Take a Walk Weird Side: PART 2 on the

BY DAVID NUTTALL

Last month we took a peek into the weird and wonderful world of beer with unusual ingredients. Of all the forms of alcohol made, beer leads the league in its ability to employ an almost unending variety of adjuncts to complement the base of malt, hops, water, and yeast. Admittedly, this is only a small fraction of commercial beers, however, they tend to acquire a fair amount of attention, if only because of their uniqueness.

Ordinary fruits, vegetables, herbs, spices, and other ingredients commonly found in the kitchen have been used in brewing since it began 100 centuries ago. The problem arose as brewing became more popular c. 1500 AD and ingredients were sourced from multiple locations. Unfortunately, this led to the inclusion of otherwise inedible or downright dangerous elements such as sawdust, ash, and even poisonous plant parts as part of brewing recipes. This, and other factors, was responsible for the passing of the Reinheitsgebot in Germany in 1516.

Even countries not bound by the decree began to look at what was going into their beers, and for the next 450+ years, breweries stuck mainly with the four basic ingredients. Today, craft brewers are experimenting with all sorts of (safe) additives, leading to some truly strange 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.

Kelp

Varieties of seaweed have been used in beers made by coastal breweries for hundreds of years. Now, a few craft breweries, including those inland, have being using it to bring a natural salty flavour that works especially well with stouts, where it blends nicely with its chocolate notes.

The two beers below are separated by the subtle hints of coffee in the Sailor’s Delight. For a non-stout beer, the new release from Luppolo Brewing out of

British Columbia is a Gose with Black Lime and Wild Kelp, which should be available by the time you read this.

Tofino Brewing Kelp Stout (BC), CSPC 831399, $20 4 x 473 mL cans

Best of Kin Sailor’s Delight Coffee Kelp Stout (Calgary), CSPC 859743, $19 4 x 473 mL cans

Grapes

Yes, grapes are just another fruit. However, their versatility enables them to appear in hundreds of products in addition to their domination of the wine world. Few people think of them in fruited beers. When they are added, they usually take one of two directions: either as a sweet addition begging comparisons to grape soda, or as grape must, creating a wine/beer hybrid. The first two examples below have different base beers (a saison and a sour) with the saison fermented with petit verdot and the sour conditioned with white wine juice making the differences quite apparent. SYC Brewing from Edmonton has a new barrel fermented beer made with riesling grape must named Bombacio (not yet out at press time). The Phillips Grape Crusher is brewed with concord grapes, resulting in a sweeter beer.

Abandoned Rail Cellar Door Rose Saison (BC), CSPC 284576, $13 4 x 355 mL cans

Best of Kin Celebration Sour (Calgary), CSPC 874801, $19, 4 x 473 mL cans

Phillips Dinosour Power Grape Crusher (BC), CSPC 112555, $5 473 mL can

Roses

Flowers remain a hidden ingredient in many beers. Chamomile, elderflower, lavender, and hibiscus are among the most common, but roses are less prevalent. Both rosehips and petals are used to bring a distinct tartness, and of course, floral aroma.

The Hops n’ Roses is a sour with elderflower and hibiscus, giving it a very tangy berry flavour.

Captain Lawrence Hops n’ Roses (USA) CSPC 100723, $13 500 mL bottle

Rozenlambiek Oud Beersel (Belgium), is a lambic that contains rose petals and is only available on tap.

Alcohol

In the quest for super high alcohol beers (ie above 15 percent), various methods have been used. From employing high attenuation yeast strains to freezing beers to make eisbock, this journey could be an entire article on its own. However, the simplest method is to just add a distillate to up the alcohol content.

Some question whether the result is still a beer, however it does make for an interesting beverage. At Grain Bin, they distilled the second running of the mash, aged it oak, and added it back to a barleywine base beer. The result is a low carbonated, but sweet tasting, ale with subtle bourbon notes and a nifty 21.2 percent ABV. Beer or not, its name says it all.

Grain Bin Experimental Convergence (Grand Prairie), CSPC 886880, $21 500 mL bottle

Olives

Most people don’t consider olives a fruit (they are), since they are used mostly in main dishes rather than desserts, and don’t often appear as a beverage. However, now that drinking olive oil has become a thing, olive beer was not far behind. The Oliba beer below is made with Pyrenean olives, giving it a partly cloudy green colour akin to a St. Patrick's Day pint. Being a pilsner, it is light-bodied, but has a sweet, grassy flavour.

Oliba Green Beer L’ Empeltre (Spain), CSPC 860440, $5 330 mL bottle

Want more? Look for a beer made with prairie oysters (bull’s testicles) at Bottlescrew Bill’s annual Testicle Festival. The list can go on. Nearly everything you can imagine has been thrown into different stages of the brewing process; pizzas, hot dogs, canned tomatoes, wasabi…. well, you get the picture.

Brewers’ imaginations know no bounds. Try them if you can find them, and don’t let the strangeness scare you off; these beers can be eminently drinkable.