One of the beers that I made after Natalie was born was a Belgian Wit spiced with flowers. A good example of the style is Southampton’s Cuvee de Fleurs. Witbiers are my wife’s favorite style and she also loves a good tea. After the hard work of labor and birth this beer would be perfect for Kim who has been abstaining from alcohol for nine months. The beer is also based off of Chipi’s Wit – Batch #1, which was a Witbier spiced with orange peel and coriander.
For anyone that is curious, “Chipi” is the nickname for my wife and if anyone can tell me where I got this name from, I will ship you a 24 oz bottle of this beer in addition to some other homebrews. The answer is pretty obscure so I may give hints along the way. Make sure to leave your answers in the commets section and if I’ve already told you the answer in the past, you’re disqualified!
For the flowers I chose hibiscus, lavender, and chamomile. Chamomile is my wife’s favorite ingredient in tea and she loves the smell of lavender. Hibiscus was just something cool I picked up at my local homebrew shop. I hear lavender goes a long way and hibiscus can make a beer blood red. I want all the spices to blend together so I will use a lesser amount of each.
The recipe (5 gallons):
- 6 pounds of German Pilsner malt
- 4 pounds of flaked wheat
- 1 pound of flaked oats
- 4.0 ounces of Carabrown malt (55L)
- 0.75 oz of UK First Gold at 60 minutes (~20 IBUs)
- Whirlfloc and yeast nutrient at 15 minutes
- 10 grams of dried hibiscus at 5 minutes
- 5 grams of lavender at 5 minutes
- 5 grams of chamomile at 5 minutes
FG: 1.016
IBU: ~20
This beer is kegged and ready so I will be posting a review soon.
Happy Brewing!
J
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No picture? I was hoping to see the color of the beer with the added hibiscus.
Was the Lavender dried culinary and was chamomile from a tea bag? And did you put these along with the hibiscus into a hop bag and then remove it after the wort has been chilled or just add everything into the end of the boil and let it ferment? Sounds like an awesome brew!
Hi John,
They were loose, but I’m sure they were culinary – I bought them at my LHBS in brooklyn. I put it all in the boil, loose, at 5 minutes left in the boil.
It was an awesome brew! The hibiscus barely made an impact. I could easily have doubled the amount.
J
Wow that’s great! I’m definitely going to try this. I just did a saison with white sage, parsley, lemon thyme, and rosemary at 0 minutes. Came out awesome which made me confident to try your recipe. How about marigold flowers? Any info on that? I’m trying to clone a Cuvée des fleurs recipe