Homebrewed Shandy

[EvanAltman36]

Now that the weather has finally warmed up here, I've been thinking more about some really easy drinking session beers. Also, while I love a good IPA or a punch-you-in-the-mouth DIPA, among others, my wife doesn't have a very diverse beer palette. I know she'll drink a shandy though and I'd like to share my hobby with her to some extent. My question is this: is it best to simply mix lemonade or other citrusy drink with a finished beer, or is it possible to add the lemonade to fermented beer and then bottle or keg it?

The latter question brings up a couple others too:
1) could I make my own lemonade using the amount of sugar I would typically use for priming and then combine that with beer in a bottling bucket, then bottle as usual?

2) could I use sugar-free lemonade, then mix with beer, and add priming sugar in bottling bucket?

At the end of the day, it seems that the fool-proof way would be to simply combine finished beer with lemonade, but there's not quite as much adventure in that.

 

[sbaclimber]

Shandy, is by definition, condition/bottled/kegged beer mixed with some sort of sugary drink. I suppose you could kill off the yeast before adding the sugary part before bottling/kegging, but I am not sure that would be particularly beneficial. If you don't kill off the yeast, the extra sugar will, best case, get eaten up, and you won't have the sweetish flavor of a shandy, or, worst case, create bottle bombs... :shock:

 

[LarryBrewer]

I've always blended after opening the beer.

Kirin in Japan just release a kit based on this principle. Pretty cool how the fruit juice and the beer form two layers.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EqeCJvVaWTY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dODyfd2grvY
http://jonellepatrick.me/tag/kirin-beer-cocktail/


We did a write up on shandy beer:
http://www.brewersfriend.com/2012/09/01 ... er-shandy/

 

[NTexBrewer]

EvanAltman36

I have tried this so far with good results. I had made a Wit Bier kit from Brewer's Best. The beer was right around 5% so for a few bottles I did 1/2 beer and 1/2 Crystal Light Lemonade. I used Crystal light to not introduce fermentable sugars for the bottle conditioning and to preserve the sweet lemonade taste. It worked well and tasted good with an ABV of 2.5%

Like you mentioned in your post part of the fun is trying to do something more natural. This weekend I'm messing around with a Saison Shandy. This is what I'm going to try and see what happens. I'm doing a countertop mini mash.

1 lb 2 Row
0.5 lb Malted Wheat
0.5 lb Crystal Malt 10L
0.25 lb Belgian Candi Sugar

0.5 oz. Saaz hops (60 min)
2 cups Fresh Lemon Juice (5 min) (I will use some Meyer Lemons)
Zest of two Lemons

Wyeast Belgian Saison 3724

This will get me somewhere around 2.5% ABV. I'm hoping that the crystal malt will impart some sweetness. If before bottling it does not seem sweet I'm toying with the idea of adding some lactose.

I'll try to remember to post as I go along.

 

[sbaclimber]

I used Crystal light to not introduce fermentable sugars for the bottle conditioning and to preserve the sweet lemonade taste.

Well, I'll be a monkey's uncle! That's a great idea. I didn't even think about lemonades with "fake" sugar... :lol:
My wife isn't a beer drinker, but she does like the occasional shandy. I will keep this idea tucked away in the dark recesses of my brain, just in case I ever need it.

 

[EvanAltman36]

Awesome stuff, glad to get the ideas. I'm interested to hear the results from the experiments, for sure. In terms of bottle-carving, how would you determine the amount of priming sugar if you introduce the lemonade? Also, did you brew a 2.5 gallon batch and then count on he lemonade to get to 5? My other thought is ha 2.5% almost seems too low, even for a shandy. I like the thought of the fresh lemon juice and the zest, but are you adding those after fermentation, during, or what? Sorry for the 3rd degree, but I'm always trying to learn. Just picked up ingredients for a nice, easy-drinking wheat beer that will incorporate lemongrass, along with lemon juice and zest. Not quite a shandy, but I think it'll have a nice citrus burst.
As for commercial shandies, I favor Porchrocker, though Lenie has a great one too.

Totally off-topic, but my LHBS sells hop-flavored candy...super good!

 

[NTexBrewer]

With the shandy that I mixed 1/2 beer and 1/2 crystal light lemonade I added the priming sugar to the beer. When bottling I measured out the 1/2 beer 1/2 crystal light portions and put them in each bottle. The carbonation was fine. I only made about 10 bottles of the shandy out of a 5 gallon batch of Wit Bier. If I was making more I probably would have added the lemonade to the bottling bucket along with the priming sugar measured just for the beer.

One of the main reason's I keep the ABV low is that I let my underage son have one once in a while. (Legal in Texas!!) We found some shandies at World Market that were de-alcoholized. This got us thinking about making our own.

We brewed the Saison Shandy today. Things went well and only time will tell if we have the lemon and sweetness. We added lemon juice at flameout. When we poured the chilled wort into the fermenter you definitely could smell the lemon. We added lemon zest to the fermenter.

 

[EvanAltman36]

We added lemon zest to the fermenter.

So I'm going to be brewing a summer wheat beer using citrus, but not enough to make it a shandy. I'm going to add some lemon and lime zest near the end of the boil, along with some lemon and lime juice at flameout. I was then planning on adding some citrus soup (zest and juice) to the wort after primary fermentation, along with some additional lemongrass and Willamette dry hops.

My question is this: does citrus zest work the same way as dry hops in terms of the aroma being subject to C02 blowoff? If I use a "soup" in which the zest and juice are together, I would think it might be less subject to said blowoff, but I think it's still best to do so after primary fermentation has completed, just to be sure. Further, I plan to add some vodka to the soup in order to sanitize it.

 

[NTexBrewer]

I think you just have to experiment. I have not done enough to know for sure. Also, when working with fresh ingredients they can always vary.

Hey, use Citron Vodka for good measure

 

[NTexBrewer]

So the Saison Shandy was ready to drink this weekend. When the beer was ready to bottle it did not have a very sweet taste so we added some lactose. I may have goofed a little with the amount of priming sugar as it seems very carbonated but it does not produce a head. It just fizzes a lot and has a soda quality in how it seems to have a fizz to it as you sip it. I guess the best word would be effervescence. The beer is very drinkable but you really don't get a lemon flavor. What you do get is a tartness. It did seem that when I bottled half wit bier, half crystal light you definitely got a more lemon flavor. I guess if we brew this again we may play around with adding more fresh lemon juice to hopefully introduce more lemon flavor.

Anyway here is the recipe to give you an idea. This was a counter-top mash in a small cooler that was supposed to produce 2 gallons. The OG was high so we had to add water to bring the OG down to 1.026 trying to hit our final gravity of 2.5% ABV.

1 lb 2-Row
0.5 lb Malted Wheat
0.5 lb Crystal Malt 10L
0.5 oz Chech Saaz Leaf Hops (60min) (Had to use Leaf Hops as this is all the beer store had at the time)
0.25 lb Dark Candi Sugar (15min)
1 tsp Irish Moss (10min)
2 Cups Fresh Lemon Juice (Flame Out) (Used 2 Meyer's Lemons and the rest regular, Next time will just use regular)
Zest of 2 Lemons and a few lemon slices in Fermenter (For the lemons we just sanitized the outside of the lemon)
Wyeast 3724 Belgian Saison

OG 1.026
FG 1.006

Fermentation 5 days at 75 Degrees
Bottle Conditioned 7 Days

Mashed Grains in small cooler using 2.75 Quarts of water at 165 Degrees for 60 minutes. Placed runoff in brew pot with 0.5 gallons of boiling water. Batch sparged with water at 170 degrees at 5 minutes until I had 2.5 gallons of wort in the brew pot.

At bottling, I had about 2.125 gallons. I added 3.5oz of Lactose and 3oz of priming sugar. I had been saving up small 7oz pony bottles and we ended up with about 38 bottles.