Hey folks! I've been tasked with brewing a "Hoppily Ever After" pale for a good friend's wedding. The concept is an approachable APA with lots of hop and rose flavor. Not too bitter, not too much booze. A crowd-pleaser. This leaves me with two questions: 1) Best way to get rose flavor/aroma. Rose water? Rose hips in the boil/secondary? 2) What hops? I was thinking Citra and Amarillo, lots of late additions and dry hopped... but I'm open to suggestions. Thanks folks!
Rose hips won't add any rose flavor/aroma. Aside from that, I don't know...I've never brewed with roses. I'm not sure Ctira or Amarillo would go well with rose...but more than that I think both of those hops would completely obliterate any rose flavor/aroma...especially if you're planning on dry-hopping it. I would look into hopbursting if you're going to use high AA hops...using them late in the boil (say after 15 min) would give you a lot of aroma/flavor...but subtle/subdued bitterness.
I would think more of a blonde ale with EKG or Fuggles, i.e. a crowd pleaser, then you can "tint" it with rose hips. Everyone likes a good blonde ale.
How much time do you have? Even with a basic recipe, you should do at least one test batch. More dry runs for unusual ingredients. You're probably already planning that, but it makes me nervous when someone says "I'm going to brew a beer for a <Insert Important Event Here>. How should I do it?" Also "lot's of late additions and dry hopped" doesn't sound like a crowd pleaser to me, unless the crowd is craft beer drinkers. Having done it, I can say that wspscott's blonde ale idea is a good one. It's not only a crowd pleaser (for both craft and BMC drinkers), but if you make it with Wyeast 1968/WLP002 (my favorite yeast for Blonde Ales), the settled yeast will plaster itself to the bottoms of the kegs, so transporting them doesn't stir up a hazy mess.
Personally I don't see heavy hop aroma and rose flavor going well together. But if you want rose flavor, rose water and rose petals are good options. I found 1# of culinary rose petals on amazon a while back for 15 or $20. I don't have a link but do a little searching and you should find something reasonably priced. 1# is way more than you need for a 5 gal batch, I'd suggest putting a few good handfulls in a hop sack in the keg. You also may want to try supplementing it with some hybiscus, it gives a subtle flavor and adds a lot of color, which will add to people's perception of the floral character.
Rose petal beer isn't likely to be a crowd pleaser. I wouldn't risk it for this special occasion. Go with something tried and true.
Once again, I have to go with VikeMan, lose the APA and go with a light blonde if you really want to please the masses. As to the rose, I used to work for a well known brewery in Philadelphia that used to make a similar beer (I can't name any names because they, at least then, used to be psychotic about people stealing recipes from them and I'm still not sure I won't get called out on this). All we did was add rose water to the blonde ale and - poof - we had a rose ale! It was a very limited release, but it was also extremely popular. If you can do it, make it light with little malt and almost no hops, and then make a secondary APA for everyone else.
I think you'd be better off coloring the beer pink-ish with some flameout raspberries in a mild-flavored beer than you would with a rose-flavored beer Maybe something like 76% Base Malts of your choice 20% White Wheat 4% Honey Malt .25 lbs/gal raspberries Low IBU plus small late additions of Noble and/or American citrusy hops A fruity/clean borderline yeast like White Labs Cali V or London Ale (not familiar w/ wyeast equivalents)
Don't worry—I'm running an extensive test batch this weekend, splitting the wort up at boil to try out 3 different hop bills, each single-hop and around 35-40 IBU. Nelson Sauvin, Galaxy, and Citra are the current candidates. This is Portland, OR, so needless to say my cohort are all craft beer drinkers. But I digress... Once we have those three beers, the plan is to then split each of those 4 ways: unadulterated, plus three adjunct combos ranging from heavy on the rose to hardly any by varying the rose water added. Once we've tasted through the 12 different combos, we should have a winner... because science. Right? Either way: wish me luck.
Put me in the boat that those hops and rose water, petals, plants.. whatever you have to do to get rose, won't be worth the trouble with those hops.. I think I would find earthy hops to pair with it.. and lean towards a blonde ale grist, IMO.
Rose hips are the fruit of the rose. Tart, full of vitamin c. Not floral scented. I would prefer a beer that was tarted up by rose hips to one that was floral-scented like a grandmother's bathroom.
