Spiced beers bring to mind Christmas ales and their pumpkin-infused upstart cousins, but cinnamon, clove, nutmeg, and ginger are all too predictable. Homebrewing challenges us to be adventurous and create something truly unique. You can take inspiration from the Belgian brewers who are culinary artists, concocting beers with cumin seed, black pepper, or grains of paradise. Even if you're not a cook, you can apply culinary principles to come up with something more exotic and drinkable. It’s all a matter of playing around with flavors to construct a combination that is structurally sound.
Approaching these beers from the perspective of a chef, I often start by picking a spice rather than beginning with the base beer. For this example, I chose star anise. Most people immediately think of licorice, but star anise has more complexity and, at lower levels, can add some bright herbal notes. In cooking, I include it in my pasta sauce, and it’s part of my dry rub for smoked pork shoulder, but neither of those dishes seems helpful for brewing. There are other flavors that go well with star anise, among them chocolate, cinnamon, citrus, cranberry, and garlic. As I was thinking about the recipe, citrus stood out for me because there are plenty of citrusy hops (e.g., Cascade and Citra). That inspired me: What about an IPA made with star anise and orange zest?
Proof of Concept
Once you pick a spice or spices and decide on the style of the base beer, the idea may appear good on paper, but who wants to speculate with a full five-gallon batch? Fortunately, it’s possible to test out the idea by doctoring a sample beer. With its heavy helping of Citra and Mosaic hops, Deschutes Fresh Squeezed IPA seemed like a good foundation for my experiment. I ground up some star anise and put a pinch into a glass along with a little bit of fresh orange zest. I added some of the IPA and took a taste. There was too much orange, so I added some more anise until they seemed in balance. But the two spices overpowered the beer. No problem. I just diluted it with more IPA until all three elements came together. The orange zest proved to be the perfect bridge between the hoppy IPA and the star anise. It accented the citrus and tropical fruit character of the hops, while pulling in the spicy complexity of the anise. The proof of concept was a success.
Building and Brewing the Recipe
The next step was to build a recipe for the base beer and then figure out how much spice to use. I already had an IPA recipe, so I brewed up a batch, swapping in the hops I wanted: Amarillo for bittering and a mix of Citra, Galaxy, and Mosaic for flavor and aroma (see recipe below). I dropped the first-addition hops just a bit to compensate for any bitterness from the spices.
I decided to add the spices when I racked the beer to secondary because it would be easier to fine tune the balance. Based on previous experience, I knew that the zest of one orange should be about right for the level of citrus I had in my beer-cocktail experiment. The star anise was a little trickier to scale up. It has a very strong flavor, so I started with two small arms of the star, which was about ¼ teaspoon ground.
About 30 minutes before I was ready to rack, I put the zest and the ground star anise into a glass and made a tincture with a small amount of vodka. This would make it easier to spread the flavor throughout the beer. I poured the tincture into the beer while I racked it to secondary. Then I used a wine thief to pull a sample to taste. It was good, but I had trouble picking up the star anise. I decided to add another ¼ teaspoon of ground spice with same tincture technique, stirring it into my carboy. This seemed much closer, but the real test would come once the beer was kegged and carbonated.
The Proof Is in the Tasting
The flat beer tasted great going into the keg, but when I tapped the first glass, the initial sip was even better than my earlier experiment. The nose favored the orange zest, which emphasized the citrus side of the hops selection. The solid bitter backbone fused with the spicy spark of the star anise and smoothly integrated with the orange-pineapple hops flavor. At a week old, I’d say that the orange is a little stronger than I’d like, but what started out as a wild idea turned into a palate pleasing beer.
Look in your spice cabinet and find your own inspiration. Saffron? Fenugreek? Curry? Any of those will work. Just remember to test out the flavors and be conservative so you don’t overpower your beer.
Star of Citria IPA Recipe
Batch size: 5 gallons (19 liters)
Brewhouse Efficiency: 72%
OG: 1.068
FG: 1.019
IBUs: 48
ABV: 6.4%
MALT/GRAIN BILL
10.5 lb (4.76 kg) Pale ale malt
1.5 (680 g) Munich malt light
0.5 (227 g) Biscuit malt
0.375 lb (170 g) Munich malt dark
0.5 (227 g) flaked barley
HOPS & SPICES SCHEDULE
1 oz (28 g) Amarillo [8.1%] at 60 minutes
0.5 oz (14 g) Mosaic [12.1%] at 15 minutes
0.5 oz (14 g) Galaxy [15.2%] at 15 minutes
0.5 oz (14 g) Citra [12.2%] at 15 minutes
0.5 oz (14 g) Mosaic [12.1%] at flameout
0.5 oz (14 g) Galaxy [15.2%] at flameout
0.5 tsp ground star anise in secondary
Grated zest from 1 orange in secondary
YEAST
Wyeast 1056 American Ale
DIRECTIONS
Single-step infusion mash at 150°F (66°C) for 60 minutes. Boil for 60 minutes. Pitch the yeast and ferment at 68°F (20°C) for a week or until the final gravity is reached. Before you rack to secondary, make a vodka tincture with the grated orange zest and ground star anise, using just enough vodka to cover the spices. Let the tincture sit for 30 minutes, then add it as you transfer the beer. Let the beer rest in secondary for a week, then keg or bottle.