Ingredient Investigation: Peppercorns
We love when brewers experiment with new ingredients. Different spices can open a new world of flavors to the styles we love so much. To investigate how these spices play with with various styles, I sat down with RateBeer owner Joseph Tucker and opened some bottles with one common ingredient: peppercorns.
We started the day with Brewer’s Art’s Green Peppercorn Tripel. This beer came to me from Baltimore, MD by way of some generous friends. While this has nothing to do with the peppercorn, I wanted to note how beautiful this beer looked in the glass. A fluffy, rocky, beaten egg-white head sitting on top of a clear golden body, absolutely striking. I was instantly reminded of Duvel promotional images.
The peppercorn in this tripel sneaks up on you. It hides in the back end of every aspect of the beer. The aroma, flavor and finish are very much that of a tripel, but with a dry, slight burn of pepper tickling the nose and sticking to the tonsils.
Second on the menu was Route des Épices from Dieu du Ciel. This is a rye based beer with both green and black peppercorns. At first the aroma is rather sweet and decadent with a significant pepper presence. The first sip washes across your mouth without a hint of pepper except in the aftertaste. Then the sensation of pepper spreads across the back of your mouth, slowly wrapping around the tongue and finding the hidden corners of your mouth. From this point forward the pepper stands out against the beer.
We finished this experiement with a bottle of Lagunitas’ Cruisin’ with Ruben and the Jets. This chocolate stout was finished with white peppercorns and has been aging for 14 months. The peppercorn is overpowered by everything else going on in this beer. The burn of the pepper and dry sensation heighten the big nature of this beer, leaving a numbing sting but hiding within the burn of the alcohol.
With the bottles empty, we had learned somethings about the peppercorn and how it can interact with the beer. When allowed to shine through with the base of a session strength beer, the peppercorns can be overpowering and all encompassing. Against bigger beers, the pepper hides behind the alcohol and sneaks out in the linger stings that it leaves in the back of the mouth and on the tongue.
When it is all said and done, the peppercorn is another great ingredient that brewers have begun to play with. For those afraid of the spiciness of chiles, the peppercorn offers a drier sting that won’t bring you to your knees. I hope to see more brewers play with this spice and see how it can heighten their beers.
One Comment to “Ingredient Investigation: Peppercorns”
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Try to get your hands on some Knot Stock from Furthermore Beer in Wisconsin. It’s a great peppercorn IPA from a great little brewery.