Looking for a horchata beer recipe

[BurlingBrew]

Hey everyone,

So it would seem my wife wants me to brew a horchata beer. Does anyone have a tried, tested and true recipe? I have never drank one personally but did find several blue moon clones online. Any good?

 

[microbusbrewery]

I can't speak for the Blue Moon clones, but I've really enjoyed Or Xata from The Bruery and Señorita from Elevation Beer Co. I brewed an experimental beer based on Señorita for a club Weird Ingredient meeting; I substituted 20% of the grain bill for Cinnamon Toast Crunch cereal. The goal wasn't to try to make it taste like CTC, but to incorporate those flavors into a beer. So for mine, I was shooting for something reminiscent of horchata. I can't remember for sure, but it took 2nd or 3rd place and during the blind tastings, someone commented "Hey this tastes like horchata" so I'd say it was a success. If you decide to try it, skip the CTC though...trust me, it left a strange astringent character in the beer. Also, there's a bunch of vegetable oils in there that could go rancid. Here's the recipe I used for a small batch, so just scale it up as necessary and replace the CTC with base malt (Maris Otter).

*2.5 gallon batch*
3.0# Maris Otter
1.0# 6oz Cinnamon Toast Crunch cereal (replace with more base malt)
9oz Crisp C77 Malt
6oz Dingmanns Aromatic Malt
4oz Crisp Pale Chocolate (added before sparging)
3oz Crisp Roasted Barley (added before sparging)
11oz Flaked Barley
7oz Lactose (10 min)
6.5g Northern Brewer (60 min)
6.5g Chinook (7 mins)
US-05

Mash at 156F, 90 min boil, ferment at 60F

Cinnamon and Vanilla Tincture
To 5oz of decent vodka, add one vanilla bean (split and scraped).
After 7 days, add 1-2 cinnamon sticks for another 4 days.
Strain and store in a cool dark place until ready to use in the keg/bottling bucket.
Add to taste at kegging/bottling

 

[dmtaylor]

I really love the concept above from @microbusbrewery -- Cinnamon Toast Crunch?! That's friggin genius!

 

[microbusbrewery]

I really love the concept above from @microbusbrewery -- Cinnamon Toast Crunch?! That's friggin genius!

Like I said, I'd skip the cinnamon toast crunch cereal. The mash smelled awesome, but most of the cinnamon character scrubbed out during primary. But the tincture will add it back in. It was also the weirdest looking mash I've ever had...the first runnings looked like dirty rusty water. But I think the base beer recipe is pretty solid.

 

[BurlingBrew]

I can't speak for the Blue Moon clones, but I've really enjoyed Or Xata from The Bruery and Señorita from Elevation Beer Co. I brewed an experimental beer based on Señorita for a club Weird Ingredient meeting; I substituted 20% of the grain bill for Cinnamon Toast Crunch cereal. The goal wasn't to try to make it taste like CTC, but to incorporate those flavors into a beer. So for mine, I was shooting for something reminiscent of horchata. I can't remember for sure, but it took 2nd or 3rd place and during the blind tastings, someone commented "Hey this tastes like horchata" so I'd say it was a success. If you decide to try it, skip the CTC though...trust me, it left a strange astringent character in the beer. Also, there's a bunch of vegetable oils in there that could go rancid. Here's the recipe I used for a small batch, so just scale it up as necessary and replace the CTC with base malt (Maris Otter).

*2.5 gallon batch*
3.0# Maris Otter
1.0# 6oz Cinnamon Toast Crunch cereal (replace with more base malt)
9oz Crisp C77 Malt
6oz Dingmanns Aromatic Malt
4oz Crisp Pale Chocolate (added before sparging)
3oz Crisp Roasted Barley (added before sparging)
11oz Flaked Barley
7oz Lactose (10 min)
6.5g Northern Brewer (60 min)
6.5g Chinook (7 mins)
US-05

Mash at 156F, 90 min boil, ferment at 60F

Cinnamon and Vanilla Tincture
To 5oz of decent vodka, add one vanilla bean (split and scraped).
After 7 days, add 1-2 cinnamon sticks for another 4 days.
Strain and store in a cool dark place until ready to use in the keg/bottling bucket.
Add to taste at kegging/bottling

Exactly what I was looking for and will be brewing this recipe! I noticed the absence flaked rice and cinnamon in the boil. I ask because most recipes I found mentions this. Also am I not in front of my computer at moment. Are you able to tell me the SRM? Yeast?

 

[chezhed]

We make a Horchata Cream Ale down here on the border and it goes over well. Very simple...the locals say it does remind them of horchata...but it's beer. It scores very well in competitions and constantly gets great comments from people that "don't drink beer."

7.00 lb Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM) Grain 1 70.0 %
2.00 lb Corn, Flaked (1.3 SRM) Grain 2 20.0 %
0.50 lb Biscuit Malt (23.0 SRM) Grain 3 5.0 %
0.50 lb Caramel/Crystal Malt - 10L (10.0 SRM) Grain 4 5.0 %
0.50 oz Cascade Whole [7.50 %] - Boil 60.0 min Hop 5 13.0 IBUs
1.00 Items Whirlfloc Tablet (Boil 15.0 mins) Fining 6 -
1.00 oz Williamette [5.50 %] - Boil 10.0 min Hop 7 6.9 IBUs
1.0 pkg SafAle English Ale (DCL/Fermentis #S-04) [23.66 ml]

soak 2 vanilla beans slit lengthwise and 2 cinnamon sticks in vodka and add to secondary for 3-6 days. Transfer beans and sticks to keg!!! We are lucky to get fresh beans each year from Veracruz, MX (second largest source in the world) that we dry and package ourselves and I believe this is a key to our success.....with dried from somewhere else, you may have to increase the quantity of beans....

 

[microbusbrewery]

Exactly what I was looking for and will be brewing this recipe! I noticed the absence flaked rice and cinnamon in the boil. I ask because most recipes I found mentions this. Also am I not in front of my computer at moment. Are you able to tell me the SRM? Yeast?

It's pretty dark, pretty typical for a porter. Beersmith puts it at an SRM of 31. I didn't add any additional cinnamon to the boil because of the weird ingredient (Cinnamon Toast Crunch). I was just being cautious since I had never brewed with breakfast cereal and had no idea what it would contribute to the finished beer. Plus I really like using tinctures as they let you really dial in the flavors at kegging/bottling time. I didn't go with flaked rice because it wasn't listed on the label for Señorita, which was kind of my target beer.