Tea

Finding the right blend of tea leaves can add a boost of flavor to your favorite mild beer.

IT SEEMS THAT JUST about every brewery in the United States is working with a local coffee roaster to turn out all manner of roasty caffeinated stouts and porters, even cream ales and lagers. And while adding tea to a beer is nothing new, that other warm breakfast beverage has long played second fiddle. That’s changing, and brewers are quickly expanding their exploration of tea and all it can offer to add depth to a recipe.

There’s no firm rule that tea is best suited for low ABV beers, but the evidence that’s been presented thus far seems to indicate that it’s a smart way to go, at least when you’re first using tea as a special ingredient. Cameron Read, the brewing director and partner at Edmund’s Oast Brewing Co. in Charleston, South Carolina, started brewing with tea as a homebrewer several years ago after visiting a teashop in Asheville, North Carolina, and being struck by the nuance of so many different flavors. Owing a bit to historical norms, he first envisioned a beer similar to an English mild as a suitable base recipe.

“Black tea is just the tip of the beverage iceberg,” he says. “If you’re interested in tea, just like you would with any other ingredients,

read up on it. Understand what it is. And you can learn about how some are light and delicate and floral, and others are more robust. There’s a wide variety out there, and so much is unexplored with beer.”

However, it’s not as simple as getting a box of Lipton’s and steeping it in the mash. In fact, doing that would likely leave your beer too bitter and tannic, rendering it undrinkable. Read has developed an extraction method that has helped give his tea-beers balanced flavor with a desired level of herbal character.

Considering tannic extraction as a factor of time and temperature leading to undesirable ph levels, he’s found that less is more, and cooler temperatures are better. Still, there’s some additional help to get the tincture drinkable. He calls for steeping your choice of tea cold in water (1 gallon/3.8 liter water per pound/454 gram of tea used) for 5 minutes. Before steeping the tea, he acidulates the water with lactic acid to ph 3. After steeping, he uses baking soda to raise the ph of the liquid to 5. Then he adds this liquid at knockout. This works with all manner of teas— white, green, and oolong—he says. “Do a survey of teas available and see what’s on the canvas of this ingredient. Taste and see where your mind takes you,” he says. “If you like the aroma of the tea, brew a cup of it and see how it tastes. Experience the taste and then think about how you can incorporate it into a beer style.” —John Holl