Here is the recipe I’m going with. I’m planning on doing a long (~120 minute) boil to get some caramelization of the wort for color and depth of flavor and also because I think having a fairly thin mash will help avoid a stuck sparge.
Original post:
My homebrew club has an annual fundraiser every year where all the brewers have to adhere to a theme that changes every time. This year’s theme is adjuncts and I’ve been assigned Oats as an adjunct. Now I have brewed several Oatmeal stouts in my time and I want to go for something more interesting and out of the ordinary. I was thinking of Brewing a Barley wine with a hefty portion of the grain bill switched out for oats to make an Oat-wine if you will.
I was just wondering if anyone had any other wacky suggestions? I have access to pretty much all the ingredients available (I actually manage a Homebrew store) and several months before the event itself which is in mid October. As an aside, if anyone is going to be in NYC in mid October and wants to go to a fantastic event where you can try approximately 30 different beers made by some excellent home brewers have I got the event for you!
Had an oat lager while travelling in the Czech Republic. It had some very funky flavours going on there and the crispness of a lager.
Maybe with a lot of rice hulls and some long rests at low temperatures (for beta-glucanase activity) you could up the grain bill to lots of oats and not get something the consistency of porridge. I know they make wheat wines out there, so why not oats? Are you limited to oats only or can you also use malted oats?
Any kind of oats are allowed. I have access to Malted oats, Flaked oats and Golden Naked Oats and I’m planning on using all 3.
Oh and I also have access to beta-glucanase itself which I might have to use in the interests of not having a 12 hour sparge…
If you will make lager style with pills malt enzymes shouldn’t be necessary. My dad made some porridge consistency wort with some malt and after adding some Pilsen malt it was less viscose.
I know I could add either some pilsner malt or even 6 row to help with consistency but I don’t want that kind of cereal grainyness in this beer. My thoughts were to do a 50:50 split of the base malt between Maris Otter and Golden Promise because they give such a nice nutty, biscuity flavor in the final beer that I think the oats would compliment nicely.
Reicipe you added looks good. Do update us on how it went? I’m especially interested in the sparge phase and the mouthfeel on the finished product.
You may just have invented a new beer style.
Oh I’m certainly not the first person foolish enough to make an Oat-heavy Barleywine but I’ll definitely post an update on how the process goes after brewday tomorrow. Today I’ve started making a yeast starter for the Scottish Ale so I have a nice healthy pitch.
Do you know which brewery made the beer. I live in CZ but never see anything like that.
Drank it in Brno at a place called Malt Worm. Was off the tap menu there, if it helps.
Ok this didn’t help at all. I am from Brno and Malt worm is cool pub - they source lots of craft beer but they have few kegs from each and changing it often.
There are times when you go there and they have completely different beers when you are leaving.
Well, all I can say is we got 2 beers, one was a barrel aged lager and the other was an oat lager, at least one of them was from something like Mad Catz I think? We ordered a no. 2 and no 3 :D
We were there on Tuesday so maybe they still have it if you hurry :D
The barrel aged one was probably from Wild creatures my friend makes them. On Madcat web I didn’t find anything. But maybe some day I will find some oat beer, I had only rye from Moravia brewery.
You could make a lot of gluten intolerant people happy if you could come up with a true oat lager.
It would have to be 100% oats to be truly gluten free and that seems tricky. I do know a guy who did a series of experiments with 100% oat beers a few years ago (he was making single bottle batches of beer) so maybe I’ll pick his brain for advice.
Oats aside, I’d be interested in hearing more about doing single bottle batches of beer! Sounds like a nice way to test recipes.
If you enjoy podcasts, the single bottle brewer (Toby) talks about making them here.
I do! I found them on Spotify, thanks!
A brewery in Texas does an oat lager that’s pretty fantastic. Not super far out there flavor wise but I had never even considered putting oats in a lager so it was pretty interesting to me.
Coconut flavor blonde stout?
I actually just made an oatmeal stout with Cacao nibs and Toasted Coconut! See here!
Cool
Give me the deets on the NYC event! I’m local, I’m a homebrewer and commercial brewer and I’d love to check it out.
Also - details on your homebrew shop!
So the details of the event haven’t been completely finalized yet but barring any unexpected issues it is going to be on October 14th at Building 77 in the Brooklyn Navy Yard. Hopefully if I remember in the future I’ll update this comment with a link to purchase tickets for the event when they become available.
As for the homebrew shop, I manage Bitter & Esters! Come check us out!
I’ll make another post in the community for more visibility, but here is the ticket link for the event. It’s going to be on Saturday, October 14th from 1-5PM at the Brooklyn Navy Yard Building 77.
