THL Cassiano da Castello

A few years ago, vegetable beers were all the rage... mostly beets or carrots. It got me thinking, "Why not radish beer?" Only one way to find out. DO IT!

I recall handing a glass to a loved one & saying "Taste this!"

He got the glass to his nose & replied "I don't want to..."

I said "Trust me!"

He took a sip & his eyes popped out of his skull as he exclaimed "How does it taste GOOD?!?"

So...radishes impart a great flavor, but aroma...? Not so much. As I brewed this particular beer for Pennsic, I felt inclined to give it a name worthy of its character: BOG WATER.

Prost!

• 12 lbs pale malt
• 1/2 lb crystal 20L
• 1 oz Fuggle (bittering)
• 1 oz Fuggle (flavor)
• 1 packet Safale S-04 yeast
• 1 cup fresh radishes, cleaned & sliced/diced

Make a yeast starter using a pint of water (boiled and cooled) and a tablespoon of corn sugar.

Mash at 148 degrees for 60 minutes. I do a thick mash, so roughly 4 gallons of water. Remove the grain from the mash tun and place it in a separate kettle. Add 3 gallons of water at 170 degrees to the grain and let sit for 30 minutes. Combine the two volumes of wort into a single kettle. This should give you a boil volume of between 5 and 6 gallons.

Set the resulting volume of wort to boil (plan on 60 to 75 minutes total boil time.) Add the bittering hops with 60 minutes remaining and the flavor hops with 30 minutes remaining. Chill the wort and pour into a sanitized primary (bucket or carboy). Pitch the yeast starter and let it sit for 8-10 days. Rack into a secondary. You can add the radishes directly to the secondary at this point, or (if you are kegging) you can wait and place them directly into the keg wrapped in a muslin bag. You can keg or bottle when the bubbles quit coming through the airlock (about three weeks.) Prime with sugar or honey, or force carbonate (if kegging.)