Every other month, the Discovery Center has an Adult Night where we invite in breweries, wineries, food trucks and anyone over 21. Each Adult Night has a different theme from Cycling to Whitewater to Sex with experts coming in to discuss the topic. In September, the topic was Beer. Visitors to a previous Adult Night were asked what flavor they though the Discovery Center would be and the answers were all over the map: explosions, bubble solution, “sticky kid hands”. The most popular answer was PB&J Sandwich so I attempted to brew that flavor into a beer. I had very low expectations. It didn’t even sound good to me and I was making it.

For some inspiration, I picked up a copy of Brooklyn BrewShop’s Beer Making Book at the library to see if they had any similar recipes. They had a peanut butter porter so I used that as a starting point, then added some blackberry syrup they had at the homebrew shop for the jelly. Finally, I changed the grain bill to make it a bit darker (I wanted a stout) and added some biscuit malt for the bread flavor.

At Adult Night, I was set up near the front, offering samples. The beer turned out much better than I feared. I still wouldn’t want to drink a whole pint of it often, but the point was to create an interesting (and drinkable) beer and it was that. It was well received by the commercial brewers that night and by the homebrew club the next week. Even so, I don’t know if I’ll brew it again. If you would like to, the recipe is below.

This is one of the strangest beers I’ve made. The other one had chipotle peppers in it, but I’ve seen those in several commercial beers recently. So, what’s the strangest beer you’ve brewed or drank?

Recipe specifics:

Grain/Sugars:

• 6.0 lbs. Liquid Extract (LME) – Amber
• 1.0 lb. Biscuit Malt
• 10 oz. Roasted Barley
• 6 oz. Chocolate Malt
• 5 oz. Wheat, Torrified, 3.7%

Hops:

• 0.63 oz Northern Brewer (AA 7.9%, Pellet) 75 min
• 0.63 oz Northern Brewer (AA 7.9%, Pellet) 30 min
• 0.50 oz Fuggles (AA 4.5%, Pellet) 20 min, 4.6 IBU

Yeast/Misc:

• Peanut butter, 1 2/3 cups natural with oil removed boil 45 min
• Blackberries, 5 cups syrup boil 1 min
• Wyeast – American Ale