The idea behind this beer was to create something that my wife enjoys. At the end of the day she loves a good tea so I made a Belgian Wit ale with hibiscus, lavender, and chamomile. Here is the recipe.
Appearance: Pours golden in color and hazy. Big frothy foam for a head that sticks around for a while, undoubtedly due to 50% wheat malt in the beer. Surprisingly not as red as I expected and suggests more hibiscus could be used.
Nose: Soft and delicate malt presence followed by freshly harvested lavender that is not too strong. Some spicy phenols in the background as well which could be from the yeast. The lavender and malt mingle nicely.
Taste: Chamomile is upfront and then gives way floral type of spice. The taste is hard to describe but the beer is not sweet and there is no indication that I added any hibiscus. Bakers dough, wheat, and a slight nuttiness is present. The chamomile is very assertive in the taste. Medium bodied with an agressive carbonation.
Overall: Since this brew was for my wife, Kim, her verdict: “Good. Different, but good”. I have come to appreciate Kim’s palate and I’ll take this as a success. I love the beer and it reminds me of sleepy-time tea with a malty background. The spices are subtle enough that its hard to pick out individual flavors. A few friends of mine were expecting the individual flavors to pop more, especially the hibiscus. Next time around, I might add more spices to the beer and even dry-spice it.
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AS I lay in bed dreaming of some new brew, I thought of a nice hot cup of chamomile tea. I’m not much of a tea drinker but I do like it. I thought, how about a mead with chamomile used as an aroma? This evening I went to create that first gallon batch of chamomile mead. However, I realized I did not have an adequate amount of honey. So, I added a little bit of molasses. It began to take on the color of LME, so I said, “oh, what the heck. I’ll throw in come cascade hops too. They’re kind of citrus-ish”. Looking deeper in my freezer I saw some fresh Saaz hops so I threw some of them in. Still not enough sugar yet, so I added some Pilsner DME and got the gravity to where I wanted it. Seeing that it was just one gallon, I went all medieval on it and grated an orange, and threw in the peal and part of the orange I didn’t eat. By now it smells just great, but once i added the liquid yeast, it took on more of a beer aroma.
It’s fermenting now. Only God knows what I made, but it smells nice. Kinda’ reminds you of that first date you had in highschool. She smelled great at first, but like her I won’t know how it tastes until the lid comes off the top of the bottle. That part is always a surprise. Could be clean, crisp and spicy or, REALLY skunky!!!
J.
Interesting story! Keep me informed on how it goes!