Author: Jake Huolihan

For many, homebrewing is as much about making a tasty beverage as it is exploring and experimenting with interesting ingredients in the hopes of creating flavors not commonly found in commercial beer. Browse any homebrew forum and you’re bound to run across questions about whether or not certain edible items might have a place in beer, in fact magazines like Zymurgy and Brew Your Own regularly publish articles about the use of less traditional brewing ingredients. From various fruits, spices, and grains to odd-ball items like boxed cereal and, umm, unconventionally sourced microbes. You name it, someone has probably tried it, and I love that about homebrewing!

But I’m not one of those people. I like beer flavored beer and tend to stick to the standard ingredients– barley, hops, water, and yeast. When stylistically appropriate, I’ll branch out and use some other grain adjunct, maybe toss in a dusting of spice or orange peel, but for the most part, I keep it pretty simple.

It’s for this reason I initially rolled my eyes when, during his talk with fellow contributor Malcolm Frazer at Homebrew Con 2017, Brian Hall shared a NEIPA he brewed with oat milk in place of the more traditionally used flaked oats. However, my bemoaning was disrupted immediately after taking the first sip, the beer was delicious, possessing a unique smoothness I’d yet to experience in this hazy style. Was it a function of the unconventional ingredient? Only one way to find out!

| PURPOSE |

To evaluate the differences between a New England IPA made with flaked oats and one made with oat milk.

| METHODS |

I kept the recipe for this xBmt very simple in the hopes that any impact of the variable would stand out.

NOats Please, Gimme Milk

Recipe Details Batch Size Boil Time IBU SRM Est. OG Est. FG ABV 6 gal 60 min 24.7 IBUs 4.8 SRM 1.058 1.014 5.8 % Actuals 1.058 1.012 6.0 % Fermentables Name Amount % Pale Malt, Maris Otter 11 lbs 78.57 Oats, Flaked 3 lbs 21.43 Hops Name Amount Time Use Form Alpha % Hallertau Magnum 10 g 60 min Boil Pellet 11.5 Mandarina Bavaria 60 g 2 min Boil Pellet 8.5 Motueka 60 g 2 min Boil Pellet 7 Amarillo 45 g 2 min Boil Pellet 9.2 Mandarina Bavaria 60 g 7 days Dry Hop Pellet 8.5 Motueka 60 g 7 days Dry Hop Pellet 7 Yeast Name Lab Attenuation Temperature London Ale III (1318) Wyeast Labs 73% 64°F - 74°F Notes Water Profile: Ca 174 | Mg 0 | Na 8 | SO4 150 | Cl 200 Download Download this recipe's BeerXML file

I picked up 1 gallon/3.8 liters of oat milk and noted the nutrition label listed the sugar content as 304 grams. Since this sugar and volume of liquid would be present in the oat milk batch, I did a little finagling in BeerSmith and found that adding the entire gallon of oat milk to a 4 gallon batch with a grist of 100% Maris Otter would result in 5 gallons of wort that’s the same gravity as the one made with flaked oats.

A couple days ahead of time, I made a starter of Wyeast 1318 London Ale III yeast large enough to split between 2 batches.

The night before brewing, I collected the water for each batch and adjusted it to my desired profile. Since the specific mineral content of the oat milk was not provided, I added a proportionally similar amount of minerals to the oat milk batch at the same time I added the oat milk for between-batch consistency. The following morning began with the milling of grain.

I staggered the start of each mash by 20 minutes to make the day less hectic and, thanks to BeerSmith, hit my target mash temperature on both.

Once the mashes were complete, I removed the grains and allowed them to drip while until pre-boil volume was reached.

Each batch was boiled for 60 minutes with hops added per the recipe.

The oat milk and minerals were added to one batch at the same time as the final kettle hop addition.

Once the boils were complete, I ran the wort through my plate chiller directly into fermentors that were then placed in my fermentation chamber. Hydrometer measurements revealed my math had worked, both worts were at a very similar OG.

I noticed an immediate difference in appearance at this point.

The worts were left in my chamber overnight to finish chilling to my desired fermentation temperature of 66°F/19°C. Once there, I split the yeast starter equally between the batches then hit both with a 90 second dose of pure oxygen. Fermentation was ripping along when I checked 24 hours later and on day 3, I added the large biontransformation dry hop charges to each.

Fermentation appeared to be slowing a few days later, so I began ramping the temperature up to 70°F/21°C. Hydrometer measurements a couple days later showed both beers had reached FG.

Skipping the gelatin fining process due to the style, I proceeded to keg the beers warm then move them to my cold keezer to cold crash in hopes of avoiding oxidation.

Curious how the beers tasted, I stole samples while kegging and noticed that while equally hazy, they didn’t necessarily look identical.

After a brief period of burst carbonation, I reduced the gas to serving pressure and let the beers condition another few days before serving to participants. After just a week in the keg, I was surprised with how different the beers looked.

| RESULTS |

A panel of 28 people with varying degrees of experience participated in this xBmt. Each taster, blind to the variable being investigated, was served 1 sample of the NEIPA made with flaked oats and 2 samples of the NEIPA made with oat milk in different colored opaque cups then instructed to select the unique sample. While 15 (p<0.05) correct selections would have been required to achieve statistical significance, a total of 18 tasters (p=0.0008) accurately identified the unique sample, which indicates tasters were able to reliably distinguish a NEIPA made with flaked oats from one made with oat milk.

The participants who correctly selected the unique sample in the triangle test were instructed to complete a brief set of additional questions comparing only the two different beers, still blind to the nature of the xBmt. Of the 18 correct tasters, 13 chose the flaked oats beer as their most preferred, 4 liked the oat milk beer more, and 1 reported perceiving no difference between the beers.

My Impressions: I performed multiple semi-blind triangle tests and identifying the unique sample was not at all difficult. The oat milk beer had a flavor reminiscent of, unsurprisingly, oat milk. Based on the fact earlier pours were murky while later pours cleared up, I have to assume the oat milk slowly dropped to the bottom of the keg. Both beers were very good, and the oat milk beer did have a great mouthfeel at first, but my ultimate preference was for the flaked oats version, as it maintained a fresher flavor much longer.

| DISCUSSION |

I’m not sure where the idea of using oat milk instead of flaked oats came from, though according to Ales Of The Riverwards blogger Ed Coffey, there are apparently some commercial breweries who have done this with their NEIPA. Given my experience with Brian’s oat milk NEIPA at Homebrew Con, I admittedly expected this xBmt would support its use as a way to impart both classic haze and that silky smooth mouthfeel. The fact flaked oats and oat milk are different ingredients, I wasn’t too surprised the xBmt beers weren’t similar enough in character to be indistinguishable to participants. It was the preference data showing a large portion of those who were correct on the triangle test preferred the flaked oats beer that got me, as blind preference ratings usually tend to be split fairly evenly. While it’d be easy to presume the oat milk beer was bad, there’s really no good way of knowing exactly how much more each taster preferred one beer over the other, and I personally thought both samples were quite good despite perceiving them as different.

One observation that struck me as having a potential impact on these xBmt results was the more rapid clarification of the oat milk beer, which I can only assume was due to the milk falling out of solution. For the first few days, that beer was certainly more reminiscent of Brian’s, soft and smooth, though at just a week in the keg, its appearance began to change. It seems possible a comparison done a couple days after kegging, when both beers were similarly murky, would have led to different results. Regardless, since I don’t consume a full keg in 2 to 3 days, I’ll be sticking with flaked oats for my NEIPA, as it maintained the qualities I expect for much longer than oat milk.

If you have thoughts about this xBmt, please feel free to share in the comments section below!

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