Arnold Palmer Ale

[techbrewie]

I had an idea for a light ale with rooibos (roy-bos) tea and lemon. essentially an iced tea lemon ale to resemble my favorite non alcoholic summer beverage, the arnold palmer. I think im right on with the amount of tea, but im unsure about my lemon additions. What do you guys think?

I get my tea from a specialty shop called teavana. They sell a lot of quality tea in the minneapolis saint paul area. also where midwest supplies and NHB are located

http://www.brewtoad.com/recipes/lemon-tea-ale

 

[benflath]

Sounds like a tasty beer! I brewed a batch with rooibos this past weekend. Used about 50% more tea than your recipe has, plus I may use some at bottling with the priming sugar depending on how much aroma is left.

As far as the lemon, I suggest using the zest in secondary, basically dry hopping it, because in the boil you'll lose the aroma it adds and you're left with bitterness that you hops will take care of. You may also think about using a hop that would lean towards lemon (Cascade, Amarillo) rather than Citra's more tropical notes, at least for dry hopping. Citra is great, but maybe not right if you're going for "lemonade". On the other hand, you could pick hops to complement the earthy notes of the rooibos. I used Willamette for mine, but there are plenty of others along those lines.

Lemon pulp/juice directly in to the wort will be STRONG, so don't get too carried away. Don't get me wrong, it was great, just stick on the low side and add more in secondary if it's not strong enough.

Haven't brewed with brown sugar, but thinking it will add some dark flavors from the molasses. May consider a lighter sugar to keep it summer-y, or leaving it out. 7% is high for what I think of as a summer beer.

 

[techbrewie]

Thanks for the notes! like i said this recipe is definitely a shot in the dark but i think I'm close. I updated the recipe a bit. Going to try motueka hops. theyre supposed to have a solid lemon / lime aroma and flavor. I also cut it down to 2 lemons. I just want a light lemon flavor with the rooibos tea being the star of the show (like any true arnold palmer would be. 1/4 lemonade 3/4 iced tea). Bought all my ingredients and going to brew it tomorrow with my blueberry wheat (fingers crossed).

 

[Safa]

Subbed. Very interested to see how this comes out, please be sure to post progress and results!

 

[jkn09]

Subbed as well. Interesting idea. Maybe I'll use some Sorachi Ace hops.

 

[jkn09]

Question: being from Texas, I like my tea (and subsequently my Arnold Palmers) on the sweet side. I thought about adding some dark candi sugars to the boil to add sweetness and maybe darken the color. Thoughts?

 

[Irishwhiskey]

I made the lemon lime hefewizen from the forums I did what the recipe called for and put .5oz lime zest in the boil and 1.75L Simply Limeade In the primary after vigorous fermentation ended (about day 3) just kegged it today and it has a nice lime taste up front but mellows out and get a great wheat finish (reminds me of bud light with lime but way better )

 

[Safa]

Question: being from Texas, I like my tea (and subsequently my Arnold Palmers) on the sweet side. I thought about adding some dark candi sugars to the boil to add sweetness and maybe darken the color. Thoughts?

It will darken the colour but if you want sweetness you'd need to add an unfermentable sugar (eg. Lactose).

The extra sugar from the candi sugar will just be fermented out and you'll end up with a higher alcohol content and a bit drier.

 

[jkn09]

It will darken the colour but if you want sweetness you'd need to add an unfermentable sugar (eg. Lactose).

The extra sugar from the candi sugar will just be fermented out and you'll end up with a higher alcohol content and a bit drier.

Gotcha. Thanks

 

[Looper]

Yep contrary to what you would think, anytime you add 100% fermentable sugar it actually dries the beer out.

I would try adding between .5-1 lb of lactose at the end of the boil to be used as a back sweetener.

Let us know how it goes!

 

[Safa]

Go easy on that lactose! .5 of a lb should be great! You can always add more, but you cant take any out!

The best thing about lactose is that you can add it whenever you want.

Go ahead and add 0.5lb in the last 5 min of the boil, and then just before you bottle, you can taste the beer and decide if it needs a little more. Then just boil some more up in a small amount of water and add to the bottling bucket with your priming sugar.

 

[techbrewie]

I've been rethinking my tea addition. If any of you know much about tea, you know the 3 factors are quantiy, time and temp. I'm thinking i will just add 6oz or fresh tea leaves to the secondary and let it sit there for a couple weeks.

Either that or throw 2 ounces in at flameout and the rest as a secondary addition.
Bringing most tea leaves over 180 degrees will extract bitter oils and off flavors from tea (thats what i can gather at least). Cold brewing the tea in the secondary seems to be the safest route.

 

[benflath]

Just transfered my Rooibos Ale to secondary. It has a HUGE rooibos aroma, which I'm very happy about. Didn't get down to my FG (story for another time... WL contradicting themselves about temperatures), but I think it should be tasty. We'll see what 2 weeks do to it, I may not need to add more in the bottle.

 

[sils13]

would you happen to have a final recipe for what you did? i recently did a similar idea
i used pilsner malt and a splash of carafa 1 steeped about 40 tea bags in whirlpool ( i basically just fallowed the tea directions and considered it a 5 gal tea). all my LHBS could get was sorachi ace which i knew wasn't gonna get me where i wanted. but after kegging yesterday im happy for trial it'll get drank atleast. have some changes to do but im on the right track going to switch over to mouteka hops and whirlpool a little bit longer.

 

[drainbamage]

I just did a green tea pale ale. I added 1 qt. of tea at bottling time and dry-hopped with Sorachi Ace and a little bit of Amarillo I had leftover from the boil. It ended up with a subtle hint of tea flavor and aroma, and some nice lemongrass notes from the Sorachi. Although I'm happy with the final product, I probably could have added more (or stronger) tea without overpowering it.

 

[jakehoodlum]

Do you have an update on this recipe? I'm thinking about brewing a Arnold Palmer Ale and am trying to formulate a base recipe!