Kombucha Beer?

[Lazer Wolf Brewing]

After much research on here and online in general, I have yet to come across a How-To on how to make Kombucha beer. My girlfriend owns a Kombucha company and I work in the beer business (and homebrew) so we are anxious to come up with a collaboration. Doesn't seem like much info online but it appears my options are:

1. Brew a blonde, use scoby to primary ferment, monitor ph/sourness/taste. Maybe add ale yeast after to ferment it out and bump ABV.

2. Brew a beer, ferment with ale yeast. Add scoby and fruit or sugar to secondary to provide souring.

3. Kettle sour with scoby and then brew as usual. I'm not really interested in this option because I don't want to pasteurize and kill off the beneficial kombucha bugs.

4. Brew kombucha then add ale yeast to finished product (my girlfriend thinks this is cheating, she wants to use malt in some way).

Does anyone have any experience with any of the processes listed above? Any insight? Thanks guys!

 

[Lazer Wolf Brewing]

This is what I sort of want to try. The only thing I'm worried about is open fermenting the wort with the scoby at the beginning. Sounds like an easy infection. Booch is open fermented, but there are much more simple sugars for scoby's to ferment in booch than in wort, so I'm expecting fermentation to be much slower with the wort.

1. Brew a blonde.
2. Chill wort to 75 degrees and add to sanitized fermenter.
3. Add scoby/starter liquid to primary along with sugar or fruit and close with muslin cloth.
4. When desired sourness is reached, remove scoby.
5. Chill to target ale yeast temperature, oxygenate wort, pitch ale yeast. Shut fermenter with lid and airlock.
6. Monitor activity and dry hop or cold crash when FG is reached.
7. Rack to keg and force carb.

 

[shelly_belly]

I would just blend the 2 together

 

[burninator]

When you remove the SCOBY, won't the organisms remain in the beer?

 

[tagz]

I had some kombucha beers at crooked stave when I was there a few years ago. They blended. I would think that using the kombucha bacteria in the beer would risk too much acetic acid. Blending would give you much more control over the final balance.

 

[Jilljane]

I brew both kombucha and beer and I have yet to blend them in a bottle or corny. Just by the glass to taste. I believe that these commercially offered drinks are all blended and not cross fermented.