Beer Style: Specialty Beer Family
Rosemary IPA
I have an alter ego, a secret identity, in short a day job. I’m a high-school French teacher. Pretty mundane, sometimes, but that’s one of the reasons I make my own beer.
Take Heart with Winter Warmers
These seasonal beers were traditionally served to warm the body and soul with their herbs, spices, and high alcohol content. Recipes included for spruce beer, wassail, and a brew to fight off Old Man Winter.
Smoked Wee Heavy
Long, slow, and cool fermentation is a crucial element for this beer, which otherwise gets too fruity and bitter; the smoked malt can develop fusel and/or sulfury notes if overdone or if fermented too warm. Hop levels are deliberately low; this beer is all about malt.
Cyserale
Partial mash with honey and fruit juice.
Brewing Hempen Ale
The brewer who developed Hempen Ale and Hempen Gold tells us how he created the popular and controversial beers.
Braggot
Golden colored, full-bodied, smooth, and rich. An ale to be aged well, saved for special occasions, and even then to be savored slowly.
Charlie’s Gouden-Plenty Pils
Licorice root provides a refreshing herbal spice for this Pilsner base beer.
Dubbel Trubbel
Here is my recipe for a spiced dubbel, not patterned after any one commercial example but rather an amalgam of several but with a bit of a twist. It is moderately strong, medium dark, spicy from both the yeast and the flavorings added. I recommend aging it well, trying it several different times over the course of a couple of years. In effect you will probably find that you have brewed several different small batches in one, as the flavors really evolve over time.
Funky Mead — Metheglin
Mead is, of course, easier to brew than beer, although it takes much longer for it to become drinkable, 13 months in this case. Part Belgian witbier, part mead, this is a nice introduction to the world of spiced meads, known as methglin.
Haystack Wheat
A Belgian wheat beer base with equal parts coriander, cumin, ginger, wintergreen, and star anise; ground and mixed thoroughly to add just a hint of spice.
Yarrow Pale Ale (YPA)
This recipe for a YPA came to me one summer afternoon after mowing the lawn. Yarrow, thyme, and savory have spilled out of my wife’s herb garden to become part of the lawn in one place, and they inevitably get mowed along with the dandelions and weeds. The aroma was amazing, and so is the beer.
Ty Cobb’s Georgia Peach Pilsner
Finding fresh, ripe peach to even slightly over-ripe peaches are key here. If you notice that there still is not enough peach character, you can add a little peach extract in the fermenter. Be sparing as you don’t want that character to overwhelm the base beer.
