We were delighted to be a part of #CollabFest this year with our friends at Brewdog Shepherd's Bush. The beer that we launched on 21st October was Ten Dollar Shake - a 'Fruit Smoothie IPA'. We first experimented with fruit and lactose in 'Limoncello IPA' - a collaboration with Hill Farmstead and Mikkeller back in 2013, the idea for which lives on in Pompelmocello today! We then produced 'Life is a Peach' last year in collaboration with Omnipollo and Homebrew Champ Niklas Johansson, a concept that Henok from Omnipollo was really keen on, and of course we're massive fans of all their milkshake-inspired brews. The beer has been very well received, in fact, we've got a second batch of it in tank right now! But we've also received lots of questions from enthusiasts and homebrewers about how and why we used the fruit, just how much lactose and/or oats were required to get the thick, creamy body we were after, and yes, what's the deal with the haze? Well hopefully this blog post will answer a few of those questions, and give everyone a good starting point to brew their own version of this beer. Our Head Brewer, Kyle Larsen, has put together a home-brew recipe that we're pleased to share below. Please note that this is our best effort at recreating the beer on a small kit - not a directly scaled-down recipe. Take it as a starting point and run with it based on your own preferences, ideas and experiences.

Oh - THAT haze. A photo posted by Siren Craft Brew (@sirencraftbrew) on Nov 15, 2016 at 1:58am PST

Here are some quick thoughts from Kyle to keep in mind:

We are creating a very hazy beer but it shouldn't be overally yeasty. Our finished product is hazy due to the malt, hops and fruit... it should not be yeasty, we still use kettle finings as well as utilising a slightly longer conditioning time to achieve this. The goal is to create a massively hopped IPA that has an unmistakeable tropical fruit note. Lactose is used to provide a creamy mouthfeel, again it's all about accentuating tropical fruit notes, this also creates the "milkshake/smoothie" effect. If you wanted to play around with the recipe a bit consider adding even more lactose to accentuate the "smoothie" effect. - The recipe is treated it as if it was a 5 gallon batch. - The Hops are given by weight because every system has different utilization, so brewers will be able to scale up with the given information. - The malt bill is in % of the total weight. ie: if you have a total of 10 lbs of grain and it calls for 25% oats you add in 2.5 lbs. of the 10 lbs total is oats. Again this should allow people with bigger systems to scale up easily. - Also, I generally calculate hop additions by deciding the amount of hops I want to add for flavour and aroma first, determine the IBUs I will get from them, and then make up any bitterness with a front end, "standard" bitterness addition. I would recommend treating this recipe the same way by adjusting the FWH addition to get the IBUs you need for your specific utilisation.

Enjoy!

Malt Bill: *Target an original extract of 16 P (1.065 sg) 64.3% Lager Malt 11.1% Wheat Malt 3.7% Munich 1.8% Melanoidin 6.3% Flaked Oats 12.8% Lactose Kettle Hops: *Target 60 IBU's 10 min - Amarillo - 0.9 oz @ 7% A.A. 10 min - Cascade - 0.7 oz @ 6.8% A.A 0 min - Amarillo - 2.8 oz 0 min - Cascade - 1.8 oz 0 min - Citra - 2.8 oz Kettle Additions: Protafloc or other kettle finings Yeast nutrient Post Fermentation Additions: Dry Hop: 2.0 oz Citra, 1.25 oz Amarillo, 1.25 oz Simcoe, 0.75 oz Mosaic Fruit: 1.2 lbs. Mango Puree, 1.2 lbs. Papaya Puree, 0.3 lbs. Passion Fruit Puree Instructions: Target mash temperature = 65 C Target mash pH = 5.5 Boil for 90 min. Add Lactose at 10 min. before the end of the boil Ferment with Vermont Ale Yeast (we use a unique house-strain) Fermentation Temperature = 19 C, increase temp to 22 C at 10 Plato (1.040 sg) Add fruit to fermentation vessel at or around 8-12 Plato (1.032 - 1.048 sg) Dry hop 3 days post terminal extract (~4.0 P) Cool to near freezing 4 days after dry hop Condition for 1+ weeks Bottling: Using fruit in this way can result in pectins solidifying post-bottling, leaving some chunks of fruit in the beer. This happened with 'The Tickle Monster', 'Life is a Peach' and in some cases our own bottles of 'Ten Dollar Shake' too. Don't worry - it will taste great!

We hope this recipe is helpful - please do let us know how you get on! (Sample bottles always appreciated ;) )