Rhubarb beer

[gr_baker]

Looking at my rhubarb plant in the garden running riot got me thinking about trying to use some in a beer recipe. Has anybody on here used rhubarb in a beer? What sort of style? I was thinking of a hoppy brown ale or perhaps a Belgian tripel style with a bit of residual sweetness to offset the acidity of the rhubarb.

Any thoughts welcome.

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[Manngold]

I have had a commercial rhubarb ipa before. Couldn’t give any advice on when to add, but would be interested to see what you do.

[simpleton]

Using fresh rubarb in any beer I've tried just doesn't come through. I even did one with nearly 5kg in across the boil and FV. Pretty sure commercial ones where you can defo taste it are from adding at bottling / kegging?

[gr_baker]

Wow! 5Kg is a lot of rhubarb. I had a look at the Brewdog recipes. They have 3 rhubarb beers, 2 of which have no rhubarb listed among the ingredients at all! The third only mentions that rhubarb should be added at maturation but no indication of quantity or how it should be prepared.

So what I'm thinking is to stew the rhubarb until it breaks down. Strain it slowly through a muslin bag to capture the liquid. Treat with Pectolase to try and reduce the haze. I may even chill the liquid and treat with gelatin to try and knock out the solids in suspension and then add that to the beer at the end of fermentation. I'm not sure if there will be any fermentables in the rhubarb juice or if it will just be a flavouring.

[steviebobs83]

I did a rhubarb and custard blonde a year and a half ago and it turned out tremendous, I'll see if I can dig out the recipe.

It was basically a blonde recipe with rhubarb added to the FV, some vanilla pods soaked in bourbon for the 'custard' flavour and a touch of lactose to offset the tartness.

First few bottles were almost creamy and slightly sweet. I must've been a bit lazy with washing the rhubarb though as by the end, something wild must've munched up all the lactose and it ended up being slightly sour and very fizzy which I actually really enjoyed.

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[gr_baker]

I did a rhubarb and custard blonde a year and a half ago and it turned out tremendous, I'll see if I can dig out the recipe.

It was basically a blonde recipe with rhubarb added to the FV, some vanilla pods soaked in bourbon for the 'custard' flavour and a touch of lactose to offset the tartness.

First few bottles were almost creamy and slightly sweet. I must've been a bit lazy with washing the rhubarb though as by the end, something wild must've munched up all the lactose and it ended up being slightly sour and very fizzy which I actually really enjoyed.

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That sounds good. I like the custard effect from the vanilla. Let us know if you find the recipe

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[chefgage]

How about roasting the rhubarb first in the oven like you would with a pumkin ale. This should bring out the taste and sweetness.

[Crastney]

yes there are fermentable sugars in rhubarb.

I've just got a bag of frozen rhubarb out of my freezer to defrost, I'm going to give it a bit of a squish once defrosted, and put it into a DJ and rack a finished cider onto it for a few days (a week?) or so before bottling. I'd suggest something similar for a beer.

[Meatymc]

Any joy with that recipe (rhubarb and custard) Stevie?

[steviebobs83]

Aye sorry, I've lost my notes as I did this one before I started taking more detailed notes.

I used James Morton's Blonde Bombshell as a base:

20L batch
81.6% or 4kg pale malt (He says Belgian, I think I used maris otter)
10.2% or 500g wheat malt
8.2% 400g white sugar

20g Tettnang first wort hop
20g Saaz 30 mins (I think I just used Tettnang)
20g Saaz 10 mins (again I used Tettnang)
1 Irish Moss tablet 10 mins

He suggests Westmalle, Chimay or Rochefort yeast but all I could get was Mangrove Jacks Belgian Ale.

I then went off piste with, wait for it... 3kg of blanched and frozen rhubarb into the FV (I may have forgotten to blanch some of it).

Fermented at 18°c for first 3 days then took all temp control off.

3tbsp vanilla extract
200g lactose at priming along with the priming sugar (You could go more but I wanted it dryish)

I'd try to bottle it for 3 volumes of CO2 but make sure you've taken steps to kill anything wild on the rhubarb and use some thick bottles.

It came out cloudy and pink and very fizzy which was just right in my opinion.

Hope this helps, let me know if you choose to use it and how you get on
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[Meatymc]

Cheers Stevie

I will give this a go and report back although with what's in the pipline plus jollies may not be until mid Summer

[SMASH3R]

I note the Blue Monkey brewery near me has recently produced a Rhubarb and Custard (vanilla) beer that was available in their pub in Loughborough. Probably a seasonal; I didn't take that much notice of the pump clip, but tried a sip from a friends beer and it was nice enough. Possibly drop them a discrete email to see if they can share any tips?

[pvt_ak]

[quote="SMASH3R"]I note the Blue Monkey brewery near me has recently produced a Rhubarb and Custard (vanilla) beer that was available in their pub in Loughborough. Probably a seasonal; I didn't take that much notice of the pump clip, but tried a sip from a friends beer and it was nice enough. Possibly drop them a discrete email to see if they can share any tips?[/quote]

That sounds scrummy !

Where is the brewery ? I’m North Leics.


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[steviebobs83]

I made a rhubarb saison a month or so ago which turned out tremendous if anyone's still interested I'm rhubarb related shenanigans

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[richard080561]

I made a rhubarb saison a month or so ago which turned out tremendous if anyone's still interested I'm rhubarb related shenanigans

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I'm interested, would you like to share the recipe?