Brewing Beer With Vanilla Beans

I was recently out in San Francisco, and went to the Thirsty Bear brew pub on Howard street. All of the beers I tried were pretty good, but their Golden Vanilla ale really blew me away. It had a cream soda taste –without being too sweet — and the vanilla was pleasant, but not overpowering. I generally prefer to brew and drink beers that stick with just the four primary beer ingredients — water, barley, hops, and yeast — but every once in a while it’s good to experiment. So my roommate and I decided we’d buy some vanilla beans and take a shot at a vanilla ale.

After doing some research, we learned that the best way to brew with vanilla beans is to use them to make a vodka based vanilla extract, then add the beans and the extract to the beer in secondary fermentation. So last week we started by brewing five gallons of this all-grain golden ale:

6 lbs Two Row
4 lbs Marris Otter
1 lbs American Caramel 60°L
1 oz Cascade (6.9%) – added during boil (60 min)
.25 oz Perle (6.1%) – added during boil (40 min)
.5 oz Czech Saaz (5.0%) – added during boil (20 min)
.5 oz Tettnanger (4.5%) – added during boil (5 min)
4.0 oz Lactose
WYeast German Ale

It’s a fairly standard ale recipe, with the exception being the lactose. Lactose is an unfermentable sugar, and can be used in the brewing process to add a hint of sweetness, which should complement the vanilla flavor.

We brewed the beer, waited a week for it to go through the primary fermentation phase, and then created the vanilla extract by taking four vanilla beans, slicing them the long way to expose the vanillin inside the pods, and then soaking them for 24 hours in a small amount of vodka. The vodka absorbs the flavor from each bean. Here’s what it looked like:

Today the beer was transferred from the primary fermentation carboy (glass jug) to a slightly smaller secondary fermentation carboy, and the extract and beans were added. We’ll wait a week for the beer to finish fermenting and soaking up the vanilla flavor, and then it will be bottled next weekend, and will be ready for drinking the following week. I’ll provide an update and review of the beer soon after.

On a side note, a number of people I’ve spoken with, especially friends who like to cook, were surprised to learn that the vanilla beans were pretty cheap. Just $2.95 for a pair. Apparently Whole Foods sells them for about $15/pair, so if you ever need some beans, just drop by the Modern Homebrew Emporium on Mass Ave in Cambridge.

Update: Here’s a link to the full vanilla ale recipe.