Adjunct
Cinnamon
A warming baking spice used in winter and dessert beers; very easy to overdose.
Cinnamon is unusually assertive in beer and unusually persistent, and it is the adjunct most often blamed when a spiced beer tastes like a candle. A quantity that would season a cake will dominate a barrel.
Cassia and true cinnamon are sold interchangeably and taste different — cassia is coarser and hotter, true cinnamon more delicate and floral. Most of what is labelled cinnamon in Britain and America is cassia.
What it is for
Spice. Aromatic, potent by weight, and usually added late so the volatile character survives into the glass.
- Adds warm baking-spice character
Whether it ferments
| Fermentable | No — brewing yeast cannot take it, so whatever goes in stays in. It contributes flavour, and where it is a sugar, sweetness and body that survive into the glass. |
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What it contributes
The contribution of the ingredient, not the profile of a finished beer. How much of it reaches the glass depends on quantity, timing and what else is in the recipe.