Top 5 Weirdest Beer Ingredients

The craft beer revolution has given rise to decades of innovation and creativity in brewing. While traditional ingredients like hops, barley, water, and yeast remain the foundation of beer, many adventurous brewers pushed the envelope by incorporating unusual and downright bizarre ingredients into their brews.

And here are five unusual beer ingredients, that perhaps, should have never been used…

Beard Yeast

• Beer: Rogue Beard Beer
• Brewery: Rogue Ales (Newport, OR)
• Ingredient: Yeast cultivated from the beard of Rogue’s brewmaster, John Maier.

Wild yeast strains have been used in brewing for centuries, but in 2015 Rogue Ales took the concept of local sourcing to a whole new level by cultivating wild yeast from their brewmaster’s beard. This may sound totally disgusting but it was a huge attention grabber that generated all kinds of press for the brewery at the time.  The result? A Belgian-style ale with a unique character, (yah think?) thanks to its unconventional source.

 Bull Testicles

• Beer: Wynkoop Rocky Mountain Oyster Stout
• Brewery: Wynkoop Brewing Company (Denver, CO)
• Ingredient: Bull testicles, also known as Rocky Mountain oysters.

Initially an April Fool’s joke, the Rocky Mountain Oyster Stout became a real product due to popular demand. This stout was brewed with roasted barley, seven specialty grains, Styrian Goldings hops, and 25 pounds of freshly sliced and roasted bull testicles. And it’s rich, dark, and surprisingly smooth, nutty flavor ultimately proved winning.

Sheep Dung-Smoked Whale Testicle

• Beer: Hvalur 2
• Brewery: Brugghús Steðja (Iceland)
• Ingredient: Smoked whale testicles, smoked using dried sheep dung.

In 2015 an Icelandic brewery  created one of the world’s most unusual beers by incorporating a smoked whale testicle into the brewing process. The whale testicles were smoked with sheep dung,(why not?), a traditional Icelandic method of preserving meat. The result was, Hvalur 2, an unlikely smoked ale with a hint of the sea, which we gotta admit, was a conceptual nightmare on every level.

Civet Coffee

• Beer: Mikkeller Beer Geek Brunch Weasel
• Brewery: Mikkeller (Copenhagen0
• Ingredient: Coffee beans excreted by civet cats.

Civet coffee, also known as Kopi Luwak, is made from coffee beans that have been eaten and excreted by civet cats. This expensive and rare coffee was once used in Mikkeller’s Beer Geek Brunch Weasel, an imperial oatmeal stout. Despite its questionable origins, the beer had rich, smooth coffee flavors with a hint of chocolate, making it a luxurious treat for adventurous beer lovers in 2013.

Pizza

• Beer: Mamma Mia! Pizza Beer
• Brewery: Pizza Beer Company (Aurora, IL)
• Ingredient: Pizza.

In 2008 Mamma Mia! Pizza Beer, a beer brewed with actual pizza ingredients like tomatoes, garlic, oregano, and basil, made a brief but notable appearance in Aurora Illinois. The result was a beer that smelled and tasted remarkably like pizza, and paired perfectly with, well, more pizza.

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