I happened to be drinking a blonde beer the other day doing some yard work. I wear a big straw hat and caught a whiff of the straw whilst drinking my beer and thought it might work well in a beer. Anyone know of anything like this? Dry hopping a light lager with straw might be interesting.....might.
How about actual hay? http://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/14/98267/ Had this at there anniversary shin dig a couple weeks ago. The hay was subtle but the beer was tasty.
That's what I was going to say. OP: To try to hone in on what you're after... When you say straw, what does straw smell like to you? Or put another way, if you hadn't been wearing the straw hat, but smelled that same smell, what would it have reminded you of?
Hmmmmm....straw smells like...straw?...dry grass....earth...it was a sweaty hat so there's that funk going into it. I'm confident that smell would've reminded me of straw/hay over anything else. ...I'm considering dry hopping with a handful of straw a recent "world wide lager" kit from NB. Maybe do half the batch with straw and see what's what.
Given grass and earth... I'd be tempted to hopburst and/or dry hop your lager with Fuggles and see if that gets you what you're looking for.
A couple of years ago I brewed a Kolsch using a portion of Kolsch malt that I purchased from Northern Brewer. That Kolsch had a hay-like quality to it. http://www.northernbrewer.com/shop/german-kolsch-malt Cheers!
OP: There you go... A Kolsch Malt and Fuggles SMaSH beer. Yeast cultured from Dupont dregs. This actually sounds tasty.
I personally perceive astringent with oversparged beer which is more of a mouthfeel vs. a flavor perception. Cheers!
