220: Kyle Harrop of Horus Aged Ales Pushes the Edges of Adjunct Technique
Craft Beer & Brewing Magazine Podcast
Balancing Intensity and Flavor: The Art of Brewing with Adjuncts
This chapter explores the art of brewing intensely flavored beers, focusing on the use of adjuncts like coffee. It highlights the selective methods of adding ingredients to achieve a harmonious balance between sweetness and flavor intensity, while examining the impact of different coffee types on dark beers.
If there was a Guinness world record for most beer collaborations, Kyle Harrop of Horus Aged Ales would surely hold it. The 400-plus beers Harrup has brewed with other breweries are even more impressive when you consider that brewing is still a side hustle for the full-time accountant.
Today, Horus Aged Ales is known as much for its collaborations as for the beers he brews and releases to club members from his small fermentation warehouse in Oceanside, California. However, one thing that defines all Horus beers is an aggressive yet nuanced approach to using adjunct ingredients.
In this episode, Harrop discusses the myriad of ways he and his collaborators employ adjunct ingredients in the pursuit of flavor, including:
- building base beers with eventual ingredient additions in mind, for better balance
- brewing barrel-aged beers to high finishing gravities for more robust aging
- the best bourbon barrel ages and sources
- developing a family of base recipes for aging and blending
- developing Cryst-Ale, a barrel-aged beer made with 100 percent crystal malt
- ingredient methods and variety selection for coffee, vanilla, and coconut
- using difficult adjunct ingredients, such as nuts
- pasteurizing for better longevity and flavor
And more.
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