We’ve established in the past that we’re really bunch of hop heads here in Smith’s Parish, Bermuda but an IPA doesn’t really have any ties Bermuda. So how can we try to make a uniquely Bermuda IPA? Maybe by going pink, after all pink is the official color of Bermuda! I’ve seen some pink beers in the past, mostly using raspberries, but in this case I wanted to tap another local Bermuda resource, hibiscus flowers! Hibiscus flowers can be in both cooking and brewing and they exist all over this beautiful island! These flowers are so ever present in Bermuda they are even featured on the currency here.
The Bermuda Pink IPA starts with a solid base of Pale Ale malts and then adds some Crystal 20L for color and Pilsner malt to give this beer a moderate head. It is a mixed hop beer employing a mix of Maximum and Palsiade hops giving it it’s hoppy and bitter profile leaving much of the aroma to the hibiscus flowers. 5 Days in the primary fermenter at 65F and 10 days in the secondary that included more hibiscus flowers and a long cold crash!
The end result was a VERY flowery beer that tastes more like a fancy tea than beer. The aroma was great and the color was amazing, it even had a pink head. It wasn’t a horrible beer but unless you really like hibiscus tea it would advised to cut the hibiscus flower additions in half to preserve more of the hop flavor.
Hey Jason!
1) I respect the keezer.
2) Dig the use of local ingredients but a full keg hope you had some help knocking out that hibiscus beer… five gallons sounds like a lot of boozy tea to me.
3) I really need some advice…
I’m getting married on Bermuda in 2.5 weeks, and I’ve been having the worst time finding beer on the island. The venues I’m dealing with all offer your basic amstel/corona/heineken and I’m trying really hard to have beers I want to drink at the rehearsal dinner… do you have any advice on that front? Feel free to drop me an email if you like I’m at districtalex at gee male dot com. THANK YOU!