Looking For A Stout or Belgian Strong That Can Be Bottle Aged In Lieu of Bulk Aging

I'm getting married on 12.31.11 and my fiance and I are giving our guests bombers as wedding gifts. You want an invite now don't you?

I've found a local brewer with a big enough system to brew a 20 gallon stout or Belgian strong ale recipe in one shot. Brewing on 10/21 gives me 7-10 days for primary fermentation to complete. So let's say that the beer would go into secondary carboys on 10/31.

From 10/31 I'll be allotted ~6 weeks of bulk conditioning time. Maybe 7. At that time, I need to infuse the beer with corn sugar and bottle the week of 12/19 (due to travel plans).

I'm looking for a Russian Imperial Stout or Belgian Strong Ale recipe that works in this time-frame and will bottle age for a period of 6-12 months. We'd like to include a note with the bottles that invites guest to cellar it for a year and drink it on our one year anniversary (we'll also let them know it's not carb'd yet).

Any help is appreciated.

Congrats on the marriage! And, as for a recipe...just about any recipe can be bottle conditioned with that type of time frame. Especially if they let it sit for a year...

I'd leave it in primary for 4 weeks, then bottle. That way if they don't wait it will be better carbonated and if they do wait a year the bulk aging time won't have added anything significant. Just my thought though.

theonetrueruss said:

I'd leave it in primary for 4 weeks, then bottle. That way if they don't wait it will be better carbonated and if they do wait a year the bulk aging time won't have added anything significant. Just my thought though.

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This isn't a bad idea. You would probably want to add fresh yeast to the bottling bucket as well. Depending on the OG two weeks may still not be enough but it's far more probable to be carbonated when they open it. I would still warn people that it's not carbonated but you know somebody is going to open it anyway.

I say do the Belgian. Let it sit in the primary for about 6 weeks, then bottle it. Tell them the longer it sits the better it will get. With age Belgians get better and better. If they do let it sit for a year it should be awesome.

beergolf said:

I say do the Belgian. Let it sit in the primary for about 6 weeks, then bottle it. Tell them the longer it sits the better it will get. With age Belgians get better and better. If they do let it sit for a year it should be awesome.

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The Westy 12 recipe (Pious and New World) are what spawned this thread. According to that recipe, I won't have the required "bulk aging" time at 55-deg. I would have to short-change it by a few weeks but it sounds like it won't matter. Just bottle it up!