Fermentation Friday: "Craziest Concoction"

This month's installment of Fermentation Friday asks the following question...

"What is the craziest concoction you ever came up with, on the fly or prepped, to brew with."

Was this about crazy brewing kit setups, or crazy ideas for brewing up strange beers? I focused on the later, but I'm probably wrong... Life goes on...

Crazy Concoctions
I haven't progressed beyond extract (with grain) kits, I'm still learning to crawl in this world of home brewing. And I still using the basic equipment, a big stainless steel pot, turkey fryer, glass carboy, etc... With that said, I do have some unique ideas for some more interesting beers to make once I get my skills up to par, and here they are:

• Something (maybe rice based?) w/ light wasabi and ginger flavoring, for pairing with sushi
• A NUT Brown Ale, with cashew flavoring, maybe try other nuts too, don't ask, I'm nuts...
• Hard Root Beer (I've seen hard lemonade and hard cider, why not hard root beer?)
• Hard Ginger Ale (Same comment as above)
  
• Thanksgiving Ale, with the same seasonings that go into Mom's stuffing... Think poultry seasoning, with either a Brown Ale base or a Pale Ale base. Might be gross, but who cares?
  
• Ginsing, caffeine and multi-vitamin infused low carb beer... A "health" or energy beer?
• Italian Grinder Beer - Think pizza seasoning, garlic, oregano, etc... Maybe even a hint of tomato (OK, that sounds gross... but might be fun!)
• Apple Crisp, capture the flavor of Grandma's apple crisp with a sweet apple/cinnamon flavored beer, that ends with a nice dry crispy finish. Need some malty toasty goodness in there too... Think Macintosh apples, brown sugar, and a kick of hops perhaps?
• Pancake/maple syrup flavoring in a coffee based beer. Breakfast of champs...
  

OK, most of those ideas are over the top, some have been done already, and most are kind of gross... But I really think the Wasabi/Ginger beer may be a good idea. And the "health beer" and "breakfast beer" would be a fun novelties...

Back to reality... First thing first, I want to move onto making my own standard recipes before I go crazy with stuff like this. A nice English Pale Ale, or an IPA for starters... I'm still learning to crawl, soon I will be walking, but these crazy hair brain ideas are more of a full on sprint, and I'm not in shape just yet. Still it's fun to let your imagination run wild...

hmmmmmm how about Buffalo Chicken flavored beer? ENOUGH!

(Not So) Crazy Brewing Equipment
As far as equipment goes, I purchased an old Gatorade cooler on Craig's List, in the hopes of making a mash tune, but I haven't gotten off the couch to do so yet. That's about as far as I've gotten into crazy ideas. Hold me back, I'm out of control! With the baby coming, time is short, and creativity is used elsewhere. My new homebrew convert (Dave) has already hit the ground running and has made his own wort chiller with some goodies he purchased at Home Depot. But I had this idea yesterday...

What if you could rig up a motor to run on the gases produced by fermentation? Perhaps some day you could power a car off of a large carboy of fermenting IPA! Now that would be something... Think Mr. Fusion from "Back to the Future" meets "Strange Brew." If you recall, Doc Brown dumped a can of Miller in the engine of the old DeLorean. Drive on it for a week or so, and then bottle it for later drinking and start another batch so you can drive to work. (Wash, Rinse, Repeat...) Then again, that was just to power the Flux Capacitor, not the engine. But I digress...

What is Fermentation Friday?
Fermentation Friday is the brain child of Adam from beerbits2 Every month a new topic relating to home brewing is selected and beer bloggers are encouraged to blog about it, typically on the last Friday of the month.

I'll be hosting in Dec!
I'll be hosting Fermentation Friday in December, so chime in if you have any ideas for a good topic. Right now I'm thinking about something like, "How have you shared the gift of homebrewing?" in keeping with the gift giving holiday season... Or, "How do you involve your love of good beer and home brewing in your holiday celebration?"

Any other ideas? Only six more months to go!