As a longtime homebrewer and a professional brewer at Madison Brewing Company in Bennington, Vermont, I’m always looking for new ingredients to brew with. A while back, I was approached by the Vermont Seed and Oil Company about the possibility of incorporating hemp seed into a beer. Not knowing much about hemp seeds, I decided to do some research and what I found was really interesting.

Hemp seeds are considered a super food and are packed full of protein, essential fatty acids, vitamin E, and zinc. Pound for pound they are one of the most balanced and nutritious seeds you can consume. Additionally, sterile hemp seeds are legal in the United States if purchased by a licensed vendor. They are typically used in bird food and granola bars due to their high nutritional value.

I decided to purchase some hemp seeds online from Nuts.com to do an evaluation. Upon tasting the seeds I found them to be unique in flavor but somewhat similar to size and texture of sunflower seeds. They also had a nice, subtle nuttiness along with a slight citrus twang. I found them to be a little “green” and thought that roasting them at a low temperature would draw out some additional flavor. Hemp seeds come whole or hulled (the outside shell removed) and for my brewing experiment I went with the whole. I felt the shell may actually contribute to lautering and naturally combat the high protein content. I do not have any real evidence if this worked but do recommend the whole seed for brewing purposes.

Due to the nuttiness and high protein content I decided to brew an American brown ale. I felt the nuttiness would complement the brown ale perfectly and the protein would contribute to a rich and creamy body. I was right, as the beer dubbed BURNT was a huge success and is now a year-round beer at Madison Brewing Co. It was also well received at the Vermont Brewers Fest and the feedback was right in line with my expectations with descriptors such as unique nuttiness, super creamy, nutty and smoky, totally unique brown ale, deep flavor, and rich.

I would recommend homebrewers experiment with this unique adjunct. Here are some tips and tricks I learned while brewing with hemp seeds. Roast the seeds at 325 °F (163 °C) for about 25 minutes to bring out the nuttiness and flavor of the seed. Avoid scorching as this will give a scorched flavor to your beer. I find they are best used in the mash, but mill them separately as they are quite small and will most likely go uncrushed with a standard barley mill gap setting. I targeted around 10% of the total grist but I feel you could go as high as 20% for a truly pronounced flavor contribution. Even in amounts up to 15% I haven’t noticed any head retention issues, so the oils released from roasting do not seem to be an issue.

Hemp seeds lend themselves very well to darker and slightly roasted recipes but I would also recommend trying them in pale ale or even IPAs and try to coax out some of the citrus twang. I have paired them with Citra® and Falconer’s Flight® in a hoppy brown ale recipe and they complemented them nicely. Other styles to try would be a Scottish ale with a slightly more toasted seed or a dunkel where the nuttiness and creaminess would complement the style perfectly.