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Spicing Up Beer: Tips From the Pros

Some beer enthusiasts just shake their heads when they see a brewery turn out a beer that has been spiced up with non-traditional ingredients. But for the more adventurous craft beer-lover, they look forward to the experience like they would an ethnic dinner. If you’re in the latter group, read on because we got two of the world’s top culinary-inspired brewers to talk about ways to spice up your homebrew.

Steve Gonzalez — manager of the pilot brewery, barrel warehouse, cask ale program, and Stone Brewing operation in Napa, California

There are some great complementary pairings like nutmeg in dark beers, especially dark brews with cocoa and chocolate notes, and some really tropical peppers like fatali and habanero in fruit beers. Contrasting pairings like Belgian dubbel with star anise I have also seen work. Star anise, for me, is often used in very savory dishes, but I really liked it in a sweet dubbel. Go with those complementary pairings and it can really work, contrasting pairings can be hit or miss.

Adding whole bean coffee with green chili post-ferment is a really good combo. If you have just a single day of contact time, you can get a beer with a chili skin aroma and some of the really interesting nutty notes of whole bean coffee that is really amazing.

We did a beer called Stone San Diego Dry-Rub IPA that used dry-rub spices with a peachwood smoked malt and it reminded you of really tasty barbecue that has just enough dry-rub and smoke to give you that flavor in every bite, but not overpower. It used coffee, coriander, honey, and pasilla peppers, all ingredients I use in my dry-rub.

Top Chef Season 13 I made two 6-barrel batches of beer I was really proud of. The first was a traditional Belgian golden ale with 6 lbs. (2.7 kg) of tamarind in the mash, 3 lbs. (1.4 kg) of powdered ginger in the whirlpool, and 2.5 lbs. (1.1 kg) of jalapeño post-filter. The second was a take on a golden stout, which I called a red stout, with 30 lbs. (13.6 kg) of very red peeled beets, 6 lbs. (2.7 kg) of Dark Horse coffee roasters Ethiopian both in the mash, plus 6 lbs. (2.7 kg) of chocolate and 2 lbs. (0.91 kg) of Ras el Hanout in the whirpool. Ras el Hanout is a Mediteranean spice blend used in Moroccan cuisine. Both beers were really balanced and all the spices and vegetables really came out but nothing overpowered anything else. It was a ton of fun.

As much as it is used out there, coriander is one that is a little misunderstood. The amazing thing about that spice is that it can be sometimes floral, sometimes spicy, sometimes intensely cilantro, sometimes even woody, and it can substitute for a lot of other things. If you have a really floral batch, it can have amazing synergy with hoppy beers, if spicier, it can have some black pepper notes that are really interesting in barrel-aged Belgian beers. On the flip-side, I really can’t stand cloves in beer. Yeast-derived clovey-flavors are fine, but the addition of cloves just so easily overpowers everything. I love to cook with fresh Masala and I always leave the cloves out. It just leaves the curry way too sweet otherwise.

Bench trials are a great technique that all brewers can utilize — it’s how I developed Stone Tangerine Express IPA! Blending fruits and hops in a dozen brews and seeing what worked! Best way to do it in my mind is to add about 6 grams of a spice to a 22-ounce bottle of beer, cap, and then do the same with 1.5 grams. That is the rough equivalent of 0.5-lb. and 2-lbs./bbl respectively, giving you some different levels. Store cold for 3 days. Serve those with a no-spice control then blend together to achieve the, “baby bear” level of spice, getting it just right!

Andrew Bell — Innovation Manager for The Bruery, Bruery Terreux, and Offshoot Beer Co.

When it comes to finding a good beer–spice combination, unless it is something small like a cask or a randall, we are almost always thinking of a final flavor profile for a cohesive concept. In other words we do not just make “base beer with XX spice” — instead we are looking to make a beer that tastes like horchata or a mojito or gingersnap cookies or even barbecue sauce (not one of the better ideas) among other things.

I have many favorite spicing combos. Coriander usually fits in well with most Belgian ales — especially at a threshold that is just below being able to identify it as a spice addition (or at least coriander specifically). Certain types of cinnamon at a certain level goes well with many dark and decadent styles (especially if they are barrel-aged) but can be quite polarizing at higher amounts (people have a very big tolerance range for cinnamon). While it might be debatable about whether it is a spice or not: We have a pretty nasty vanilla habit (spending-wise) and we use it very, very frequently. It really accents anything you want to taste perceived sweet or decadent. We use it almost 100% of the time we use cacao, and in many other applications where we are looking for “creamy” or “pastry-like” flavors. If there is one spice I’ve found I can’t stand in beer, it is kaffir lime leaves — it just tastes like Windex/chemical to me at any level. I love it in Thai food, but hate it in beer. It also stains draft lines really badly (worse than chili peppers, lavender, and coffee, which are all offenders as well as far as tainting draft tubing).

Bench trials are something we perform regularly — especially with spices we do not use frequently. For the smallest trials we use purged growlers or crowlers to add ingredients to the beer, then seal and let it sit (cool/cold) for a week before trying. On a larger scale, we have “treatment kegs” as we call them, which are basically the Sabco homebrew brite tanks (aka a 1⁄2-bbl keg with a 4-in./10.2-cm tri-clamp removable spear). Beyond that we have a very extensive 3-bbl pilot system that we trial beers on before scaling to our bigger 30-bbl system. Here are some very important reminders:

  1. Try to emulate the dosage rate,processing and most importantly contact time that you would do when scaled.
  2. Keep notes or a database of what you’ve tried before and associate that dosage rate with an intensity scale.
  3. You have to keep in mind that various beers are more delicate/robust bases than others (e.g. the spice rate for a barrel- aged imperial stout will be different than the dosage rate for a session-strength blonde ale).

The timing of a spice addition really depends on the beer, the concept, and the herb/spice. A lot of spices have volatile oils that can be blown off during the boil or fermentation — but many do not — so it is a bit of trial and error (or looking up what flavor compounds make up various spices). Usually if it is a more delicate spice, cold-side additions carry the flavor better, but more robust spices are fine late boil or in the whirlpool. You might even be able to get away with less spice using it hot side, but you might lose nuances from the spice. Also watch out for extracting spice tannins during the boil and adjust your hop bitterness accordingly.

Understanding that the flavors of different varieties of spice are not the same is key. As an example, “cinnamon” can come in many different varieties: Cassia, Korintje, Saigon, Ceylon, etc. and impart vastly different flavors. Some differences can be as stark as different types of peppers or hops or coffee or cacao origins. Think tomatoes in cooking — so many varieties that you do not use interchangeably let alone processing methods: Green, ripe/fresh, sun dried, canned, etc. Same thing with vanilla and its varietals and origins; then there is coriander, mint, sage, oregano, cardamom, even lavender — there can be huge differences in all of these.

I’ll finish with one of the weirder, more esoteric beers we produced. We brewed the beer a couple years ago and melded dried candy cap mushrooms into an imperial stout — very cool maple-like character from the aromatic compound sotolon found in them. You won’t know until you try!

Issue: December 2018