French Pressing/Infusing Beer

Do the naysayers realize that breweries put their beer through "randalls" at beer festivals all the time? Like IPA's through fruit and stouts through coffee... it can be an interesting thing to do, even breweries think so.

 

I see it more like putting bleu cheese, Bordelaise sauce, green peppercorn cream sauce, or fresh crabmeat, asparagus, & Bearnaise sauce on a steak. Some like their steak solo, some like Steak Oscar. Both are delicious in my book.

 

Who?

 

Can you send me a link to the video

 

I've heard of french pressing beers with coffee, vanilla, and even fruits. If you have something near by that's a staple beer it's fun to play with different ways to cold press let flavors into the beer.

 

I know there are threads on pressing bcbs but I'm looking for alternative beers you guys have tried BA or not. Even common beers like Edmund Fitzgerald and such. Whatever you guys have tried and thought was pretty tasty.

 

I really want to try this out with Dirtwolf and maybe some clementines, grapefruit, passion fruit, etc.

 

Sounds like everyone pretty much has the idea. Here's what I've done with a bunch of french presses at some beer events.
First, a rather mild beer with specific hops. Results, beer was drinkable but better as an educational exercise to learn about hop flavors.
Second, barrel aged stout with a variety of add-ons. All came out great but here's a few ideas that turned out really well for me(obviously coffee, vanilla and coconut already have a lot of following)
1. Cinnamon Toast Crunch(seriously, biggest hit of the night)
2. Peppermint Patties
3. Reese's Peanut Butter Cups
4. Cinnamon Sticks and Jalepeno
5. Muddled Berries
6. Donuts/Birthday cake
7. Star Anise
For our third installment I am infusing a sour beer with different fruit type things(Raspberries/blackberries, peaches, cherries, mango, kumquat, ginger and cucumber) and some weird stuff(sour patch kids, and whatever else looks good to me). Results to follow.....

If anyone has anything to chime in like more cool/unique ingredient ideas(after reading previous pages to eliminate repetition) please do.

 

I would imagine the only thing I worry about is carbonation. I always think of infusing as a longer process then what beer dan handle.....

 

You can drink two beers. Save the end of the first and infuse. When it's ready just pour that into a freshly cracked round 2!

 

What beer did you use with cinnamon toast crunch?

 

The base beer for our stout infusions was Oskar Blues Barrel Aged Ten Fidy(we had a keg). I did my sample/test runs with cheaper non-Barrel Aged beers and those all came out great too.

 

What IPA/tropical fruit infusions are the best? I'm not usually a big IPA fan but I can just imagine a nice juicy IPA with pineapple or mango being pretty good.

 

I started French pressing beer because I wanted to get a better idea of what different varieties of hops smelled and tasted like and it also helps to emphasize other flavors to be able to better identify them.

 

These guys have been doing all sorts of zaniness with french presses for years: http://bullandbush.com/

 

I french pressed a Nugget Nectar with a mango and it came out really nice. Also have done coffee into a home brew stout I made. Came out decent. Want to play around with more of the stout I have especially the bourbon stout home brew with coconut.

 

I french pressed Bourbon County with Reeses Peanut Butter Cup covered Butterfingers and it was amazing. Turned it into creamy, velvet awesomeness.

 

http://www.dogfish.com/company/tangents/randall-the-enamel-animal.htm

 

Been meaning to start trying this out again, or even building a real Randall for the kegerator, and wanted to see what other folks have come up with.

Flying Dog's Double Dog through dried serrano peppers and butterfingers was a delight, and really showed the heavy malt backbone. Their Chocolate Fever IPA through marshmallows, graham cracker, and chocolate was a real delight, boosting the chocolate flavors while leaving the hops alone. Dueling tastes, but worked well and made me sad it never shelves / many taps outside Savor.

Natty Boh and Old Bay coated split Pecans was a surprising one. Not the best thing in the world but it was cheap and we plenty of all on hand.

BCBS with Coconut for fake prop is a go-to I haven't tried.

Others?

 

I once had a Chocolate Stout through a Randall filled with bacon that I still think about.