Has anyone tried Sam Calagione's "Crandaddy"?

I found one thread re stuck fermentation in General Techniques, but it's kind of an orphan; no final results. The op was advised to start fermentation with barley then add honey once it gets going. That sounds like good advice.

I bought the ingredients for it last night. My plan is to leave it bottled until Thanksgiving. Has anyone made this? What can you tell me about how it turned out? It sounds pretty damn good. Any chance you could part with a bottle?

Thanks, Lee

Wow, shocked nobody has replied in over 5 years. I myself have been considering making this beer, anyone brewed it? If so, what'd you think?

I am brewing it now.
Will let you know on results.

Awesome, looking forward to it!

I did it. It was bad...very very bad....i mean drinkable but unless you LOVE LOVE LOVE cranberry's avoid this one. I thought it would be great as a christmas beer. It was not. That was two ish years ago, i'm now trying to sour it out and rescue it. After almost two years of souring it's almost ok. Avoid this one....

:-( bummer. Thanks for the reply!

Good to know. Seemed like a LOT of cranberries

Schoenbrau said:

Awesome, looking forward to it!

Click to expand...

Ok here are my results:
Initially my gravity was stuck really high. I got the gravity closer to what it needed to be after I pitched a large Muntons yeast starter and the fermentation picked up again(used champagne yeast first). The final taste though isn't really my cup of tea.
It has a strong fusel alcohol taste to it so it's got a lot of bite!
Can't taste any cranberry's either. It's lightly carbonated and is somewhat sweet.
If I were to do this again which I won't, I would not have used champagne yeast. The guy at the brew store said that ferments too hot and I should have used a different yeast method. I think he suggested 2 different yeasts like a lalvin yeast and then an ale yeast to finish. This way both sugars get eaten and the first yeast doesn't kill the second yeast. Just be careful with this recipe!