You can love garlic dearly and yet feel absolutely dead certain that you never want to drink a beer made with it. “Garlic is wonderful,” you may be thinking to yourself. “Leave it on the pizza.”
If that’s your view, are you sure you’re in the right place? This is Special Ingredient. Go check out the Ask the Pros department—pretty sure we’ve got some Reinheitsgebot over there. Here is where we’ve taken serious looks at brewing with kimchi, pickle juice, beets, tomatoes, bacon, and Mexican flying ants. Frankly, garlic is one of the more mundane things we’ve considered.
So, let’s consider it—and ignore that gut feeling that we might not want garlic’s piquant pungency in our pils.
First, ponder the parallels—because putting garlic into beer isn’t the most insane idea we’ve considered. Lots of garlicky foods taste famously wonderful with beer—pizza, various pastas, crusty garlic bread, Japanese garlic rice, kimchi, basically anything with aioli … we could go on. Clearly, there is at least some kind of affinity.
“Sure,” you’re thinking, “but those are foods. Garlic isn’t a beer flavor.” You sure? Ever taste a beer made with lots of Summit hops or with Columbus as a flavor addition? Some people (me, hi, it’s me again) even like a bit of garlic-onion hop flavor in an old-school American IPA—preferably amid a whole mess of piney-dank grapefruit peels, to be sure. But it can work. So, there we have it: Garlic is a beer flavor—or, at least, beer-adjacent.
Having established that, we won’t deny that it would be painfully easy to make a really awful garlic beer—on purpose or otherwise. With that in mind, let’s look at how some of the pros have used it with some success.
Crushing It
As it happens, my first encounter with garlic in beer was a positive one. I’m thinking of a little-known Belgian ale from a small brand called Jessenhofke, based in Hasselt. The Jessenhofke Tripel first appeared in 2007.
When I tasted it that year, I had no idea there was garlic in it, but I did pick up what I described as “a fried, savory element buried deeply.” (Thanks for the memories, RateBeer.) That note didn’t bother me, apparently; I was just happy to find a tripel that was bitter enough, for a change, rather than another sweet one loaded with coriander. “The flavor was not as strange as the idea,” I wrote, once I learned what was in there.
Fast-forward 18 years—ouch, please give me a moment for a wistful montage—and Jessenhofke’s Gert Jordens says they still add a small amount of fresh, sliced garlic at the end of the boil. They also add it to several other beers, including their Maya blonde ale and spicier PMPRNL tripel, as well as their dubbel, a reserva-style strong dark ale, and a winter ale. So, garlic is part of the Jessenhofke house character—but subtlety is key.
Fellow Midwesterners might remember another beer from that time—coincidentally, it also first appeared in 2007. The quasi-legendary Mamma Mia Pizza Beer was the brainchild of homebrewer Tom Seefurth, who took it to America’s Brewpub in Chicago and later to Sprecher in Milwaukee. In concept, it was a “saison” flavored with fresh garlic, basil, oregano, and a lot of tomatoes. The press loved it, it went viral, and Jay Leno even joked about it on the Tonight Show.
While Seefurth was still at Sprecher, they were producing batches of up to 80 barrels, distributing to 11 states, and exporting to three countries. The last batch they brewed was in 2013. Reached by email, Seefurth says Sprecher ran out of capacity when they started leaning into hard sodas. Twelve years later, reviving that brand is still on his mind.
When it comes to the garlic, he mentions that grower Christopher Ranch of Gilroy, California, once featured their beer in a Facebook post. “Their garlic is sweet, with a bite that is not harsh versus the products coming from overseas,” Seefurth says. “It’s important to taste the raw ingredient by itself, just as you would taste a raw grain or coffee bean. … We smashed the garlic in between two food-grade poly bags—as seen on several news feeds! Use it like you would hops.”
Finally, given Sam Calagione’s enthusiasm for unconventional ingredients, it’s not surprising that Delaware’s Dogfish Head has had a go or two at beers with garlic in them. Brewed in 2013, Garlic Breadth was a London-style porter of 6 percent ABV, and it featured black garlic. That variation comes from an Asian tradition of warm-aging garlic until the cloves turn dark—not from mold or fermentation, but from a slow Maillard reaction that softens the flavor and adds sweetness.
The brewery added the garlic to the whirlpool, after the boil, describing the result as “full of chocolate and espresso notes,” as “the nuanced garlic in the finish complements the natural earthiness of this style.”
Savory Depth (Charge)
No serious researcher can slice into the study of garlic beer for long without finding out about a brewery in Rock Island, Illinois, called Radicle Effect. One of their most popular beers—a genuine local favorite that pleases enough palates to score near 3.9 on Untappd—is their Roasted Garlic Stout.
“The beer was born out of necessity,” says Rich Nuñez, owner and head brewer at Radicle Effect. “I went to brew a stout at a friend’s house, and I realized after we started brewing that I had forgotten my hops. He had none, so I raided his kitchen trying to find something that could be used as a bittering agent, and I found a jar of minced garlic. I figured, if I cooked the oil off and then used the burnt garlic, it would impart bitterness but very little impact from the garlic. The end result was a stout like I have never tasted before.”
That was only the start. He continued to work on the recipe until it was something he believed he could sell—he describes it as a tricky four-year process of trial and error.
The base is “a roasty stout, and semisweet,” Nuñez says. For the garlic, he says he prefers to use elephant bulbs—larger ones with a milder flavor—if he can find them.
“Because the garlic is roasted—and I roast the garlic myself—it makes the garlic intensity very mellow. This allows the stout to still taste like stout and not a garlic bomb. The garlic is present in the aroma, but very subtle in the up-front flavor. It’s more of an aftereffect. Once you have had a couple of drinks, you will notice the garlic as you start to exhale or belch.”
They add the garlic on the hot side. “In doing so, it extracts the essence of the roasted garlic without adding any astringent elements,” Nuñez says. “You have to realize that you are adding a very oily substance to the brew, which can create problems down the road if your brew system is not properly cleaned.”
He also advises brewers “to understand that garlic is a very powerful and pungent ingredient to add to any style of beer. When [you use it] raw, be careful—a little goes a long way. When the garlic is roasted, it becomes more mellow, less intense, and becomes buttery. Always remember: It’s easier to add than it is to take away.”
The Roasted Garlic Stout, not surprisingly, goes well with savory foods such as meats and cheeses, Nuñez says. He adds that local chefs and customers also have used it as an ingredient in sauces, brines, and chili.
Then there’s the Garlic Depth Charge—another local favorite when Radicle Effect celebrates the release of the Roasted Garlic Stout twice per year, in mid-summer and around Christmastime.
“This is a peppered steak in a glass,” Nuñez says, “the most savory shot you will most likely ever have. It’s our garlic stout and a shot of our garlic-and-peppercorn vodka. Pour the shot into the glass with the garlic stout, and it becomes a garlic-steak sensory overload.”
Radicle Effect is a tiny brewery with a small taproom. With 10 beers on tap, about half are usually its own beers, and the guests always include Schlitz. (Try the Pickle Schlitz, which is exactly what it sounds like.) Yet Roasted Garlic Stout Day—with only four kegs produced—is an event, and the Garlic Depth Charge is a highlight.
“We are a very small place,” Nuñez says. “But our record for most Garlic Depth Charges sold in one day is 157.”
