So I'm drinking a few Not Your Father's Rootbeers and I wouldn't mind having this on tap in my keezer. Northern Brewer sells Sprecher rootbeer syrup (http://www.northernbrewer.com/shop/sprecher-root-beer-soda) which I know is delicious, and I'm wondering if brewing a real light 5-6% beer (ultralight extract, low ibu low aa hops, neutral yeast) and then dumping this in would create a tasty beverage. Anyone here experiment with anything like this?
The syrup has sodium benzoate as a preservative. It might inhibit fermentation. It's worth a try though. Wait until the beer has fermented then add the syrup to the primary.
lemon soda or ginger soda and lager beer of various concentrations can be a shandy (UK) or a radler (Germany). either way, they are very nice summer drinks. if the beer is bitter or has too much alcohol it doesn't work. if the lemonade is too sweet it is also not so good. using root beer? sure, why not? could be interesting. you might try mixing a commercial german lager with a commercial craft root beer first to see if you like it and to get the proportions right. good luck.
Thanks for the responses! I would basically be using the beer in place of the 'water' you would usually add the syrup to in the keg, to avoid any fermentation issues. I'll have to do some testing!
If you add it to a cold keg and keep it cold, it will be much sweeter and probably won't ferment at all. Maybe that's what you want. I prefer a drier hard root beer which explains my previous suggestion.
Adding syrup directly to the keg would call for some stirring. Or you could cold crash the primary then mix the beer with the syrup while transferring to the keg.
i have made shandy in the past. an off keg of lager with a bit of a sour note... added some lemonade and it was very nice. you want maybe 50/50 with the blend, but it is of course up to you. and i really don't know how root beer and lager combine anyway. if it were me... make the root beer. make the beer. experiment with proportions. blend carefully; do not oxygenate. if you end up adding water to fermented beer, boil it first. water will have a few ppm of dissolved oxygen. it is enough to oxygenate your beer. boiling not only is sanitary, it also greatly reduces the DO. Cheers. ps- i think i will make a Radler again this summer. thanks for the idea.
the german's also do a Colaweizen. basically a wheat beer with cola added like a radler/shandy. you might be able to use rootbeer instead of cola to get what you are looking for.
I know that some of Germans/Austrians I used to work with would do cheap lager (High Life) with Coca-Cola and called it "Diesel". OP: I would go with a dark mild as a base beer. In the exotic fruit thread, I discussed my tamarind mild as tasting like a shandy made from english brown ale and tamarind soda.
