Earthy Mushroomy Taste?

[mkortink]

Hi, on a road trip through the UK a few years ago i stopped in a pub and had a beer that could only be described as tasting like mushrooms and having this amazing earthiness.

My question is, for a kit brewer who also steeps grains and prepares hop recipes, how do you give an english brew an earthy mushroomy taste.

I am thinking of taking an ESB recipe and literally adding a broth made from mushrooms to the wort! But is there a right way?

 

[TwoCrows]

https://www.foodrepublic.com/2015/01/21/mushrooms-have-entered-the-craft-beer-game/

 

[labels]

Hi, on a road trip through the UK a few years ago i stopped in a pub and had a beer that could only be described as tasting like mushrooms and having this amazing earthiness.

My question is, for a kit brewer who also steeps grains and prepares hop recipes, how do you give an english brew an earthy mushroomy taste.

I am thinking of taking an ESB recipe and literally adding a broth made from mushrooms to the wort! But is there a right way?

Fuggles hops are definitely noted for their earthy flavour and are certainly typically English. Any other influence on the earthy flavours could well have come from the yeast strain (also contamination by wild yeasts or deliberately introduced 'farmhouse' ale yeast strains such as Brett or similar).I doubt if malt had anything to do with it.

 

[unyeasted]

Hi, on a road trip through the UK a few years ago i stopped in a pub and had a beer that could only be described as tasting like mushrooms and having this amazing earthiness.

My question is, for a kit brewer who also steeps grains and prepares hop recipes, how do you give an english brew an earthy mushroomy taste.

I am thinking of taking an ESB recipe and literally adding a broth made from mushrooms to the wort! But is there a right way?

I had a brew that got contaminated that tasted like this. Got worse with time. I poured the majority down the drain and introduced a toxic level of bleach to my household.

Then I tried a mate’s brew who made a similar kit, and it also had a slight mushroom kind of flavour, but it was subtle, and I think intentional? It was a “brown ale”, by the way. I never looked into it, but I suspect it might be the yeast that is used?

Lovely drink, it just seems it needs to be handled with care.

 

[mkortink]

Hi all, thanks for the great ideas.
Think the answer may be: -
1) mix of safale s04 and a farmyard brett yeast.
2) brown or copper english kit.
3) mushroom broth into wort.
4) fuggles for taste and aroma, medium bittering hops.

Does that sound right? Cheers

 

[Michael81]

English beers quite easily pick up flavours / aromas from the cellar, as they are vented kegs. Could have been damp and musty down there?

 

[mkortink]

OK, this is what i have done and i will post the result, could be disgusting or could be heaven. I have kept the rest of the recipe basic so i can distinguish whether the mushrooms have had an effect.

To get the earthy english part i produced the wort using a Coopers English Bitter kit with 1kg light malt extract, 250gm dextrose and 20g fuggles hop pellets boiled 15mins for flavour and 20gm dry hopped for aroma.

To get the mushroom bit i bought 150gm dried Nam Dong Co shitake mushrooms from the local chinese grocer, sliced them up, put them in a bag and simmered them for 15mins in approx 3l of water and produced a clear broth. This worked well and the broth tasted earthy and fungal. I added 1.5l of the broth to the wort.

For yeast i used safale S04. I got some saved sludge from a previous brew and a new sachet and activated it before tipping it in.

All up 20l of wort starting at temp of 30deg but cooling bucket with wet towel.