Oaked Vanilla Cream Ale

So I have 2 vanilla beans leftover from other adventures and I picked up 4 oz of american oak chips, along with a Cream Ale recipe from my LHBS.

To me this sounds like a great flavor pairing, but i've never used oak chips before. Thoughts/suggestions on my idea?

Cream Ale recipe:
.75 lb Briess Caramel 10
5 lbs Pilsen Light DME
1 oz Cluster Hops (60 mins)
WLP080 Cream Ale yeast

I was going to brew this as normal, then transfer to secondary with the oak chips and vanilla beans for another week or two. Thoughts on the flavors, etc.?

I've read some that suggest soaking the oak chips in vodka or bourbon. Any thoughts on those two methods for this particular instance?

Thanks in advance!

Any suggestions or comments? Is there a better board I should post this on?

Thanks!

Well, I love oak, and I love cream ale, but putting them together doesn't sound good at all.

A cream ale is a very light and crisp beer, similar to an American light lager, and oak would be tannic and overpowering and vanilla would be very odd in that kind of beer.

I think that's why you didn't get any responses. We're generally a very helpful group, but trying to picture something like Miller Light with oak and vanilla just isn't a picture that comes together well for most I'd think.

Yooper said:

Well, I love oak, and I love cream ale, but putting them together doesn't sound good at all.

A cream ale is a very light and crisp beer, similar to an American light lager, and oak would be tannic and overpowering and vanilla would be very odd in that kind of beer.

I think that's why you didn't get any responses. We're generally a very helpful group, but trying to picture something like Miller Light with oak and vanilla just isn't a picture that comes together well for most I'd think.

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Well all the more reason to respond then. Help me avoid making a crappy beer.

I already have the ingredients above, but i dont really want to make a plain Cream Ale. Any suggestions for how you can tweak a cream ale into something more interesting? I guess in my mind i was imagining a more vanilla-y Innis and Gunn. I recognize Innis and Gunn is BARREL-aged and that the flavors are mostly the bourbon or rum casks that they're aged in, but I guess that's that concept I was going for. I did find some threads on here regarding vanilla cream ales, but nothing with oak.

Any other thoughts or suggestions?

Since you have the ingredients, give it a try! I'd soak the chips and split vanilla beans in a cup of bourbon for a day or two and add to secondary for a couple weeks.

So in case anyone is curious, I cracked open my first bottle of this last night. The aroma is very nice. Light bodied, but an undertone of vanilla. The initial taste is what i would expect from the aroma. however, there is quickly a bitter flavor that jumps in. I was able to drink it, but i can't honestly say I would grab one of these over anything else in my fridge.

Not sure what is causing the bitter flavor, but my guess would be the oak. Or perhaps it was a mistake to soak the oak chips and vanilla beans in vodka for a few days before adding them. Does anyone think that the bitterness will significantly mellow with age? Or should i just dump these?

And FWIW, if i had to do this over again, I would simply soak 2 vanilla beans in some bourbon and skip the wood chips. Honestly, the initial flavor is quite good and I think would be fantastic minus the bitterness.