Do you ever just make up a recipe and say "Suuure why not?"

Having a bit of free time on my hands, and some extra disposable income to test new stuff out, I've been curious about making up a recipe that doesn't "fit" into any pre-designated profile.

I'm by no means even past the "noobie" stage yet, but trial and error is the best way to learn...right?

I thought of just doing a "Who cares" recipe. No designated style of beer, just a couple ingredients I have laying around as well as stuff I've worked with before.

Here is something I put together. I'm still tossing about the yeast, I'm not sure what I want to use. I'm shooting for a nice drinkable beer. Something I can toss a 12pk in a cooler and take the Kayak out fishing for a day on the water with. Something that will be rather refreshing.

So, what's your most "off the wall" recipe? If any...?

Smores beer just went in the bottle. Maris otter and some crystal mashed with graham crackers. Chocolate in the boil and toasted marshmallow syrup added once fermentation slowed. 9.3% abv not counting the syrup addition. So close to pushing 10. Probably going to be pretty bad but it was just a gallon.

Go for it. Taste is subjective. You might stumble across a beer you truly enjoy!

I say forget styles sometimes! Color outside the lines, I do a lot of off the wall beer. Bloody Beer loaded with spices and fresh tomato flavor, Key Lime Pie and Pineapple IPA to name a few.

I recently made a oatmeal cookie chocolate mocha porter stout...it is neither a stout or a porter but in between the two....it is my best beer to date. often you get great beer without it being a specific style. I just had half of stout ingredients and half porter ingredients, 1 lb toasted oatmeal, and .5 untoasted. i figured 1.5 lbs oatmeal...why not?

I want to try a pale ale aged with tequila soaked wood chips. Maybe some lime zest added in the boil.

I did a smoked habanero amber ale once, didn't like it, took it to an event... It is now my trademark beer. They way I look at it, brewing is about having fun, so have fun!

I made what I dubbed a 'hodge-podge' ale from leftover grains, hops and a yeast cake from an amber ale. It actually turned out really good, and amazingly, it tasted like beer!

drakeskakes said:

I thought of just doing a "Who cares" recipe. No designated style of beer, just a couple ingredients I have laying around as well as stuff I've worked with before.

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Since I had a few cans of Tomato Sauce go bad I now eat all the food in my house once a year and then replace it.

If all I have is beans I go buy just enough rice to make rice and beans. Salad dressings get mixed and become marinades for chicken or beef.OR WHAT EVER until all the food is gone.

FOR BREWING: I did the same with all the sugary syrups and dried fruit... Maple, honey, and molasses went in at 20 minutes. Dried and canned fruit gets boiled, strained, and the liquid poured in.

So you get rid of what ever grain and hops that is left over.

That is how I make Kitchen Sink Beer...

Do you ever just make up a recipe and say "Suuure why not?"

YES!

Most recent was a Black Cherry Sour Porter. 25% sour mash. Combined with pure black cherry juice in secondary. Turned out.......very interesting. No where near "bad" but not great either. Letting it age to lose a bit of the nose, which currently is a tad too roasty. Aroma and flavor are both good separately, but its a confusing experience when they are combined. 2 months so far, gets better each tasting.

I think this is a great approach to brewing. I like to picture a beer in my head using your (as one poster put it) "taste imagination". Do you want citrus notes? Banana in the nose? Caramel? Toasty or roasty flavors? Try to picture every detail with as much vividness as you can. Then try to craft a recipe that will get you as close to what you have in your brain as possible. That is half the fun of brewing in my opinion. Doesn't always work, but if you fail, you can compare your final tasting notes with your initial idealized beer and find out what went wrong. As you become a better brewer, sometimes you get exactly what you were looking for- its a great feeling! Its like the beer stepped out of your head and into reality (with a lot of hard work in between obviously).

Sad day. My smores beer got infected in the bottle. All 7 from the small batch. Guess my "why not" was fated not to be.

Some of the best beer I ever made have been crazy concoctions. One time, I had 2-row, wheat, munich, rye, oats, and honey malt. I added some honey (I said, what the hell) to the secondary, and now it's one of the best beers I make.

SeraphX117 said:

I recently made a oatmeal cookie chocolate mocha porter stout...it is neither a stout or a porter but in between the two....it is my best beer to date. often you get great beer without it being a specific style. I just had half of stout ingredients and half porter ingredients, 1 lb toasted oatmeal, and .5 untoasted. i figured 1.5 lbs oatmeal...why not?

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what kind of toasted oatmeal did you have? i am curious to try this but i haven't found it.

DPBISME said:

Since I had a few cans of Tomato Sauce go bad I now eat all the food in my house once a year and then replace it.

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Uhhh ... and you did exactly what with the left over tomato sauce?

I guess that's where they get new styles of beer. And try the s'mores recipe again. I gotta read what s'mores in a bottle taste like.

I just used 1lb of flaked oats from my LHBS and toasted myself. There are many ways to toast oats, some toast in oven at low heat, more time, some high heat, less time, some put it in a paper bag for a week after toasting, and some wet the oats before toasting. I spread it out on a baking sheet put it in the oven at 400F for a few minutes. Be careful though, if it burns it tastes/smells like burnt popcorn.

Epimetheus said:

Uhhh ... and you did exactly what with the left over tomato sauce?

I guess that's where they get new styles of beer. And try the s'mores recipe again. I gotta read what s'mores in a bottle taste like.

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No it did not go in the beer... HA!...

But I am a fan of "red-beers" in the summer (tomato juice and a bud).

Tastes like carbonated tomato juice and you can drink them all day since you are drinking diluted low gravity beer...

DPB

Seems to happen every time I try to clear out inventory...the results are generally good.

Usually happens in the fall when new hops come out, but it seems to happen a couple times a year now since I keep a good amount of malt around as well.