Christmas Beer Brainstorming Thread

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bellmtbbq

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It seems early, but I just looked at my calender and on Tuesday we are three months away from Christmas. A long way away, but if you're gonna make a big beer to gift away, you may need to start soon!

(P.S.) If you celebrate any other holidays in December, shoot away as well!


I'm getting tired of hearing about all the pumpkin/holiday spiced ales around the Holidays, I'm thinking of trying something different. Definitely a porter, and something else. I'm thinking of trying something like wintergreen in the porter, and maybe some orange peel and ginger in a pale ale or amber lager.

Anyone got any plans/ideas
 
My two favorite beers for the winter/early spring months are RIS and dopplebock. I'll be brewing a dopplebock sometime next month so it will be ready to drink by January or February time frame. I'm going to gift some of it for Christmas with instructions to wait until January to drink it and that it will get better the longer it ages. I also have used oak barrles on my Chirstmas list, so if I get one I'll brew a big barley wine to bulk age in the barrel to gift next Christmas.
 
Instead of pumpkin ales around the holidays I like to do a cranberry Belgian.
 
Just brewed our fall brew we did a Belgian Trippel that we added Paradise Seed, little Nutmeg (we ground those) then Fresh Ginger. Transferred last night and it taste great has a little heat mid chest from paradise seed and ginger loving it.
 
I am planning an extract 'Butterbeer' that will be a hazy, 6.0% butterscotch-infused wheat beer. Never tried anything like this before, so not sure to keep my recipe @ 3 gallons or scale up to 5...
 
I'll be doing a batch of apple cider with the intention of people using it as an alcoholic warming cider. Something along the lines of EdWort's Apfelwein that people can put in a crockpot with mulling spices/cinnamon for parties and such.
 
I was drinking my stout which I think is amazing and I decided to get a snack. Pumpkin delights have been my go to snack this time of year so I opened up the gift from the gods and took a bite then had a sip of beer. The two paired was a flash of Christmas awesomeness It was so good I instantly wanted to have that cookie infused with my beer. I am currently researching and planning this brew.
 
I am buying a bushel of second (bruised) apples next weekend and make a 4 gallon batch of apple wine, which should be ready by Christmas as well. Instead of trying to press it I'm just going to slice it all up, and cook it till soft, and colander the liquid off. Maybe add some brown sugar that I'll carmalize.

Yea I'm def. thinking about that porter with wintergreeen, root beer extract sounds good as well!
 
Nutella is the idea but I will use a hazelnut extract to avoid the oils, or I might soak some hazelnuts in vodca and see what that makes.
 
I am buying a bushel of second (bruised) apples next weekend and make a 4 gallon batch of apple wine, which should be ready by Christmas as well. Instead of trying to press it I'm just going to slice it all up, and cook it till soft, and colander the liquid off. Maybe add some brown sugar that I'll carmalize.

Yea I'm def. thinking about that porter with wintergreeen, root beer extract sounds good as well!

My brew Budy and I do a Hot Brown Apple we cook the apples down add spice and use Dark Belgian Candy sugar it is a nice fall brew. The candy sugar is easier to carmalize I think. Freaking sugar that fine line of pull it off before it goes to far. ( I do this before we Drink) keep those apples away form kids and the wife or you will need to make more.
 
I think the dark Belgium candy is pre-caramelized inverted sugar?

I invert sugar when I want to up gravity, but haven't tried caramelizing it yet. Good to know its easier than regular sugar.
 
Yesterday I brewed an imperial double chocolate cupcake stout; thought I would move away from the more traditional spice/orange holiday ales and make a really nice desert beer. Will post the recipe if it ends well.
 
Lat year I did a dark Belgian style infused with cranberries and a little hazelnut extract. It was well received, but I was still extract brewing and didn't have quite the belgian flavor I wanted. This year, I have an entirely belgian grain bill, so here comes Blitz'ens Brew, 2.0! After reading thread, thinking of adding grains of paradise, but haven't used them before. Thoughts?
 
DISCLAIMER: The following beer is NOT, I repeat NOT to be consumed by a pregnant woman or women that could be pregnant. The pine oil can cause SERIOUS problems to an unborn child, including miscarriage! YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED...

Now that I have scared everyone nearly to death I am planning 2 beers. The 1st one will be a pine needle infused IPA that features piney hops as well. I will call it "Piney the Elfer"...same base recipe as PtE but with different hops and the pine needles.

The other one is still up in the air...but I am leaning towards a cranberry mead.
 
A dark saison makes for a different holiday beer. You can spice it but you don't have to. The yeast will bring a lot of character.

More or less any darker beer makes for a good holiday beer: stout, porter, RIS, doppelbock, quad, dubbel, etc. You could change things up by making a typically light colored beer but adding carafa III to make it a dark beer. Somebody a month or so ago was making a dark hefeweizen that way. Along the same line of thinking you could take a recipe for a lighter beer and swap lighter crystal malts for darker crystal malts to get a beer with a richer flavor. For example, a basic brown ale could swap out crystal 40 or 60 for 120 or 150.
 
I brewed up my christmas chocolate stout a month ago. 10 gallons of it! Added 4 oz of chocolate nibs to each carboy after 2 weeks.
 
Good ideas! Then my first stout or porter is coming very soon. If I did a baltic porter i could enter it in the dry dock brewing competition
 
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