| SPECIAL REPORTS |
| An ongoing series of reports about the beer world froma variety of award winning writers. |
Next time you reach for a beer, you may want to look to the rest of your bar. Beer as a cocktail ingredient isn't
a revolutionary idea. It's long played a part in drink making. The original flips, concocted in the late 1600s,
were made with beer, rum, sugar and whole egg, and served hot.
According to Garrett Oliver, the brewmaster at the Brooklyn Brewery and the editor of The Oxford Companion
to Beer, early punches often contained beer, although it wasn't in there to make the drink sparkling. Rather,
he said, "it added undertones of malt flavor and fleshed and smoothed out the overall feeling of the drink."
These days, the cocktails can be simple, made of a combination of beers (pale and dark brews in a classic
Black and Tan) or beer plus another ingredient (lemonade in a Shandy, or Champagne alongside stout in a
Black Velvet). Or they can be even more complex, with the addition of spirits and liqueurs. However they're
mixed, beer-based drinks tend to be low in alcohol, high in flavor and are often relatively easy and
inexpensive.
When choosing a beer, keep in mind that many styles, especially those of the craft variety are brewed with a
lot going on. Beer can sometimes be confused with having a one- or two-dimensional flavor spectrum, when,
in reality, it has a larger breadth of flavors than wines and, perhaps, spirits themselves. Lean in to the
bitterness and acidity of the beers you use, or choose one specifically to help the other ingredients shine.
Hoppy I.P.A.s play differently with ingredients than, say, a crisp pilsner or an acid-forward sour. In regard to
spirits, pairing lighter, fruitier beers with a lighter rum or vodka and heavier, richer beers with whiskey, rum or
brandy is the way to go.
As ever, drink what you like, but bear in mind that a beer cocktail may be just the place for a beer you might
not drink 12 ounces of on its own. Go for something more fruit-forward or acidic or simply new to you, and let
the spirits and liqueurs you pair with it temper to taste. And one more note: To keep your beer bubbly,
especially if you're adding ice, you'll want to rethink how you build the drink. When beer physically hits the
ice, you lose the carbonation Mr. Oliver said. To prevent that, he suggests adding the ice at the end.
Beer writer Clay Moore says that beer flavors may be less aggressive than distilled spirits or other cocktail
ingredients like bitters and vinegar-based shrubs. But that doesn't mean that you need to add more of it,
Rather than flooding a cocktail with mild beer he suggests selecting strong flavors.
Most people think of beer cocktails as having beer be the largest volume ingredient in the drink, but a lot of
the best beer cocktails use only an ounce or so of the beer, mixing it with complementary ingredients. Moore
advises restraint when considering ratios. More strongly flavored beers, ;big IPAs, sours, very dark stouts
can contribute flavor in small amounts. Lighter beers are good for longer drinks, or even for punches.
The beer that you choose should have some bold, crisp flavors of its own so it doesn't get lost in the cocktail
and end up tasting watered down, says Henry Livingston, Cicerone and certified BJCP judge. To use beer in a
cocktail, you really need to balance it out with strong and bright flavors he says. For instance, IPAs lend
themselves nicely to spicy things like ginger or cinnamon, and something like a witbier would go great with
citrus or a nice acidic shrub.
When in doubt, refer to classic cocktails as guidelines for what will work with beer. Karen Stakey, bartender
trainer and cocktail book author. She advises to look to the past to inspire future recipes. "There is a long
history of using beer in cocktails that dates back to hundreds of years ago in taverns and homemade
punches" says Stakey. "I tend to build on early classics and use beer with complementing flavors to lengthen,
sweeten and add effervescence to the cocktail." Think about the hop varietals and malts that give the beer its
flavor and build from there, she adds.
.For those new to crafting beer cocktails, IPA may not be the most obvious beer style to add to a cocktail
because of its bitter bite. But beertail veterans find that the hop-forward beer style works in a number of
recipes and helps enhance the existing aromatics of a drink. You'll find that putting hoppy IPAs into tropical
cocktails where the floral hop bitterness complements the sweet and spice notes of the drink exceptionally well.
There you have it. Now it's up to you.
Go out and give a beer cocktail a try.
| Give Beer Cocktails A Try Submitted By D.J. Erickson |
| BeerNexus does not validate authorship of submitted articles |
based on an article by Jim Vorel in pastemagazine.com