Raspberry Basil Porter aged on Palo Santo wood.
Recipe here:
https://www.homebrewersassociation....spberry-basil-porter-aged-on-palo-santo-wood/
Used WY1450 Dennys favourite.
Wow. Weird beer is an understatement! Firstly, probably my most expensive brew. The ingredients cost around $100. But, the wood sticks are reusable and I only used 750mL of 2.5L of raspberry syrup.
When it finished fermenting after 2 weeks the taste out of the hydrometer tube was sensational. Like a cherry ripe. Not tart at all like the raspberry beers Ive brewed in the past with frozen berries. Just raspberry aroma and aftertaste.
Then I racked it onto a leaves of a bunch of Thai basil leaves soaked in a cup of vodka and 200g of Palo Santo wood sticks (basically incense sticks from the Peruvian Amazon).
Tried it after a week and it was still delicious, taking on herbatious perfumy notes.
Tried it after two weeks and whoah! The flavour is now full-on. Overpowering almost. I had to keg it today, I would hate to think what it would taste like after three weeks as the original recipe calls for.
Now that its cold and carbed, it's drinkable. But still very full on, and just weird. The cherry ripe is still there, but now so is a hint of aniseed, maybe mint and coconut, or other flavours that are completely new to me. None of us here can put our fingers on it.
I overshot my OG to 1.082 so at 8.5%ABV its not something that I'm going to want pints of anyway. A wine glass or two full is more than enough. I hope it mellows out a bit with age, because I've got 19L of it to get through. I must say, sipping it now it is kinda growing on me.
Would I brew it again? Possibly. I think I would either use half of the amount of basil and wood, or only sit it on it for a week, or both.