Brewing a Green Tea Ale

Hey everyone,

My very first post! I have been reading the forums for a few months now and I am finally stumped. Forgive my ignorance, I only started brewing 8 months ago.

As the title says, I am thinking of brewing a Green Tea beer. I did some research but came up surprisingly short. The resources I found suggest that an American Pale Ale would be the best to work with a green tea flavor. From a smattering of different recipes here is something that I came up with. Please tear it apart, I won't take it personally :cross:

Ingredients:
8 lb. US 2 Row
1 lb. Munich 10L
.5 lb. Crystal 20L
.5 oz Amarillo (90 min)
1 oz Cascade(.5 oz at 10 min, .5 oz at 5 min)
Wyeast #1056 American Ale Yeast

After the primary has calmed down I was going to make a very strong batch of Green Tea, about a gallon, and put it in my secondary. I am going to boil the tea after I steep the leaves to prevent infection.

Hopefully this will impart the flavor that I am going for and I can't help but doubt myself.

Does anyone have experience/tips in brewing a similar beer?
Should I change my recipe at all?
Did I miss any fundamental aspects to brewing an herbal beer?
Would the tea be better if I added it during another step?(Pre-boil)

Thank you!

Sounds very interesting. I'm anxious to hear how it turns out.

adding a gallon to secondary might affect your gravity too much, and give you a much weaker beer.

Why not steep the tea like you would steeping grains pre-boil? I once steeped ginseng roots with my steeping grains with good results.

+1 on alcibiades idea. Steep with the grains

I agree with alcibiades....one gallon will dilute your finished product causing it to be watery.

Maybe you could use a coffee press with the tea leaves and a smaller amount of water to get the a concentrated extract to add to the beer?

I would also suggest testing various amounts of tea extract in smaller volumes of beer so you can calculate the amount to add to the whole batch. That way, you can avoid adding too much and ruining the batch.

Good luck!

alcibiades said:

Why not steep the tea like you would steeping grains pre-boil?

Click to expand...

That was my second option. I am not sure how that would effect the yeast. I am also not sure if it would have any other adverse effects to the wort. If you guys think it will be better to steep them pre-boil then I will give it a shot and let everyone know how it goes.

If you do go with steeping the tea separately from boiling your wort, you should probably boil the water and add the tea bags just after taking it off the heat. That way you aren't boiling the flavor compounds in the tea, and the high temperature (above 185*) will kill anything within 5 minutes. Even if it cooled, I believe that a temperature above 160 will kill everything within 30 minutes.

I'd say that you should make 1 gallon of strong tea and 4-4.5 gallons of above-gravity pale ale, and then mix them in the primary just before pitching the yeast. I've heard that adding liquid after the primary will give a watery taste, whereas adding liquid (even the same amount) before primary fermentation will taste normal.

But take this with a grain of salt, I've never done a tea brew before.

im also not sure how much flavor the green tea would impart. Green tea is pretty light in flavor if im not mistaken. The hops and malt might overtake it easily. Still.....it would be cool to say that your beer has the healthful effects of green tea infused into it, even if you can't taste it much. My "attainment IPA" had Moroccan ginseng root steeped into it, and people liked the idea of drinking a healthy/herbal beer.....I'm planning on experimenting with more herbs in the future (ginko biloba, st. johns wort, etc).

Let me know how it goes with green tea, sounds like a good idea!

I've heard of people using Chamomile Tea in Belgian Wit and Trappist recipes, and they recommend adding the tea at flame-out. The recommended amount seems to be .25 oz to .5 oz of dried tea leaves per 5 gallon batch, but that is meant to add a slight flavor to it. If you were trying to impart a stronger tea flavor, I would up this amount significantly, maybe to 1 - 2 oz., but that is really your call.

Matcha Sauce. The Japanese use it to flavor a lot of various green-tea foods (primarily candy) iirc. Might want to look into that, or else the delicate flavor of the green tea may be overwhelmed with the flavor imparted by the malt and hops. Matcha is Japanese powdered green tea, and I'm pretty sure any Asian market will sell Matcha Sauce (or Matcha powder, from which you can make the sauce), which will give a more concentrated flavor, something you're probably looking for compared to simply steeping the tea (which, with 5 gallons, is going to require a lot I'd imagine). I don't have too much experience with it though, so take my advise lightly! I absolutely love my green teas, and I love my beers, but how well the two would mix together...I'd be surprised to find a winning combination!

Edit: Seeing as the sauce would almost be characterized as an "extract", I'd say the most efficient time to add it would be during bottling? I don't know much about herbal brewing, but I'd think the ingredients are added at the end of the boil to use the heat to extract the flavors, but since the matcha already has a lot of flavor to it without any sort of preparation, I'd think it'd be best to add it in the end. If you want to experiment, maybe add it during the flame-out(?) period, then secondary, then bottling. Just some things to consider.

Well, I had a whole reply typed up, then realized arover is probably right. Matcha powder is probably the easiest way to go about this. If you want to use regular tea, just dont use green tea bags. I've never experienced a good bagged green tea. Buy loose leaf (dragonwell maybe?)

We just steep our tea in a separate pot while wort boiling, then add it to the wort after flame out. 48 tea bags of Earl Grey in our Earl Grey Pilsner, great summer brew.

Edcculus said:

Well, I had a whole reply typed up, then realized arover is probably right. Matcha powder is probably the easiest way to go about this. If you want to use regular tea, just dont use green tea bags. I've never experienced a good bagged green tea. Buy loose leaf (dragonwell maybe?)

Click to expand...

While, when it comes to green tea, the bagged tea is less than often great, I don't think he should be aiming for quality tea to begin with. Any green tea will give that well-known green tea flavor imo, the individual strains will just impart their own unique accent to the flavor. The bagged tea would save him the mess of dealing with a massive tea strainer...be careful of what temp the tea is added at though, at boiling temps you get some very sharp, unwanted flavors as far as green tea goes. I still stand by my matcha idea though

COLObrewer said:

We just steep our tea in a separate pot while wort boiling, then add it to the wort after flame out. 48 tea bags of Earl Grey in our Earl Grey Pilsner, great summer brew.

Click to expand...

I'd be curious to see your recipe for that one, sounds delicious and unique! Earl Grey has a stronger flavor to it though, and I can see it working much easier than I can a green tea ale. Actually, now that I think about it, would the flavor match better with a Pilsner? I just hate the extra effort required in lagers

Yea, you are absolutely right about that. The subtlety of different varieties would probably be lost in a beer too. Matcha would be perfect. Might even turn your beer green too!

Edcculus said:

Yea, you are absolutely right about that. The subtlety of different varieties would probably be lost in a beer too. Matcha would be perfect. Might even turn your beer green too!

Click to expand...

You both seem to be pretty confident matcha will work well. I will play around with it and see what we can do.

I should just realize this will end in me doing a double batch and seeing which one works better, or if either works at all! HBT, always giving me more ideas than I have time.

Do tell me when you try to brew it and how it all goes! I'm very curious as to how it'll work out..

Did you end up brewing this one? Curious to see how it turned out.

Hilbert said:

Did you end up brewing this one? Curious to see how it turned out.

Click to expand...

Not quite yet. My brew buddy and I had way too many brews we wanted to try before this one. We have a list and this is on there working it's way to the top. I will post when it is all done.

Alright...I'm interested in brewing this. I think I'm going to do it next week or this weekend. But first here is the recipe I'm looking at (please provide feedback and critique)

Partial Mash:

3# American Two-row Pale Malt
1# American Munich
.5# Carapils
.5# Honey Malt
3# Light DME

Centennial .25 ozx (60min)
Cascade .25 oz (30 min)
Cenennial .25 oz (15 min)
Cascade .25 oz (15 min)
Centennial .25 oz (2 min)

*Add 50 grams of green tea shredded leaves to boil at 15 min (to sanatize?)

Will this amount of green tea come through? I read a micro brew in I think Wisconsin started brewing a green tea ale and they utilized 500 grams per 50 gallon batches.

daveooph131 said:

I read a micro brew in I think Wisconsin started brewing a green tea ale and they utilized 500 grams per 50 gallon batches.

Click to expand...

Do you know which micro-brew? One of us could probably call them up or shoot them an email with some questions.

My experience is that most micro-brews are willing to share their recipe with home brewers. At the very least they would probably give us some tips on brewing this particular beer.

What's up North shore brewer, I'm in Beverly.

You should head up to gloucester and talk to the guys at Fisherman's. They do a Barley Wine with tea called "Boston Tea Party". I think it might be on tap now.

I want to try this if you end up doing it.

cassj said:

Do you know which micro-brew? One of us could probably call them up or shoot them an email with some questions.

My experience is that most micro-brews are willing to share their recipe with home brewers. At the very least they would probably give us some tips on brewing this particular beer.

Click to expand...

It is called Blue Creek the beer is a zen ale.Google it and you'll find some articles on it. I really want to try this did you have any suggestions for the recipe I posted?

daveooph131 said:

It is called Blue Creek the beer is a zen ale.Google it and you'll find some articles on it. I really want to try this did you have any suggestions for the recipe I posted?

Click to expand...

My only thought about the recipe (sounds delicious BTW) is to not boil the green tea. I would do it just after flame out, after the wort has cooled to 170F to 180F. This will still sanitize the tea, and you won't extract the bitter off-flavors release from the tea because of boiling. When you boil green tea, you're effectively cooking it, not steeping it, and you should try to avoid that.

DRoyLenz said:

My only thought about the recipe (sounds delicious BTW) is to not boil the green tea. I would do it just after flame out, after the wort has cooled to 170F to 180F. This will still sanitize the tea, and you won't extract the bitter off-flavors release from the tea because of boiling. When you boil green tea, you're effectively cooking it, not steeping it, and you should try to avoid that.

Click to expand...

Ok thanks....now last thing, I had one more thought. What about brewing a pint or so of really strong green tea, add a little honey, and then rack beer on top once your ready for secondary fermentation. I think this could work better than adding tea pre-fermentation, what do you think?

Also, I may add simcoe hops instead of cascade.

daveooph said:

Ok thanks....now last thing, I had one more thought. What about brewing a pint or so of really strong green tea, add a little honey, and then rack beer on top once your ready for secondary fermentation. I think this could work better than adding tea pre-fermentation, what do you think?

Also, I may add simcoe hops instead of cascade.

Click to expand...

What's the honey for? You'd end up causing more yeast to be bred to try and eat it, which would cloud-up your secondary. The point of secondary is to clear and add flavors that wouldn't stand up to fermentation.

daveooph said:

Ok thanks....now last thing, I had one more thought. What about brewing a pint or so of really strong green tea, add a little honey, and then rack beer on top once your ready for secondary fermentation. I think this could work better than adding tea pre-fermentation, what do you think?

Also, I may add simcoe hops instead of cascade.

Click to expand...

The advantage to this method is that it'll allow you to have better control over the amount of green tea flavor you have. Start with less than you think is necessary, rack on top of it, then taste it. You can then add more green tea if you think it needs more.

I'm not sure what the honey is for, but there are plenty of threads on here regarding how to add a honey flavor to your brew if that's what you're going for, but I'm sure you knew that already.

Hegh said:

What's the honey for? You'd end up causing more yeast to be bred to try and eat it, which would cloud-up your secondary. The point of secondary is to clear and add flavors that wouldn't stand up to fermentation.

Click to expand...

I just like honey and thought it could compliment this brew....

Also, sorry I met to say I would add the honey to the actual boil of the wort.

daveooph131 said:

I just like honey and thought it could compliment this brew....

Also, sorry I met to say I would add the honey to the actual boil of the wort.

Click to expand...

You shouldn't really boil honey either. The best time to add it is either at flame-out or just prior to pitching, depending on who you ask.

Hegh said:

You shouldn't really boil honey either. The best time to add it is either at flame-out or just prior to pitching, depending on who you ask.

Click to expand...

I've never heard that before, actually. For what it's worth, I've always just added honey during the last 5 minutes of the boil, and those beers turned out great.

Why shouldn't you boil honey? Does it boil off some of the flavor or something?

I would brew the tea and add it to the secondary but I would stay away for the honey.

You'd have to add a lot to make a difference plus it will really dry out the beer.

mc_eric said:

I've never heard that before, actually. For what it's worth, I've always just added honey during the last 5 minutes of the boil, and those beers turned out great.

Why shouldn't you boil honey? Does it boil off some of the flavor or something?

Click to expand...

I've never brewed with honey before, I'm just repeating what I've read elsewhere. Last five minutes is fine, I'm sure, and if it has worked for you in the past then go for it. I thought you meant that you were going to boil the honey for the full hour.

As I understand it, boiling it for a while would boil off the flavor, yes.

Funny enough, I googled boiling honey and I get a thread from here. Seems people are saying some of the compounds that create honey's flavor are volatile and will be ruined by prolonged high heat exposure.

Ahh, Thanks for the link Vagabond. This was all news to me

Thinking about doing this for my next batch.

Here's what I'm thinking. Let me know what you think. I want a simple beer that will let the green tea show through. I might even add some steeped tea to the secondary.

Steep green tea separate during boil. Add liquid post boil.
6 Lbs Light LME

Steeped @ 155 for 45 Mins – Sparge @ 170
½ Lb Flaked Maize
½ Lb CaraPils

1 oz Cluster - 60 Mins
½ oz Cluster – 5 Mins

White Labs San Fran Lager Yeast