Gin and beer mixed for new brew
Mixing gin and beer together is not most people’s first thought when reaching for a cold one, but a Massey University student has managed to combine the two for a unique brew.
Tash Snowball-Kui, 19, has helped create a gin-flavoured craft beer called Lila.
The third year chemical and bioprocess engineering student in Palmerston North did a summer internship in Taranaki where she worked with Juno Gin and Three Sisters Brewery to come up with the drink.
Snowball-Kui said they looked at what flavours would go together and came up with a gin beer, which was a pairing she hadn’t seen before. ‘‘It is such an achievement because I’ve never really done anything like this. I’m being able to do something I love and learn new things, other than just learning the theory of it at university.’’
At first they ran tests on the still water, a by-product of distilling gin, to see if there were any starches that could be used for fermentation for beer, which it had. The trial batch had a zesty flavour. ‘‘For the final batch we added water from the distillation, as well as juniper berries.
‘‘The base of the beer is water left over from distilling gin. There’s no gin in it, but it has the flavour. Then we added juniper berries, then added our gin as well, just to give it that all-round flavour.’’
She said she liked the beer and she doesn’t normally like gin. It is a light and refreshing summer beer.
It is a witbier made with Belgian yeast, and only took about seven weeks from being an idea to being bottled.
They made about 400 litres and it is only being sold in New Plymouth, except for the boxes Snowball-Kui took home, but if it sells well they could make more.
This was her first crack at brewing beer and Snowball-Kui hoped to one day work at a brewery.