Chewing Gum Beer

[BarberSurgeon]

So my friend asked if I could make a "unique" beer for him. He's paying for the ingredients, so sure, why not? Anyway, he decided that since he likes to drink beer while chewing mint gum, he would like to have a beer that tastes like mint. I've read several threads about using mint on this site, but there have been very few quantity suggestions, so I thought it would be okay to start a new thread.

He mostly drinks light American lagers, so I thought it would be good to start with a light base such as a blonde or kolsch (I don't have the capability to lager). Hopping would need to be light, and I was thinking of using Pearle for their supposed "mintiness" to minimize any conflict. I was also thinking honey would be a nice addition to round out some of the flavor, since the body would need to be light (to be in-line with his regular drinking experience).

Based on what I've read, using fresh leaves will yield a more authentic, rounded flavor and using an extract syrup will give a more candy-like flavor. Since I'll be going for a chewing gum type experience, I'm guessing I'll be better off with the extract (at bottling?). Alternatively, I would consider leaves in a vodka extract.

So my two main questions at this point are:

1) How much extract should I use at bottling?

2) About how high could (should) I go with the alcohol? Since I'm going for a light body, I would guess that a high abv wouldn't be very palatable.

Any other advice is certainly welcome; and, as always, thanks for the help!

 

[Brewkowski]

I was looking at making a spiced mead and I'd come across Wintergreen Leaves from a couple of threads. Never used them, but they sound minty and they're normally used in a tea so I'd imagine they could be steeped with grains or something along those lines.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wintergreen , maybe that with some other mint leaves and some Pearle.

I'd definitely stick to a lower ABV or OG.

 

[BarberSurgeon]

That's a cool (pun intended I guess) idea to steep with mint. I never would have thought of that. I suppose there would be only a minimal risk of weird, vegetal tannin extraction as opposed to actually boiling the leaves? The only concern I have is that the flavor and aroma of the mint oils would be lost by the time the boil was finished (unless Wintergreen is a good choice for exactly this reason). At worst, I doubt it would hurt anything though, so I might as well try that in addition to the other methods. Thanks for the suggestion!