Take a Walk on the Weird SideBy David Nuttall

Of all the forms of alcohol made in this world, beer undoubtedly allows for more different ingredients in its recipes than anything else. Even among its base of malt, hops, and yeast, there is much leeway. Then, after a beer is created, almost any herb, spice, fruit, vegetable, sweetener, or edible product can be added to it.

While historical beers often followed this path through the first several thousand years of brewing, when commercial brewing began a few hundred years ago, simpler recipes became the norm. That is, until craft brewing arrived in the 1980s. While they began simply enough with the pale ales and dark beers that were uncommon at that time, craft brewers also experimented with multiple styles and played around with different ingredients. Most craft brewers came from the small batch home brewing world, where almost anything goes. If your recipe didn’t work out, you can always dump it without taking too much of a hit.

So, in this vein, many breweries started exploring long forgotten historical styles and seeing what works. Having a taproom allowed their customers to give them an instant review. By the 1990s, we started to see some of these beers appear on the shelves of stores, while brewers continued exploring all types of ingredients, resulting in some remarkably interesting beers.

What follows is just a short collection of these unusual beers that have appeared in the Alberta market. Some are only special releases, but any that you can currently find will have their CSPC code and price listed.

Dessert Beers

An astute combination of the right kind of malt, hops, and yeast can produce a beer that mimics common dessert flavours. However, what we are talking about here are beers that have actual desserts as part of their ingredients. Yes, a brewer can take a whole dessert and throw it into the mash.

The most common variety found is the pastry stout, since stout’s natural chocolate essence already gives it a head start. However, you may find beers with whole pies, cakes, custards, donuts, and more tossed in as ingredients. One example is Edmonton’s Town Square White Wedding where an entire wedding cake was tossed into the mash of a white stout. Sweet, rich, and decadent. Town Square White Wedding White Pastry Stout (Edmonton) CSPC 822250, $20 4 pk. cans

Oysters

In the 19th century, the term oyster stout became popular in Dublin and London due to how well the mollusc paired with the then new popular dark beer. Naturally, some brewers decided to combine the two and bring the real oyster stout to fruition. A few used oyster shells in the boil or during fermentation, while others added whole oysters.

When you taste the beer, you get the saline qualities of the oyster and notice how well it complements the dark roast qualities of the stout. Big Rock Oyster Stout was part of their special Canada 150 mixed pack, and a version from the Irish brewery Porterhouse also used to be available in Alberta.

Spruce Tips

Using spruce tips in a beer is not just some nouveau craft beer trend but has actually been around for centuries. Ancient Scandinavians began using them due to a lack of native hops and their descendents brought the practice over to North America. Both the British and the French settlers used spruce tips, with their high content of vitamin C, partially to ward off scurvy. The ingredient became forgotten as hops took over, until revived by the craft brewing industry.

The pale/golden ale is the most common style that uses them, where they provide a hint of sweetness and an unexpected citrus flavour, rather than the strong pine notes you would anticipate. Ironically, there are hops available that provide significantly more piney astringency than spruce tips do, so they are rarely used for that.

Most brewers source fresh, locally foraged tips, so the beer tends to come from breweries located near the trees. Since the tips first appear in late May, they are often released as spring/ summer seasonals. Look for examples from Tofino and Three Ranges Brewing from BC, Yukon Brewing, and Alberta’s Rival Trade Brewing

Zero Issue Brewing Jotunheim Spruce Tip Pale Ale (Calgary), CSPC 863105

$19 4 pk. can

Grain Bin Ale Spruced Up (Grand Prairie), CSPC 855948 $5 473 mL can

Sweet Potatoes and Carrots

While fruit is now a common ingredient in beer, vegetables appear less often. This is partly because they aren’t as sweet as fruit, and partly because most vegetables don’t have a flavour profile that complements many beer styles. If a vegetal characteristic is present in a beer, in most styles it is considered a fault, so brewers tend to stay away from purposely adding them.

Aside from pickle beers there is not really much else. However, you can find sweet potato beers that are often spiced, akin to pumpkin ales. Carrot beers tend to be orange coloured, and with added vanilla, imitate the wellknown carrot cake dessert.

The Growlery Beer Co. from Edmonton brews a Maple Sweet Potato Pie Altbier, Hard Knox of Diamond Valley has From The Patch Carrot Cake Sour, and New Level (Calgary) makes Nitro Carrot Ale as special releases if you can find them.

Coedo Beniaka Imperial Sweet Potato (Japan) CSPC 898087, $5 333 mL bottle

Steamworks Carrot Cake Ale (BC), CSPC 118484

$5 473 mL can

Next month we will look at some more interesting beers with unusual ingredients.