the todo list.
 
PVH said:
We (SWMBO and I) do a mostly chamomile tea beer that's great as long as you like the herbs we use. In fact there is 10 gallons of it in primary right now! We have also done a Rooibos Red ale that was pretty good.

The Chamomile version is modeled after Celestial Seasonings' Sleepy Time tea. We have used those tea bags before, but they contain too much spearmint IMO.

We upped the chamomile, which is really hard to overdo. It imparts an amazingly sweet aroma. We reduced the spearmint. Last is lemongrass, which so far hasn't asserted itself much in the amounts we've used it. We make a tea in the french press and add it before we pitch the yeast.

The underlying beer is basically a maltier, bigger-bodied, low alcohol blonde. It lets the herbs shine but has enough backbone to let you know you're drinking beer, not tea.
Click to expand...

This idea really intrigues me. Would you mind sharing the recipe?
 
92greenyj said:
I regularly make a Green Tea Honey Kolsch. its by far one of my favorite creations. tastes like an alcoholic versiobn of Arizonas Green tea (which is pretty much all I drink)

When i do it I steep a hop bag of green tea leaves for the last 10 minutes of the boil, then throw another bag in the secondary. For the honey I put a chunk of honey comb at the bottom of the keg when kegging so as its drawn it pulls honey up with the beer
Click to expand...

You boil the green tea? Doesn't that add a bunch of astringent bitter notes? I'm gonna make a Cucumber Kolsch in the next month or two and will be using a cucumber green tea to add some of the wonderful aromatics it has that I don't think I would get from the actual fruit or juice.
 
I've made a vanilla chai tea brown ale. It was good at first but after aging a bit, it tasted like old vanilla coke. Not my favorite.

I'm thinking about using some jasmin pearls in a batch soon.

I recommend adaigo teas. They are great and good prices
 
Ty1erC said:
This idea really intrigues me. Would you mind sharing the recipe?
Click to expand...

10 gallon batch:

13.5# Pils
2# Light Munich (5-8L)
1# White Wheat
0.5# Vienna
1# Dextrine Malt

Single infusion @ 152F

90 min boil

1 oz Northern Brewer Pellets 9.8% @60 min
0.75 oz Sterling Leaf 7% @ 15 min
0.50 oz Sterling Leaf 7% @ 0 min

Safale US-04 @62F for 4 weeks.

After cooling, split in two 5gal fermenters. Add teas (1 qt) to each 5 gallon fermenter.

Tea No. 1:
1 qt boiled water
1 oz Chamomile flowers, whole, dried
4 t Lemongrass, dried
1 T spearmint

Tea No. 2:
1 qt boiled water
2 oz Chamomile flowers, whole, dried
2 T Lemongrass, dried
1.5 T spearmint


We decided to experiment with the two teas. The beer with the first tea is good now, while the second will fade with aging and be much like the first by the time we get to drinking it. The only thing you can screw up the beer with is the spearmint. Too much of that is not good. Quality chamomile will give you a very sweet and floral aroma.

The underlying beer is pretty much balanced, and a touch sweet, which is what we wanted.
 
PVH said:
10 gallon batch:

13.5# Pils
2# Light Munich (5-8L)
1# White Wheat
0.5# Vienna
1# Dextrine Malt

Single infusion @ 152F

90 min boil

1 oz Northern Brewer Pellets 9.8% @60 min
0.75 oz Sterling Leaf 7% @ 15 min
0.50 oz Sterling Leaf 7% @ 0 min

Safale US-04 @62F for 4 weeks.

After cooling, split in two 5gal fermenters. Add teas (1 qt) to each 5 gallon fermenter.

Tea No. 1:
1 qt boiled water
1 oz Chamomile flowers, whole, dried
4 t Lemongrass, dried
1 T spearmint

Tea No. 2:
1 qt boiled water
2 oz Chamomile flowers, whole, dried
2 T Lemongrass, dried
1.5 T spearmint


We decided to experiment with the two teas. The beer with the first tea is good now, while the second will fade with aging and be much like the first by the time we get to drinking it. The only thing you can screw up the beer with is the spearmint. Too much of that is not good. Quality chamomile will give you a very sweet and floral aroma.

The underlying beer is pretty much balanced, and a touch sweet, which is what we wanted.
Click to expand...

Nice. Thanks a lot.
 
I was at a local microbrewery a couple weeks ago and had an Earl Gray pale. I asked about it, and they told me they added the tea post-fermentation. Didn't get any details, but it tasted quite good.
 
Ty1erC said:
Nice. Thanks a lot.
Click to expand...

This beer (using Tea #1) won 1st in the Spice/Herb/Veg beer category in a recent local homebrew comp (AHA sanctioned, BJCP registered, blah, blah). I'll post the recipe officially when I get a chance.
 
PVH said:
This beer (using Tea #1) won 1st in the Spice/Herb/Veg beer category in a recent local homebrew comp (AHA sanctioned, BJCP registered, blah, blah). I'll post the recipe officially when I get a chance.
Click to expand...

This beer won second place in another competition last weekend. It was the more strongly herbed batch. It mellowed over time to where it was the same as the less herbed version was months ago. I'm going to brew up a batch this weekend. It seems I might have a good beer in an often overlooked category.
 
When I was a new brewer I made an extract batch with black tea bags used like a specialty grain before the boil. Unfortunately the tea flavor hardly showed up in the flavor of the beer with only subtle notes in the aftertaste. I have never tried tweaking this recipe because I switched to exclusively all grain; however, I will be trying this again soon because my wife liked it and is now harassing me to make it again.

I never was quite sure if the boil took the tea flavor away of if the yeast took the tea flavor away so next time I make it I will slip the batch into two five gallon carboys, one with tea used to dilute the concentrated wort and one where tea is only added post fermentation. Any input would be appreciated!
 
There's a commercial beer with tea, Dogfish Head's Sah'tea (a Finnish-style Sahti (beer with juniper instead of hops)) which has Chai tea in it. Haven't tried it yet, though.
 

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