Flavored beer

Paul told me he intends to flavor half his beer raspberry. This happens on Sunday when we bottle the ten gallons, two five-gallon buckets.

I don't like that idea.

Here's the thing, Padawan, students must first master the basics before messing around with variations on a theme. What are you Mozart? And the flavor that is added at bottling can be flavor that's added at pouring. You risk ruining half your first batch by messing around with unknowns.

Silly unknowns at that.

But Paul doesn't listen to reason. Once his mind is set, it's set. You'll notice a certain pride that dummkopfs take in their stubbornness. It cannot be remedied.

Therefore, I'll show him how he intends to ruin his perfectly good first beer.

The bottle-shop downstairs next to this brewing company that gives lessons has a surprisingly broad range of flavored beers. Several duplicates, lime, Mandarin orange, strawberry, watermelon, raspberry-blueberry, passion fruit, coconut, acai, mango, guava, weird shit like banana bread, cucumber mint, sour pickle, sour raspberry, peach. Flavors you do not expect in beer.

This pineapple one isn't half bad.

But not as good as his plain light beer already tastes. The hops in his beer is not so aggressive. None of us like bitter flavor. It's actually light flavored with an interesting spice-like complexity. 

I learned something about all the grains they have back there in bins like the bulk section of Whole Foods except even more extensive. Only a small portion is wheat. And all of them are toasted to an extent, to halt germination, the process of malting, some roasted lightly and others more deeply like coffee beans. Some roasted severely. Strangely burnt to black. Who even wants that? The wheat that Paul chose is lightly roasted with a faint flavor of honey, so it's named "Honey Wheat." The bin is marked with a Canadian flag. Others named "Chocolate wheat" are toasted so long that the color changes to chocolate-y brown. It has nothing to do with the flavor of chocolate, just the color. So if you see a beer marked "Chocolate wheat" then that means the wheat is nearly burnt, somewhat acrid. As if salvaged from a fire. It tastes horrible as wheat grains. I can't imagine what that would do steeped.

So I'll make Paul taste these two beers, pineapple and raspberry, to show him the adulteration doesn't improve what would be his lovely light beer.

(I would have made my ale like Newcastle)