CraftBeer.com had an interesting post recently called Bringing Local Flavors to Your Pint. The article itself is fairly superficial, focusing on pretty obvious ingredients and the benefit of freshness, but it was interesting nonetheless.
It got me thinking about including local (or at least Virginia's) iconic ingredients. A lot of what Virginia produces isn't really that unique (except tobacco, and I'm leery of both the ethical and flavor questions raised by trying to work that into a beer). So what could I use?
I came up with a couple of ingredients:
- peanuts
- apples
- wine/wine must
- cherries
So: what do I make of this? I could probably find some local peanut butter for a peanut butter porter or a peanut butter stout. I already have an apfelwein fermenting, though an apfelwein/weissbier hybrid has promise. What about a sour apple lambic?
As for the other two ingredients, a kreik lambic is perfect for cherries, and delicious to boot. I know there are lots of recipes using wine must as well--Dogfish Head has one, if I recall. I'll have to look that up.
Any other ideas? Anybody brewed anything with local ingredients?
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