Beer Cocktails

Beer Cocktails have been ‘up and coming’ for a very long while now but it seems that people are a little cautious. Maybe they have bad memories of dropping shots in a pint glass or a disgusting ad hoc mixture on a booze Friday night.

Beer Cocktails are merely a cocktail that uses beer as an ingredient. These will tend to be longer cocktails because of this, but the normal rules of cocktail design are not thrown into the drip-tray! Balance and flavour are key.

Below are a few that I have enjoyed and served at the bar I used to manage - Bitter Tasting Room, (including a couple created by myself!) and as is correct, where possible we credit the person who created them and when their beery vision became a reality.

All juices should be freshly squeezed unless otherwise stated. Brands that may be hard to find are in brackets and reflect the original recipe but depending on where you are in the world you might have to substitute.

All beers are the original used – you may have to experiment as many craft beers can only be found locally or seasonally – a bit of research on tasting notes on a beer review site will help find a substitution!

A couple of tips! Most cocktails are shaken or stirred before the beer is added, as beer is carbonated and will fizz up and spill if shaken, and loose too much carbonation if stirred too vigorously.  Double straining means using a fine strainer or sieve, this is usually for cocktails with egg white, or those that are shaken and need to strain out ice chips. Also for metric measures 1oz is roughly equivalent to 30ml / 3cl although (25ml is acceptable especially as that’s a standard pour in many UK pubs and bars, so you should adjust the ½ oz measure accordingly)

Perfect Stormy

2 oz Appeltons v/x amber rum

1 oz egg white

1 oz fresh lime juice

¾ oz ginger simple syrup

3 dashes Scrappy’s lime bitters

4 oz Phillips Ginger Beer - or Old Tom Ginger Tom/ Badger Blanford Fly (brewed beer flavoured with ginger NOT the soft drink!)

Glass: Highball tumbler/Collins glass

Dry shake all ingredients except the beer (which is an alcoholic brewed ginger beer). Add ice and shake and double strain (hawthorn and then fine strainer/sieve) into a collins glass and top up with beer (approx 4 oz/120ml)

Created by: Shea Hogan at Bitter Tasting Room, Vancouver 2012

Vancouver Vice

1 oz (30 ml) Hendricks Gin (or your gin of choice, but Hendricks is best for the “Vice”)

1/2 oz (15ml) Pimms N0.1

1 1/4 oz (37ml) 2:1 Strawberry honey syrup (see below)

1/2 oz (15ml) Lemon juice

1/4 oz (7ml) Lime juice

1 bar spoon (5 ml) Bittermens Hopped Grapefruit Bitters

3-4 oz (90-120ml) Maisel’s Weisse wheat beer (or your favourite German Hefeweisse beer)

Garnish: Wheel of Lime or Lemon 

Glass: Wine Glass/Stemmed tulip beer glass

Combine all the ingredients (except beer) in a shaker with ice. Shake and strain into a stemmed 12oz (360 ml) glass half filled with ice. Top up with gently with beer. (If you pour it straight in too fast, it will foam over) . Now gently mix with a barspoon (or ‘pull through’ from the bottom to top) to combine the beer and garnish.

I know some of you are looking at strawberry honey syrup and wondering where to buy it, but it is home made and very quick and easy to make. It’s totally worth it as the fresh fruit flavour gives it a real kick.

Strawberry Honey Syrup (2:1)

1 cup (250 ml) of clear runny honey

1/2 cup (125 ml) of water

1 lb / 500 g Strawberries

Gently warm the water and honey until they combine into a syrup (this is a 2:1 honey syrup) – don’t let it boil though! If you have a juicer, cut the green stems from strawberries and juice all the strawberries and add to the honey syrup. Stir on a low heat until it has combined. (Any raw fruit in a syrup has to be heated just enough to pasteurise it, just don’t let it boil otherwise you lose that fresh flavour and get a jammy one) . You can optionally strain the syrup through a large sieve or strainer to remove any remaining strawberry bits if requires. Allow to cool and chill

No juicer, no problem!

De-stalk the strawberries and slice and chop them. Add to the honey syrup over a very low heat (don’t allow to boil) and stir and allow the juices to seep into the syrup. Strain, allow to cool and chill.

Created by: Jonny Tyson at Bitter Tasting Room, Vancouver 2013

IPA Cocktail

IPA Cocktail

1 oz grapefruit infused Aperol

1/2 oz lemon juice

1/2 oz Orgeat

4-5 oz West Coast IPA

Glass: Stemmed Tulip Beer glass

Shake all ingredients except beer with ice and strain into  stemmed 12oz/ ⅔ pint glass filled with fresh ice. Top with IPA. Optional garnish of 1/4 wheel of grapefruit.

To make the grapefruit infused Aperol: peel 2 clean grapefruit (large pieces) and pour Aperol into 1 litre jar (with lid) with the peel and leave for 24 hours, gently shaking or turning a few times. strain back into Aperol bottle.

Created by Craft & Commerce, San Diego