Halloween is around the corner, and some of us have already succumbed to the temptation of the seasonal displays of candy at the grocery store and bought a bag…or three. But we aren’t counting how many bags you go through for the next six weeks. All we want to know is what your favorite Halloween candy is.
Personally, every October I find myself making snacks such as Rice Krispie Treats and popcorn balls, tossing back handfuls of candy corn as if the world depends on it, and taking my excellent dental health for granted with caramel apples. I’m also chasing those breweries with seasonally appropriate beers. But this year I’m going to take a new approach: I’m going to brew some Halloween candy–inspired beers.
What You Need to Know
Adding candy or flavors that will replicate a candy flavor to your homebrew will add a lot of sugar. To balance the sugar, you’ll need to do some tweaking to your recipe. If your recipe calls for a cup of sugar in the boil, for example, instead of adding the 1 cup of sugar and 1 cup of candy, cut the sugar and use the candy instead. I suggest boiling a cup of the candy in some water to liquefy it before you add it to the boil. The yeast will eat the sugars from the candy, leaving behind the flavors.
Once you decide on the candy flavor you want to replicate, you will want to decide how you’re going to add the various flavors. There are a variety of ways to do it: in the mash, the boil, in a secondary, and at bottling. When and how you do it depends on the ingredient, which I explain further below. Using such ingredients as candy and cereals requires a bit of an adventurous streak—you may even want to split up your batch a few ways to see which addition method achieves the flavor you’re happiest with.
And safety first: adding sugary sweets at bottling runs the risk of creating bottle bombs if you go overboard. If you’re going to bottle the beer, you could substitute the candy for the priming sugar, but I wouldn’t recommend adding the candy in addition to the priming sugar.
Adding ingredients that have oils in them (candy bars, for example) will reduce your head and mouthfeel quite a bit, so you’ll want to either increase the dryness of the beer by adjusting your malt bill or find an alternative way (such as extracts) to get that same flavor.
All right. Ready to start brewing up some candy-inspired beers? Let’s get to it!
Rice Krispie Treats
Main ingredients: puffed rice, marshmallows, and vanilla.
Notes: For your base beer, start with a cream ale or a non-citrusy wheat beer or Kölsch. The puffed rice will add a very subtle flavor, and you can either add the actual cereal during mash in, or you can use rice hulls. You can add marshmallows during primary or secondary fermentation, or you can hunt down some marshmallow-flavored vodka and add it at packaging. If you want more of a homemade feel, soak some marshmallows in vodka for a few days, then add the strained vodka. You should add the vanilla during secondary racking or at packaging—it’s a muted flavor that can be boiled out pretty easily, so you’ll want to handle it with care. You can use extracts, the whole bean (super expensive, though!), or a tincture to get the flavor.
Candy Corn
Main ingredients: corn syrup, sugar, honey, vanilla
Notes: Store-bought candy corn has gelatin, wax, and other ingredients that you definitely don’t want in your beer. To re-create the flavor, find a homemade candy corn recipe, then make the candy dough without the butter or other oils (or food coloring). Candy corn is mostly sugar, so aside from the sweetness, vanilla and honey are probably going to be the most distinguishing flavors. A lighter, non-citrusy base beer would be ideal—wheat beer, Kölsch, or a blonde. Add your homemade candy dough at flameout, which is just enough to dissolve it but not to cook the sugar. Alternatively, you could add the candies at packaging. See Rice Krispie Treats (above) for information about using vanilla.
Caramel Apples
Main ingredients: apples, caramel, spice
Notes: This is a fun one, with lots of flexibility with your ingredients and beer choice. For a base beer, I recommend a golden ale (tart if you want to showcase the apples, or more malty if you want to showcase the caramel), red ale, dunkelweizen, brown ale, or pale ale to start with. You can add spice if you’d like and go for either a super caramel-y malty beer, or a drier, more cider-like finish. For the apple flavor, you can use apple juice, apple cider, chopped apples, and hops. For the caramel, Crystal Malt 60L adds sweetness to the caramel flavor, but you can choose any of the other Crystal Malts depending on your beer and the outcome you’re going for. Other additions you could work with include brandy, caramel apple–flavored vodka, cinnamon, and nutmeg.
Reese’s Pieces
Main ingredients: chocolate and peanut butter
Notes: A chocolate porter, chocolate milk stout, nutty brown ale, or Munich dunkel are the pretty safe base-beer choices for this beer. The chocolate flavor comes from the malt, but if you want beer that’s even more chocolatey, you can add cacao nibs to the secondary. For the peanut butter flavor, avoid actual peanut butter at all costs…unless you’re willing to take several weeks to separate the oil from the peanuts (yes, we brewers are generally pretty patient, but there are quicker ways to get there!). Instead, use powdered peanut butter (available in the organic or health-food aisle of better grocery stores) in your secondary.
Nerds
Main ingredients: Sugar, malic acid, and artificial fruit flavors
Notes: Nerds are mostly sugar with a bit of malic acid to make the candy tart. Go with a dry, light ale as the base beer for this one, and at packaging, make a simple syrup with the Nerds. Or, if you’re more interested in going the sour-beer route, brew up a Berliner weisse, then use the same pre-bottling technique as with the non-sour beer for an added punch. Tart beers are lots of fun to work with if you like a bit of a bite.
Homebrew Recipes
Craft Beer & Brewing Magazine® has a comprehensive collection of homebrew recipes that we’ve collected from pro brewers and homebrewers alike. Here is a list of thirteen beers that would be a great starting point when you’re putting together your recipes for Halloween-candy beer.
Postmoderne Belgian-Style Blond
Obitus American Brown Ale Recipe
Say Unkel! Munich Dunkel Beer Recipe
Jack’s Abby Brewing’s Framinghammer Recipe