Craft brewers experiment with tea

While watching “Star Trek: The Next Generation,” Nick Hempfer found inspiration for his next beer.

The favorite drink of Patrick Stewart’s character on the show is Earl Grey tea. So the Summit Brewing brewer created his own drink using the blend’s citrus tea leaves.

The result is Make It So, the 19th of the St. Paul brewery’s Unchained specialty beer series named after a common phrase from the show. The beer will be released at 5 p.m. Saturday at the 910 Montreal Circle beer hall in a celebration that includes a Twin Cities Star Trek fan club.

“I thought it would be cool to honor (Stewart’s character) Captain Picard with a beer,” Hempfer said. “I wouldn’t say I’m a Trekkie, but I love the show. I’m a big science fiction nerd.”

Hempfer said Make It So is his first Summit creation to make it to market. It uses Summit ESB (Extra Special Bitter) as its base with the tea leaves added after fermentation.

“I notice with tea you get a flavor and aroma similar to hops but without the bitterness,” Hempfer said. “It’s perfect for somebody that wants to try something with more flavor without the punch in the mouth of hoppy beers.”

Craft brewers have found success with tea-infused beers.

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Hempfer said he based Make It So on a Milwaukee Brewing witbier he previously sampled called OGii, which uses Rishi tea infusions. Milwaukee Brewing also uses an organic Jasmine tea infusion in its India pale ale called Hop Freak.

Lupine Brewing of St. Cloud — which is scheduled to open a new taproom and brewery in Delano this summer — released a tea-infused American amber called Convocation.

While Summit conditions with tea leaves, Lupine adds brewed tea to the beer at the end of the boil process.

“I thought of the Boston Tea Party, so I figured I’d throw tea in my beer,” said Lupine brewmaster Grant Aldrich, who first developed the drink as a homebrew.

“I was able to find the tea blend 1776, which went perfect with that idea (that’s the year America declared its independence). Lupine was asking me about doing a Fourth of July beer. I was like, ‘I definitely have a Fourth of July beer for you.’ ”

Aldrich, whose brother Cole plays in the NBA, said he had previously tried a green tea IPA from Stone Brewing of California. Stone has also released a Chai tea-spiced imperial Russian stout.

Another popular tea-infused beer is Dogfish Head of Delaware’s black tea sahti called Sah’tea.

And with the success of tea infusions, more could be on the way.

“Usually it’s a lot of shocked faces at first. ‘There’s tea in here?’ ” Aldrich said. “But I’ve had light beer drinkers say they like it and then I’ve had mostly stout drinkers say they like it. It’s been all across the board.”

Follow Jake Laxen on Twitter and Instagram @jacoblaxen.

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