May Has Landed

I did this writeup for the newsletter for the Maltose Falcons, and figured you can apply this to cooking as well as brewing (think edible flowers, etc):

May has landed, and new growth is springing up everywhere.  My home has only been mine for two years now, and getting landscaping in the ground was my first priority.  So I put in a hedge of fruit trees and some hops this year, sprouted seeds with last year's compost, and my year old plantings are really taking off.  Looks like I will have mangoes this year, and enough lemons to make 10 gallons of hard lemonade (if I only had an electric citrus juicer or a fruit press).

At the last Falcons meeting we had a beer by one of our members, Steve Scott, and it made my head spin.  His Mothballs IPA was aged with a wood traditionally used for cigar humidors, and oh was it distinctive.  I am a tinkerer.  I am not someone who likes to follow the crowd, and the experience of trying this beer opened up new paths in my mind.  Like a psychedelic cartoon, I was up all night thinking about different styles and how to twist them with flavor profiles of alternative woods and other nontraditional fair.  Oak aging is sooooo last year.  The next day, I ran off to buy as many different types of wood chips that I could find.

My first attempt was with a limp Irish red that was left fermenting til flat and dry.  Yes, I was lazy with it and it needed some oomph.  Doing a free association with red, I toasted some cherry wood chips and gave them a good soak in vodka.  After aging for a week, the beer definitely had some added depth but still needed something more.  We were making strawberry shortcakes, and I had about a jar full of strawberry tops left over.  Why not?  The vodka leached the color and flavor right out of them, and gave a nice finish to what would have been a lackluster beer.  If you have ever aged vodka with sweet fruit, you know that it cuts a candy taste from the fruit.  But the green on the tops really grounded the final product and gave it an organic flavor.  It still needs to be served cold to enjoy it, but it would have been tough drinking without those after-ferment adjuncts.

My next attempt at doing something different?  A lemon blossom wheat.  Simplistic, and I am sure someone has already done it, but I never tasted one!  And next year I will have the green wood and blossoms of so many more:  Mango, plum, mulberry, boysenberry, peach, orange, avocado, jujube, pear, raspberry, grape, fig, passion fruit, and tons of different herbs.   Why not a catnip gruit?  I bet nobody ever tried to do THAT before.

Why not try something new with one of your old standbys?  Of course, jumping in with both feet to a beer you worked so hard to create does not make sense.  Pour a glass of some finished beer, then make a tiny tea of the experimental ingredient you want to use.  Add it only to the glass and make sure you like the combination, and that you have the right level of flavor before committing 5 gallons or more to a potentially disastrous addition.  And always sanitize the stuff you are adding, vodka is a quick and easy way to do this.

We live in an era where exotic, quality ingredients from every corner of the globe are available to us.  There has got to be some unique combinations out there that will bring smiles to the faces of millions.  That is how peanut butter cups were invented (or so the story goes)!  Brew bravely, and take advantage of what the season has to offer.