Strangest Ingredient You Have Used???

[bken620]

Habaneros I grew in containers in my back yard. I brewed a wit bier, something with not a ton of flavor so I could see what the habaneros would taste like. I put in 5 habaneros, one for each gallon brewed.

I also just brewed a chocolate oatmeal stout I'm secondarying it with pb2 (peanut butter).

 

[passedpawn]

Dirty beet, corn flakes, limes, chamomile. Not strange I guess, but it's the strangest I've done. Oh, I did brew with maggots (twice) and weevils, but not intentionally.

 

[Hopinista]

Dirty beet, corn flakes, limes, chamomile. Not strange I guess, but it's the strangest I've done. Oh, I did brew with maggots (twice) and weevils, but not intentionally.

So... how did they taste?

 

[Zepth]

Oh, I did brew with maggots (twice) and weevils, but not intentionally.

Did you use a protein rest on that one?

 

[passedpawn]

So... how did they taste?

Maggot beer ended up slightly infected, so it was a tosser; the maggots got in there during the chilling process, so they weren't disinfected. Weevils have no effect.

 

[DromJohn]

Chrysanthemum in Chrysanthemum Honey Rye Ale
Hawthorn berry in Chateau Jiahu BYO clone.

 

[zmanzorro]

My homebrew team used some prickly pear cactus fruit in a brew on premise competition at Martin House Brewery in Fort Worth. If you see them selling it, it means we won!

 

[Ranman481]

I've done two that used ingredients that I'd never come across in a bottle before. The first one ( and a crowd pleaser ) is a Peach / Tea brew where I used imported white tea leaves instead of hops. I've been asked by SWMBO to make more this summer. The other one I tried ( and need to tweak some more ) was based on ingredients that the Mayans would have had access to...Rose hips, Agave nectar, lime and corn.

 

[VikingChrisColby]

I've made some odd beers over the years. I've brewed with potatoes, sweet potatoes, cocoa powder, Jolly Rancher candies, bread, and even used Mt. Dew (the soda) as my brewing liquor. Here are a couple recipes:

Beelzeboss -- a witbier-like brew with Mt. Dew
http://beerandwinejournal.com/brewed-with-dew/

Sweet Potato ESB -- This is pretty much a straight up ESB, but with a little sweet potato as a starchy adjunct. The sweet potato only adds an orange color, no appreciable flavor or aroma. (If you roasted the sweet potato, that would likely add some flavor, if that's what you wanted.)
http://beerandwinejournal.com/sweet-potato-esb/

Exercise Recovery Ale -- And here's one I'm planning on trying soon; a beer with a little Gatorade added for rehydration after I run.
http://beerandwinejournal.com/exercise-ale/


Chris Colby
Editor
http://beerandwinejournal.com/

 

[dangerbrew]

I've done a lot of crazy beers, but one of my most memorable batches was a traditional Gruit beer brewed with yarrow, mugwort, bog myrtle, wild rosemary, and "dry-hopped" with some heather tips. It almost tasted like a sour to me at first and I was afraid it had gotten infected until I decided to make a tea with those same herbs and realized that that was the same flavor that they'd all contributed to the beer - sour-ish if you will, but not true sour if that makes any sense. It was an interesting experiment that I very much enjoyed drinking, though for any newbies to the craft beer scene who don't have adventurous palates, I wouldn't recommend it.

I'm actually thinking about brewing it again soon as some of my friends were talking about it the other day wanting to know if I'd make another batch of it... Maybe later this summer?

 

[Barley_Bob]

Obviously, someone needs to brew a batch with durian fruit.

 

[bjanat]

Black garlic in a porter. More aroma than flavor.

 

[jhoneycutt]

My homebrew team used some prickly pear cactus fruit in a brew on premise competition at Martin House Brewery in Fort Worth. If you see them selling it, it means we won!

Shiner did a prickly pear beer a year or two ago. May still doing it. I thought it was pretty good. Its the one and only beer my wife has ever liked. May have to get that recipe from you.

 

[zmanzorro]

Shiner did a prickly pear beer a year or two ago. May still doing it. I thought it was pretty good. Its the one and only beer my wife has ever liked. May have to get that recipe from you.

We made a Saison/Tripel hybrid and added the roasted fruit in during the boil and then used pink peppercorns in the secondary. Wait until the prickly pear is in season though. We used some green ones and they were a little sour, so we only used the centers of the fruit. The pinker, the sweeter.

For the recipe, we had to use Martin House's base ingredients (base malt, hops, and yeast), so I do not know what yeast we used. Propbably something proprietary.

 

[KyleWolf]

A girl I was dating really wanted to go off the reservation. we did a "Citrus Oolong Tea Saison" added 3oz of Oolong tea at flameout.

Initially the taste was surprisingly not horrible. but this thing would give you a headache after 1 pint. it was a ridiculous brew that to this day I am a little embarrassed about.

Again, for a girl, I brewed a "Lemongrass Lychee Bavarian Hefe" lemongrass into the mash and boil, lychee into secondary (about 5th batch of beer ever). This was also a horrible thing. the lemongrass imparted a "soapy" quality to the beer and the ester profile (a little bubble-gummy) did not mingle with the lychee like I imagined it would. Overall not my best experiences in brewing. Granted, with considerably more experience under my belt, I think I could actually make the lemongrass lychee wheat relatively drinkable.

 

[12thHoleBrewer]

I'll admit that this was unintentional, but brewing in the fall one day and acorn fell from a tree bounced off the deck and into the brew pot. We just let it go and it didn't have any noticeable effect on the beer but it was kind of a cool story to tell. Of course we named it Acorn Pale Ale.

Other than that, I did make a chocolate mint stout using real mint leaves growing in my yard along with some Hershey's chocolate. I wouldn't recommend the chocolate as it had kind of an oily residue. The mint however seem to work out well. I used a little mesh bag in the secondary and I liked the end result.