Blending tea with beer seems to be turning into quite a thing. The Yeastie Boys have used tea in beer, most notably in their Gunnamatta IPA, while at the 2014 Good Beer Week there was an entire event based around beer and tea at Storm in a Teacup.
Now the duo behind Melbourne nano-brewery Make Beer is heading to The Alehouse Project for a beery High Tea.
Brewers Steve and Dan are bringing four beers to the table – all different styles made with different teas. They'll be presenting the beers alongside the teas used in brewing and there will be appropriate tea time snacks on the day as well.
The beers, complete with the brewers' tasting notes, are as follows:
- Rooibos Lemon Summer, 5 percent - South African Rooibos is pretty subtle and is often consumed with a squeeze of lemon in the tea cup, so we're going for a clean and subtle beer that will let the tea flavours shine through with some added lemon peel in the boil.
- Oolong EST, 5.5 percent - Chinese Oolong is an earthy, woody and subtly fruity tea that is made through it's own fermentation process. We've combined it with an ESB recipe where balanced caramel malt and floral British hops will play well off that earthiness.
- Jan Juc IPA, 6.5 per5cent - Originally a homebrew recipe we created, named after a surf beach on the opposite end of the bay from Gunnamatta (due to the Yeastie beer fame)...this ipa is made with Lapsang Souchong, a Chinese tea that adds very intense campfire smokiness in flavour and aroma. It's miles away from Gunnamatta...well across the bay indeed.
- Red Rosey Grey, 7 percent - This beer is modeled after an American west coast red ale, big malt and bigger hops. We'll use some citrusy American hops that will play well with Earl Grey tea, the real twist however is the minor addition of rose water and vanilla that will throw a curveball into the mix. Sounds weird yes...however we've drawn inspiration from an existing tea blend that tastes delicious.
Tickets cost $40pp, which includes a serving of each beer, tea and snacks and you can book your spot via the venue.
