Shock top twisted pretzel wheat

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mark7347

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Anyone try this? Just had a pint today at a bar. Tasted and smelled just like a pretzel. Unbelievable!

Anyone know how they did that? No way pretzels are in the mash.
 
Solera brewing in Parkdale, Oregon made a beer called Pretzel Logic 3 years ago that was a dead-on pretzel in a glass flavor. Slightly soured, salty, wheat beer. There were probably others, too. Now BMC is getting onto the idea...
 
I see. It's an interesting concept and forgive me for trying it from an AB company but I'm obsessed with figuring out how they got that flavor into the finished beer. It was surprising.
 
They had it at the Beer Borboun and BBQ around here this past weekend. I didn't get around to trying it, and ended up in the lines for Goose Island, Ommegang, and other more craft breweries. One of the people with me did and said the same thing.

I imagine that they salt it (obviously) like a gose and use bready english malts. I could see them including pretzels as well as they could give some flavor and being a wheat style beer any cloudiness caused by it would not matter. Good luck in cloning it.
 
I had it at their Biergartan in St. Louis recently. I thought it was pretty amazing, but I wouldn't really want a lot of of it.

Yes I totally agree. Wouldn't want 5 gallons but it was a good experience. I'm just trying to figure out how they did it from a production standpoint.

I was reading about it on other forums and it seems like people add lye to some of the wort runnings from the mash to increase the malliard reactions in the boil. I guess it gives that toasty salty pretzel flavor. Any thoughts?
 
Are you sure you want to be adding food grade lye (NaOH) to your beers? You could always increase Maillard reactions with a longer or higher gravity boil, or taking out some of the runnings and boiling them down as you would with some Scottish ales. I would think that salting it as with a Gose would do a lot to recreate the flavor. I think the beer I had from Solera was much like a Berliner Weiss, but with slightly more bready flavor and the salt that gave the pretzel flavor.
 
This was a really good beer from Shock Top. I check occasionally to see if anyone has a clone yet. I want to make something like this but I'm too amateur to know the simplest of needs. Of course my reply from Shock Top when I emailed them they act as if their proprietary blend is locked behind a vault.
 
This was a really good beer from Shock Top. I check occasionally to see if anyone has a clone yet. I want to make something like this but I'm too amateur to know the simplest of needs. Of course my reply from Shock Top when I emailed them they act as if their proprietary blend is locked behind a vault.

That's BMC for you.
 
Has anyone come up with any sort of clone for this? I had one of these last night from the Shock Top Winter Pack and thought it was excellent. Not sure where to begin with trying to clone it. The bottle mentions something about "artificial flavoring"
 
Im all about making this at home. Its a different beer, but good.
Wife is a cook and says baking soda adds the pretzel flavor to regular dough. I would think using bread yeast would be a huge help.....
Together we can make this. Come on team!
 
What about mashing with pretzels? That's what I would think they do... well maybe what a homebrewer would do to mimic the taste. InBev probably uses all kinds of chemicals.
 
That makes good sense, but I wonder what pretzels? The larger, soft ones, or the stick/twist pretzels in the snack aisle? Or something else? Would the salt inhibit yeast activity?

When I tried this, I really, really liked it - but I'm not knowledgeable enough to have a clue. Some sort of toasty wheat, for sure, maybe victory malt, as well - a little salt, maybe some sour? I don't know - this is all speculation on my part... And then, what about hops? Nothing citrusy or fruity, for sure - but then what?

If anyone figures this out, I am all ears....
 
Posting this in the event that it might be helpful to someone who knows how to create recipes....


Shock Top Announces Twisted Pretzel Wheat


  • Press Release
  • Apr. 24, 2014


ST. LOUIS — Just in time for National Pretzel Day on April 26, Shock Top has united the classic taste of a crisp, cold beer and warm, bakery-fresh pretzels in its newest brew, Shock Top Twisted Pretzel Wheat. The brewer today announced the limited-edition beer, a Belgian-style unfiltered wheat ale that delivers the delicious taste and aroma of fresh pretzels, will be served up at beer festivals nationwide—and available on draught at select locations.

“As a brewmaster, having the freedom to experiment with quality ingredients means that I can create beers that are as unique as the fans that enjoy them,” said Jill Vaughn, Shock Top brewmaster. “Pretzels are everyone’s favorite beer snack, so we thought Shock Top Twisted Pretzel Wheat would be a fun and approachable twist on unfiltered wheat beer for festival goers to enjoy ÔǪ and just in time for National Pretzel Day.”


Brewed with wheat, caramel malt, orange peels and a rich pretzel flavor, Shock Top Twisted Pretzel Wheat has a dark caramel color and 5.2 percent ABV. It will be available on draught at more than 150 beer festivals nationwide, Shock Top special events and select retail locations for a limited time. At select events, beer drinkers can even enjoy Shock Top Twisted Pretzel Wheat in limited-edition pretzel cups.

On another note, I've seen mustard seeds added to some beers for flavouring - not sure if that would do any good here, but possibly something to think about....
 
What are the ingredients that make pretzels taste like pretzels? have you looked at a recipe for making pretzels? I can't imagine using actual pretzels in the beer but you never know. From a mass production standpoint that sounds like it'd be cost prohibitive.
 
From what I've read I've been told salt and food grade lye in the mash. The lye would give that brown malliard pretzel skin reaction and possibly that flavor
 
When I've made pretzels before, we boiled them in some kind of baking soda mixture (not sure bc it was a kit) then put them in the oven.
 
I don't think that the lye itself is part of the flavour profile of a pretzel; rather, it's used for the chemical reaction that it (or baking soda, also a base) causes with one of the ingredients (I'll be damned if I remember which), to produce the desired characteristics of the finished pretzel. Having said that, I am no pretzelmeister, so I can't say for sure. I suppose it is just as possible that it might be used to "neutralise" the beginning of a lacto/sour-type wheat beer, and the profile builds from there?

I really don't know - just throwing some dieas out there - if a few of us could put this diea together, I think it would be a good one. Imagine adding mustard seeds for the bittering in place of hops - that might be pretty good with the pretzel theme.....
 
Just a guess from having made pretzels before:

How about soaking malted wheat in a lye bath and then roasting it wet as if you were making a crystal malt?

I don't know what the heavily alkaline water would do to the starch conversion process though.
 
I would avoid the lye in the mash, it will mess up the pH a lot.

I've made pretzels at home and the ingredients really aren't that different from most bread except for the addition of some malted barley powder. It's the extra steps in the cooking (along with the lye treatment) that make it different.

Maybe some of the whole soft pretzels ground up in the mash? Soft pretzels come unsalted when you buy em frozen...you could save the salt packet and do a salt rim around the glasses for serving.
 
MO is supposed to impart a ready character. Other floor malted English malts do as well maybe biscuit malt. If you were going to mash actual pretzels I would either tear unsalted soft pretzels or maybe make bread crumbs out of hard pretzels and add them. Maybe dry pretzel with unsalted sourdough crumbs. Just thoughts
 
There's lots of recipes around here that use bread or cake. I'd say the easiest thing to do would be to take one of those, and use the pretzels as the bread.

In the new Experimental Homebrewing book there's a recipe using bread in the mash. 17 pounds 2 Row and 3 lbs bread making for about a 9% beer. It bitters with Magnum, mashes at 152 and uses 1056 as the yeast. Could be as simple as that? Here, I think they are using 2 row to let the character of the bread come out. Probably would need salt to taste after fermentation is done.
 
Shock Top's website mentions wheat and caramel malts with a slight orange flavor. I got my hands on some Maris Otter and wheat. I will try brewing a 50/50 mix of these with a fairly-light addition of Mandarina Bavaria hops as this is the closest that I can come to with what I have available to me.

I'll try it sometime and will report back on whether it tastes anything like what we are looking for. Chances are that it isn't, but it might provide a place to start.
 
Shock Top's website mentions wheat and caramel malts with a slight orange flavor. I got my hands on some Maris Otter and wheat. I will try brewing a 50/50 mix of these with a fairly-light addition of Mandarina Bavaria hops as this is the closest that I can come to with what I have available to me.

I'll try it sometime and will report back on whether it tastes anything like what we are looking for. Chances are that it isn't, but it might provide a place to start.

How did this turn out?
 
Hi -

I haven't made it yet, but it is on the list. Either for my next brew or the one after, depending on how things go.

I'll be sure to post results!

Ron
 
Chatting with Shock Top Head Brewmaster Jill Vaughn about Twisted Pretzel Wheat and her other Shock Top Beers
http://beer-runner.blogspot.com/2014/05/chatting-with-shocktop-head-brewmaster.html

Q: How do you brew a beer that tastes like a pretzel?

A: Let me tell you the background behind it. There’s a couple considerations we have for any Shock Top beer. We use the best ingredients, and always brew with wheat malt and some type of citrus. There’s this place across the street from the brewery that makes these wonderful pretzels. Pretzels are popular in St. Louis and we wanted to brew something that was part of St. Louis. Every day when leaving the brewery, you can smell two things: the beer from the brewery and fresh baked pretzels. We did a lot of experimentation in our pilot brewery with barely malt, wheat malt, citrus and we found a totally cool flavor essence that has all the flavors of a fresh pretzel. When we tasted the beer, we all found it was exactly what we were looking for.
 
Chatting with Shock Top Head Brewmaster Jill Vaughn about Twisted Pretzel Wheat and her other Shock Top Beers
http://beer-runner.blogspot.com/2014/05/chatting-with-shocktop-head-brewmaster.html

Q: How do you brew a beer that tastes like a pretzel?

A: Let me tell you the background behind it. There’s a couple considerations we have for any Shock Top beer. We use the best ingredients, and always brew with wheat malt and some type of citrus. There’s this place across the street from the brewery that makes these wonderful pretzels. Pretzels are popular in St. Louis and we wanted to brew something that was part of St. Louis. Every day when leaving the brewery, you can smell two things: the beer from the brewery and fresh baked pretzels. We did a lot of experimentation in our pilot brewery with barely malt, wheat malt, citrus and we found a totally cool flavor essence that has all the flavors of a fresh pretzel. When we tasted the beer, we all found it was exactly what we were looking for.

In other words, they are using artificial flavoring for the pretzel flavor.
 
I bought the sampler pack that had 3 in it a few months ago after reading this thread. There is still one in the back of the fridge. It tasted like a pretzel...kind of. Not a fan. Interesting taste, but I split both bottles with friends and couldn't finish a whole one. Not knocking it, just not for me.
 
My friend gave me one at his apartment about a month ago. I had other beers beforehand and it probably affected my opinion, but I thought it was meh. Not bad, but nothing special either. I do like shock top, and particularly liked their shockolate wheat beer, but that was discontinued. I have a bar here that sells shock top pretty cheap, in fact, there's quite a few places that sell it cheap. So when I go out, I like I can drink cheap. I don't usually drink it at home, though.
 
lol

Shock Top

Anything other than the basic white type beer is just a wheat beer pumped full of artificial flavoring.
 
Lots of places sell Budweiser products cheap, par for the course.
True. ST is just my preference usually, but I'll drink Bud if everything else is ridiculously marked up or if it's free :D Getting into homebrew might change things a bit though. I'll probably be drinking less ST.
 
Anyone try this? Just had a pint today at a bar. Tasted and smelled just like a pretzel. Unbelievable!

Anyone know how they did that? No way pretzels are in the mash.
Glad to have found this! I recently found an old photo of this beer & was so excited bc I LOVED this beer & bought it til it sold out! This was before I started homebrewing! Looks like a new future exbeeriment!
 
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