Last week, we had our family St Patrick's Day dinner. This was the third incarnation of the event, and it has grown every year. We were joking that, next year, we may have to rent out a venue and charge a cover.
When my niece, Emily, hosted the first one, she made Irish stew, with Guiness stout as an ingredient. Last year, she asked if I would make the stout. So, I did, and the result was yummy.
This time, somebody had the idea of a family competition. I wish I could take the credit, but I really don't remember who had the idea.
So, I, my son, Joe, and my nephew, John, all agreed to make our own take the an Irish stout. Joe's wife, Tanya, decided to join in, and we all started recipe formulation.
The four beers were all delicious, all stouts, and all really different. I tried to make a classic dry stout, and flavor it with coffee and chocolate. Joe made a stout fermented over oak chips. John flavored his stout with a bacon extract that he made. Tanya made hers with something called dirty chai seasoning.
I recorded the judging, and you can listen to it at
http://blogtalkradio.com/youmakewhat
I thought Will did a wonderful job of judging the beers, and explaining his reasoning. The winner? My son, Joe, won for his oak stout. I feel no shame in losing to him. In fact, I would have been happy no matter who won. All four were that good.
all fur were good.... did you pour them on em's cats then taste them!?!
ReplyDelete- Rogue Kitteh
Very funny, Rogue. The "o" key sticks sometimes. I fixed it.
ReplyDeleteFrom our interview today (4/14)
ReplyDeleteWhat is a dirty chai?
So it's technically a dirty chai latte. A latte is frothed milk with espresso generally. A chai latte is a latte with chai tea instead of espresso. Chai tea is typically a rich black tea with spices (like cardamom, cinnamon, ginger, cloves, and pepper) from India that is often served with warm milk. A dirty chai is a chai latte with a shot of espresso. It's really delicious. And if you're a Dunkin Donut's person and you order a dirty chai, they will look at you like you have two heads. In D&D territory, it's a chai latte with a turbo shot.
How did you come up with the idea?
There were a couple of different factors.
First, I had just finished doing a focus group where the company sent me a bunch of set ingredients to use and then I was allowed a certain amount of wildcard ingredients to add, and I had tried (successfully) using tea. I made a green tea IPA, I used chamomile and black tea, mostly black tea, too. I was really interested in continuing in that vein. Just like Papa Joe kind of got hooked brewing with cereal mashes, I was hooked with brewing with tea. I really want to make a rosehip hefeweizen one of these days!
Another thing that led up to the eventual decision to base the beer off of a dirty chai was because I was like eight months pregnant and my husband and I got in some longwinded conversation and mildly perverse google debate about brewing with breast milk. We googled it-- it's been done. And the general consensus was that breast milk was way too fatty to brew with. It could be handled so that it would work, but it seemed like it wouldn't be worth it. Also, kind of weird. But that's what made us want to make it dirty. There aren’t too many beers that use lactose (milk sugar) as far as ingredients, but the Milk or Sweet Stout does contain lactose. And chai tea is traditionally made with milk and I loved the idea of the dirty chai latte. That and because I love espresso and I always call stouts my dessert beer, especially the sweet or milk stouts, so everything seemed to kind of match up.
I also enjoy cooking with beer a lot, and I knew that Emily was going to be baking and making the stew, and so I had actually brewed it assuming that it would not go well with the stew, but would be great in cupcakes or bread on the side, because of the cinnamon, ginger, and cloves.
Recipe:
Partial Mash
5 gallon fermenter
Boil size: 2.3 gallon ; 60 min boil time
End of boil volume: 2.08 gallon
Final bottling volume: 4.75 gallon
Fermentation: ale, single stage
8.0 oz Black Malt (Grain) 6.7% IBU
8.0 oz Caramel/Crystal Malt (Grain) 6.7% IBU
6 lbs Dark Liquid Extract (extract) 80% IBU
8.0 oz Milk Sugar Lactose (Sugar) 6.7% IBU
1 oz Northern Brewer (Hops) 18.7% IBU
1 pkg Munton Fison Ale (Yeast)
4 chai tea teabags
Estimated Original Gravity: 1.051 SG
Estimated Final Gravity: 1.011 SG
Estimated Alcohol by Volume: 5.3%
Notes: I put the chai tea bags in with the hops for the 60 min boil. There was a great discussion at the smackdown amongst Joe & John about the chai flavor versus aroma and why when I put the tea in mattered. Personally, I am glad I put it in 'early' so that it was more in the taste than the smell, because I have a really terrible sense of smell! :)