How would you make a Peanut Butter and Jelly Beer?
This is a question that has been gnawing at me the past 24 hours or so. The other day 10 Barrel Brewing here in Bend posted on Facebook that one of their “Big Handle Beers” coming up was a “Peanut Butter and Jelly Beer… and yes it tastes just like the sandwich.” Now, I’m usually very doubtful of those types of claims—I mean, this is beer, after all, and while such a thing is not entirely outside the realm of possibility, peanut butter and jelly is a pretty unique and unusual flavor. I was intrigued, but doubtful.
Yesterday, 10 Barrel posted that the beer was on tap at their pub and going fast. And yes, the comments on Facebook confirm the flavor: “PB & J with a little kick”; “Amazing how much it does taste like PB & J”; “interesting and had a grapey taste”. The rest of my day at work was spent imagining a beer that actually tastes like peanut butter and jelly, and how it could possibly be brewed.
Spoiler alert: I hurried down there after I got off work at 5 and just missed it—the tap was blown a bit before 5. My disappointment was palpable, and unless 10 Barrel decides there’s enough demand to re-brew this beer, it was most likely a one-off that won’t appear again.
Which brings us back to the titular question of this post. Most likely the only way I’ll taste a “peanut butter and jelly beer” is to brew one myself. But how?
The only clue from 10 Barrel about it is a small bit on Facebook:
We just brewed a beer with ingredients that taste similar to a pb&J sandwich. This beer started as a joke in the brewery, turned into a bet and then they took it to another level and brewed it.
Not very helpful, except in thinking of ingredients that taste similar to PB&J sandwich. At its base, these would be bread, peanuts, and fruit—the type of fruit you would typically find in a jelly: I’m thinking either berries or grapes. Along those lines my first thought would be something like a toasty, nutty ale with peanuts or peanut butter added somehow, and then fruit added to the secondary. Maybe a “nut brown” base using peanuts as the “nut”?
Off to Google, where a search led me to Short’s Brewing Company and yes, their PB&J Stout. Their description has a bit of the process as well:
Take our popular Peanut Oatmeal Stout and blend it with our famous flagship fruit infused rye ale, The Soft Parade, and viola! The result, a liquid version of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
A blend, which works, but might not be so practical for the homebrewer. But there are some interesting clues/ideas here:
- Oatmeal stout, which would stand up well to the peanuts, providing a creamy smooth mouthfeel; and fruits can work really well with a stout. (They use a “peanut purée” in this beer).
- Rye, which would provide a nice, bready spiciness and (I would imagine) pair extremely well with the nutty essence of peanuts;
- Multiple fruits: “pureed strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, and blackberries”
Good ideas, and additional searching found this thread on Northern Brewer Homebrew Forums, from which I gleaned a few other ideas:
- Organic peanut butter, separating out the oils;
- Peanut powder (not sure where one would find such a thing);
- Putting strawberry Jell-O into the secondary to help clear the beer (gelatin used as finings) and give it a strawberry flavor.
The Jell-O idea intrigues me the most, though I think I’d prefer to use actual fruit. My own leanings toward a particular fruit is blackberry, though it would be an interesting experiment to brew a five-gallon batch and split it into several secondaries, with a different fruit for each.
Finally, given the above notes and thinking about how to put together a Peanut Butter and Jelly Beer over the last day or so, here is what I’m thinking for the homebrewer:
- Start with a base “peanut butter beer” that might consist of one of three recipes:
- Oatmeal stout, with the oatmeal lending that creamy, smooth mouthfeel to the beer and complementing the peanuts well;
- “Peanut Butter Porter”: dark enough to stand up to the peanuts, but with a nice roast that might pair well;
- Nutty, toasty, rye base: Kind of a “nut brown” base with toasy malts (biscuit) and rye grains. Some wheat might go well here too to add a bready character and aid head retention.
- For peanuts (or peanut butter), I’m intrigued by the idea of peanut powder; barring that, I’d probably try organic/natural peanut butter with as much of the oil removed as possible. (The oil separates in this type of peanut butter, making it easier.) Add it to the boil to extract flavor and help break out some of the proteins.
- Bear in mind, the oiliness will affect head retention.
- Use real fruit, adding it to the secondary—puréed might be best for this purpose, I’m not sure.
- You’ll need a lot of fruit (especially if brewing a dark beer) to infuse that “jelly” character into the beer—several pounds per gallon is what I’d recommend. Myself, I’d try blackberries first.
That’s my thinking, and (probably) my next project.
Now I’m hungry—I think I’ll go make a PB & J sandwich…
10 Comments to “How would you make a Peanut Butter and Jelly Beer?”
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Peanut Butter powder is readily available (http://www.bellplantation.com/products) and works well. Try vitamin/workout/health food stores, or order online. I’ve made a Chocolate Milk Stout with peanut butter, and it worked well.
I’m not sure which direction I’d go for a full-on “PB&J”, though. The “sweetness” component of the jelly needs to be in there somewhere, and lactose is the wrong kind, I think.
I was wondering about the peanut powder, that’s good to know. I suspect there’s probably a couple of places here in Bend that I could find it if I looked around.
The sweetness is tricky, yes, and I agree I don’t think lactose is the right kind. Although a moderately-strong stout might have enough malt sweetness to pair with fruit—I almost think it’s more important to get a good fruit character across than sweet per se.
[...] on my Hop Press blog today, I’m talking about the process of brewing a “Peanut Butter and Jelly Beer”: based [...]
While I haven’t had a PB&J beer I have mad several versions of a peanut butter porter. The easiest way to get the Peanut butter into your beer is actually a secondary addition of unsalted roasted valencia peanuts. a coarse crush for a couple of days and you have a peanut butter beer.
You can see my Homebrew recipe for 3 different versions of Peanut BUtter Porter here: http://www.simplybeer.com/2010/12/09/homebrew-peanut-butter-porter-version-2/
-Secondary addition
-Powdered Peanut Butter
-Peanut Butter
Cheers!
Jon, I’ve only done it with the recipe I posted. But the secondary addition really could be done with any style (assuming you like peanut flavor) It doesn’t add any color only aroma and a bit of flavor. Keep in mind, peanut is a very intense flavor, so a lot of aroma will also translate into the flavor.
Who’s gonna be the first to do a Peanut Butter Pilsner?
Peter, this is fantastic, thanks—I like how you’ve got the 3 methods recorded. This is definitely a resource I’m bookmarking.
Have you tried a peanut addition to a recipe that’s not a stout/porter?
I made a peanut butter brown ale a while back, using the peanut powder and basing it off of a “nut brown ale” recipe. I had contemplated putting some of it on raspberries for PB&J like flavors next time. Everyone who’s tried the peanut butter brown ale has liked it, though everyone says it’s not something they’d drink every day.
http://www.mncraftbeerclub.com/2010/12/fat-basset-peanut-butter-brown-ale/
Not everyone likes peanut butter I guess
I like the look of this recipe, though; not the porter/stout route which seems promising, though I like the “peanut butter porter” idea too—basis for several styles of peanut butter beer.
peanut butter flavor is the hardest part i think. the method i used and found favorable was time consuming but made a huge difference. get some natural (organic for example) jarred peanut butter, and let it sit at room temp, the oil will rise to the top, extract it, and repeat. over the span of roughly 2 months the oil of peanut butter will be gone. leaving only some very dry peanut mixture.
Actually starting a PBJ ale in a couple of days — I’m using the peanut butter powder — but haven’t decided whether to add it in the primary or the secondary. I will definitely be racking it onto raspberry/blackberry mixture in the secondary… so I think that it’s a bit much to have all of that “muck” int he secondary…