|BACKGROUND|

In the heart of Amish country, it’s almost impossible to avoid getting some home-made root beer from a roadside stand. Typically, it comes in a gallon-sized glass jug and has maybe some slight carbonation to it, but nothing compared to the usual fare of Barqs or A&W. It’s certainly a Dutch experience, perfect to go with whoopie or shoo-fly pies.

Oddly enough, I had a small bottle of root beer extract in my possession for a few years. It had survived through at least 3 different moves over the course of 5 years, always with the intention of “someday, I’m gonna actually make this”, but never quite coming to fruition.

Of course, in this discussion, it’s truly impossible to avoid discussing the fact of how the brewing industry has jumped the shark a bit on the whole “hard soda” schtick. A few years ago, when you had the whole “Not Your Father’s XYZ” thing going on, people went apeshit over basic cream ales that were pretty much just flavored with soda syrups. I will give credit where credit’s due, though, that Sprecher made a pretty killer hard rootbeer back in like 2013/2013, well before the hype even set in for that. However, it was slightly disappointing when it came to the float department.

Now, there’s certainly been a solid trend of using beers in combination with other ingredients for decades. I’d be willing to say that The Beastie Boys have been mis-attributed to at least on the first wave of it, seeing as “Brass Monkey” was such a radio hit. In many circles, the “Brass Monkey” many people know of is the act of drinking a 40 of Olde English down to the bulb of the bottle and topping it off with OJ – the original “beer-mosa”, if you will. However, in The Beastie Boys case, the “Brass Monkey” they’re referring to is the pre-made cocktail by the Heublein Company. At least we still got something out of it.

More recently, people started to recognize the idea of “beer floats”, where you’d take a beer and, similar to the traditional root beer float, put a scoop of ice cream on top. Some beers work very well in this context. Lindeman’s dessert-y lambics hearken to a pie a-la-mode and Left Hand’s Milk Stout Nitro ends up like a slightly alcoholic coolata. But the unfortunate side effect of the beer float is that, by introducing ice cream into the mix, you lower the temperature of the beer to the point where perception of any bitterness can be sharply enhanced, meaning you get a very bitter end result. Having the highest of hopes for doing one with Sprecher’s Barrel-Aged Hard Root Beer ended up being one of my most underwhelming experiences.

Aside from the appeal to the non-beer drinker with the flavored cream ale idea, I’ve not really experienced to many people attempting a “root beer beer”. The closest I’ve ever actually had was an accident. A brewery local to me, Highway Manor, had a serendipitous success with their “Dumb Dick”, a sour dark ale that was blended in a large PVC cube previously used to house root beer. Unbenknownst to the head brewer, the root beer flavor was so entrenched in the vessel that it imparted the flavor into the final product – a happy little accident on par with Silly Putty. Having a solid record that root beer beer actually works, I had at least something to go off of.

As is my typical form, I knew I couldn’t use regular ol’ vanilla beans to make a root beer float beer. I had to mix it up. While looking for a substitute, I ended up stumbling upon the humble tonka bean. While it has no relation to the iconic trucks of yore, the tonka bean is indigenous to Central and South America. It has a very mild flavor to it, but it’s typically used in desserts similarly to how vanilla beans are, often times even in lieu of them. However, it’s also worth noting, that tonka beans are technically illegal to use for cooking in the US. Well, at least commercially. Even all-star chefs like Grant Achatz of Alinea have fallen victim to its allure, earning him a little visit from the FDA.

Well, since I’m not a professional, I’m not barred from using it. And thus, the secret weapon for the beer was chosen, FDA be damned.

Them Digits

Batch Size: 5.5 gallons

Mash Temp: 155 F for 60 min.

Boil Time: 60 min.

Batch Efficiency: 81%

Original Gravity: 1.064 // 15.7 P

Final Gravity: 1.032 // 8.1 P

Estimated ABV: 4.2%

IBUs: 38 IBU

Color: 35.7 SRM // 70.5 EBC

Recipe

Malts

8# English Pearl | 70%

1# Victory | 9%

1# Golden Naked Oats | 9%

.5# Midnight Wheat | 4%

.5# Carafa III | 4%

.5# Lactose | 4%

Hops

1 oz. Galena (12.8% AA) @ 30 min. | 28 IBU

2 oz. Willamette (4.2% AA) @ 5 | 18 IBU

Yeast

1x packet of US-04 English Ale

Spices and Stuff

4.5 oz. Tonka Bean Extract (Homemade tincture)

1 (one) 4 oz. Bottle of Shank’s Root Beer Extract

Water Shit

1 mL 88% Lactic Acid

1 tsp CaCl

|BREW LOG|

As with any batch, the first hurdle is often sourcing the specialty ingredients. Luckily, we have the internet for this.

I managed to get my hands on some tonka beans through Etsy, surprisingly enough. It’s at least amusing to know that I actually bought them from some sort of mystic/wiccan/hoodoo shop. I was wholly unaware that tonka beans are believed to grant wishes when thrown into moving water, as well as having mystical properties of love drawing, increasing attention, success, luck and using in sex magic. In the words of John Oliver – “Cool.”

In the ever popular fashion of making a tincture to control spicing, I used a micro-grater that I have for spices to shave them down and threw them into a small flash of 100 proof vodka for about a week to infuse the flavor. While I was shredding the beans, their aroma was very much as described, throwing mostly this nice amandine/nougat quality with hints of cherry and vanilla. It was definitely going to be in the angle I wanted for the beer.

On brew day, there wasn’t really much outside of the norm. I started off collecting 3.5 gallons of water for mashing, which I adjusted with treatments. I did dial back a little on the typical lactic acid addition, since I was using about a pound of dark roasted malts, knowing that would absolutely push the pH down a good deal. I ended up overshooting my target temp by about a degree, but I had given myself the window in the recipe that I was aiming for 154-156F, meaning that coming in a 155F was pretty much on point. After the hour was up for the mash, I collected the first runnings and batch sparged with the 5.5 gallons of water I had heated up to 170F. After giving a brief period to allow the grain bed to settle (despite using a brew bag), I ended up collecting about 7.5-8 gallons of wort in the kettle. Checking the pre-boil gravity, I was quite high, coming in at 1.050. Better over than under.

One of the nice things about not doing hopped to piss IPAs is that additions during the boil are nice and easy. @30 minutes, I threw in my bittering addition of Galena, alongside the .5# of lactose sugar, ensuring it would get dissolved well. @15 minutes, I added in my whirlfloc tablets and the bottle of root beer extract. It was almost like using Sinamar. I mean, by itself, the beer was already very dark, but the extract brought it from the “really dark brown” to “jet black”, and suddenly the whole room smelled like soda. It was pretty fun. Lastly, @5 min, I added in the aroma addition of Willamette to round everything out.

Using the immersion chiller, I brought the beer’s temperature down to 68F. While I was racking the beer into the carboy, the gravity reading post-boil came out to 1.064 (1.062, adjusted). The yield for the batch was pretty close to 6 gallons. After hitting the wort with 60 second of 02 through a .5 micron oxygen stone, I pitched in one pack of rehydrated US-04, then leaving the beer to do the damn thing for however long it needed.

However long it needed was roughly two and a half weeks.

On bottling day, the beer had still retained its magical root beer aroma and flavor. I’m probably going to sound like a broken record (especially since it’s getting mentioned in at least two more upcoming posts) but I generally dislike drinking the green/uncarbonated beer. This is one of the rare exceptions since, well, it just kinda tasted like an oddly roasty root beer. After collecting 5.5 gallons into the bottling bucket, the time came to figure out dosing in the tonka bean extract. Initially, I started out doing 1 oz. measurements until the flavor became more prominent, about 3 oz. in. From there, I dialed back to .5 oz. increments, until I ended up with a mild yet perceptible flavor at 4.5 oz. of extract going into the beer.

Using the metric of an English porter/stout as my reference to what carbonation level I was looking for, I made a simple syrup for priming using a cup of water and 3.4 oz. of sucrose. I actually added this while racking into the bucket, but the light stirring while adding in the extract most certainly ensured it was was distributed into solution. The yield for the batch ended up being just a hair over two cases of 12’s worth, since I like to get a few bombers for sharing at events like homebrew club.

With the caps tightly fixed and the bottles tucked snugly in their boxes, it was time for ye olde waiting game.

|TASTING NOTES|

The beer pours out of the bottle slightly thinner than a Castrol-esqe imperial stout, but a decidedly thick and luscious jet black. With the lower carbonation on the batch, it throws up a nice finger and a half’s worth of khaki colored head that lingers and laces. This beer is a beautiful onyx color due to all the roasted malts, but hey, I like my stouts black just like my metal.

The nose is where things start to get interesting. It’s about a 50/50 blend of malty, roasty goodness and, well, root beer. It’s interesting that neither one takes an overwhelming dominance over the other. The balance of the anise/licorice/sarsaparilla and the coffee/chocolate/malt flavors is really fun.

However, much like a mullet, this beer is business up front, party in the back. The stout’s initial offering is the root beer. On the sip, it slowly fades to the middle of the pallet being more dark malt forward with the roast and slightly bitterness coming through, and at the back, both flavors intertwine into this, for back of a better word, smoked root beer sorta flavor. It’s not wholly unpleasant, quite the opposite, honestly. The only real misstep is that the tonka beans are much more subtle than vanilla would have been. There’s a very faint amandine/nougat flavor that permeates through the beer, but it’s not as prominent as I had hoped. It is a very good root beer beer, but the “float” part is very much a light accent.

The mouthfeel is great. It’s a solid medium, not too thin, not too thick. With the oats and the lower carbonation level, it’s still lightly chewy without going to slick or overly thick. It lingers slightly in the mouth, but doesn’t completely coat the palate. For me, this is completely on point for what I want in a stout.

This beer was a great success, in my opinion. The fact that it straddles the line of being both beer and root beer simultaneously is entertaining. I’d say that most “beers” that do this are either beer trying to be root beer or… well, I haven’t seen any hopped root beers that are non-alcoholic, so… I guess Malta is the closest? Never acquired the taste for that stuff. This batch strikes the middle point so solidly that one can’t help but giggle a little. Just wish the tonka beans were a little more prominent in the mix. Live and learn, I suppose. Or, more likely, I just need to buy better tonka beans from a store that isn’t gonna tell me to throw them in the river and make a wish with ’em.