Winter Seasonal Beer Holly (Christmas Ale)

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Me too, with mine, the alcohol dominates the nose week 2 in the bottle, is it week 4 through 8 where the spices come back through?
 
The beauty of this spiced recipe is that the longer it sits in bottles, the more the flavors mellow and blend together. Now I brew this Christmas ale in September and it has a good 2 1/2 to 3 months to condition in the bottles. Talk about a wait worth waiting for. I just do a couple of other different brew around the same time to make sure I'm not tempted to drink all of these.
 
adam01 said:
Wow, this thing sings cinnamon. Hopefully cold and fully carbonated its not as much.
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See the post above yours-- how long has yours been in the bottle. It really is cool how this beer changes and mellows as it matures.
 
adam01 said:
Yes, saw it. It's kegged and about 4wks old. Hoping for the mellowing in two weeks.
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Mine has been sitting in bottles at basement temps (65ish) for over 6 weeks. It is really nice now, but I think it is still improving. I brewed it for gifts. Wish I had made a double batch. :eek:
 
Hooowah - Just tasted my beer today - at the 6 week mark in the bottle, very smooth, all the spices coming in nicely, nothing overpowering, never made a beer before with a head this thick, great stuff. I cracked my first beer at 4 weeks, and it still had that hot alcohol taste at the end, i think the cinnamon exagerated this as well. 2 additional weeks made quite the difference. Will be interesting to see how incrementally better this will get over time.
 
This is going to be my next brew, it sounds awesome. All my calculations agree with your numbers assuming a 75% efficiency. I didn't see any posts regarding mash thickness however. I usually use 1.33qt/lb. Do you have any words of experience regarding mash thickness for this particular brew?
 
Little fyi, thank you for this recipe its a big hit. Your timing on the flavor profile is dead on. Thank you!
 
Bottled this up Dec. 1st and the flavors have really come together. The only changes I made to the recipe were that I substituted notti for the yeast and didn't add the honey. A friend tried one last night and thought it tasted and smelled of snickerdoodle cookies. The spices are very well balanced with the beer. I was worried after bottling because I thought the vanilla was extremely overpowering, but it has mellowed substantially. Thanks for the fantastic recipe Jmo. Definitely one of the best I've brewed to date.
 
Made this a while back, trying to finish it by the Holidays. Temp controller messed up and chilled my yeast. I brought it in the house but it never really got going. ended up pitching new yeast and it's fermenting away. Took a sample last night and although it's still a bit sweet, it's tasting like it might turn out nice after all.

A few more days and it should be pretty close.

I wonder if there is any reason to rack it into a different keg. It was still about 1.050 when I repitched. I wonder how many people drink from their primaries...
 
Spectacular recipe. We brewed this several weeks ago and bottled about a week ago. I can't wait to taste the "final" product. Planning on setting aside at least a twelve pack to age for a good while Since I'm sharing a 5 gal batch with two friends saving any more might be a challenge!
 
Total noob questions, this will be my 3rd brew ever so bear with me. Number one, how much water are you mashing in? And how long? Number two, what temp is the boil? Thanks in advance, this sounds like an excellent beer!
 
Lol, dumb question looking back. Thanks for the info. Looking forward to brewing this
 
Thanks for sharing this awesome recipe!! I just bottled after 4 weeks in primary. It tasted AMAZING, both with and without the tea. I'll have to brew it again and just bottle it as-is, without the tea. More details:

http://home.kimusubi.net/beer/?p=68

How do you think this would fare with a Belgian yeast?
 
Has anyone done a taste profile of this beer? Any pics? I'm wondering how much chocolate flavor is in it. I am also wondering what sweet orange peel instead of bitter would do. I am also thinking about coco nibs. Thoughts?
 
Well...I'm going to give it a go. I'm going to rack this on to cocoa nibs in secondary. I won't make this until next month but now I have a plan.
 
Hey Josh, im gonna try this with sweet orange peel too... Gonna brew it this weekend! Have you brewed it yet?
 
I got busy and couldnt do it. Im gonna brew on thursday this week, ill let you know how everything went.
 
AR-Josh said:
Has anyone done a taste profile of this beer? Any pics? I'm wondering how much chocolate flavor is in it. I am also wondering what sweet orange peel instead of bitter would do. I am also thinking about coco nibs. Thoughts?
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A late reply, don't make it over here as much as I used to...

The beer has very little chocolate character–think amber ale–since it's only 3oz (I'm not sure why I listed it as 3.2 oz, I'm really not that particular, honestly). Also, its a low lovibond chocolate. Most shops have it labeled as pale chocolate. It has an orangish hue somewhere between an Amber and a pale brown.
 
Just stopped at my LHBS and picked up everything for my brew day tomorow!! I used crystal 120 instead of the uk medium and gonna use wlp001 cuz thats my favorite yeast for ales!! Ill post some pics and updates tomorow!
 
All went well today, i ended up with an OG of 1.078 and hit 80% according to brewersfriend.com! I did a half oz of 12.6% cenntenials for the first wort hop just cuz im a total hop head! The color was absolutely beautiful, a nice deep reddish color! I cant wait to taste this one after a couple months of conditioning!!
Cheers!
 
A word of warning to you who brew...

I brewed this last November! Used way too much spice tea - cinnamon out the wazoo,
ginger slickness on your tongue for a long time (it almost tingled.)

10 months later the cinamon is only an aroma (good) but the ginger is a long aftertaste.
At 9.3%, its tasty and warm. I thought I threw this out. Now I'll keep it for this Christmas.
 
Maybe you just used to much of the "spice" ingedients... Ive done that before.

I just tasted my winter lager from last season which had way to much ginger and cinamon.. Its clear as F...!! But still has too much ginger taste!
 
Can anyone spare the specifics of their ingredients for the tea? I made this last year, and used the prescribed amount of fresh grated ginger root, one of the cinnamon sticks from the grocery store (the stick was probably three inches long, Kroger brand I think, came with multiple ones in a red and white metal can), a vanilla bean from whole foods, simply split down the middle, and the prescribed amount of bitter orange peel from the LHBS. After six weeks in the bottle, it was ALL ginger, and overbearing. No orange peel, vanilla, or cinnamon whatsoever. I tried one a few days ago, nine months later, and still overpowering ginger. Finally dumped the batch to free the bottles, with the exception of three bottles. So what went wrong? I'm gonna try it again this year, because of all the raves it gets on here when you hit it right. The beer was awesome before bottling, so I'll probably try to bottle half without the tea, and half with. Anyone see any issues with my tea process? I'm probably gonna go with the dehydrated ginger this time around. How long is the cinnamon stick you use? Do you scrape out the insides of the vanilla bean, or just split it down the middle?
 
Hopefully people that make this beer really think the spice step through completely. Spices are extremely variable and if you just make a quart of the tea using my directions and just toss it in the bottling bucket without tasting it, you'll likely flub the beer up. If you are bottling the beer, it's probably best to make the tea without the priming sugar at first. After you make a quart of the tea, pour off a few ounces of the unspiced beer (note the exact measurement) and add a small measured amount of tea to the tasting serving until it is a subtle profile. Do the math to figure out how much tea you'll need to add to the bottling bucket to get that profile. Assuming you need to reduce the amount of tea, toss the extra amount down the drain and add the priming sugar to the newly measured tea and heat it briefly to a boil and add to the bottling bucket. I hope that clears up the problem of over spicing.
 
Came across this recipe... Pretty psyched to brew this up next week and let it sit in the bottle till December/Winter timeframe :)

Thanks! (jmo88)
 
So I want to brew this tomorrow since I was unable to do it a couple weeks ago. I was thinking about the hops and I don't have centennials. I do have cascades, us goldings, warrior, nugget, Columbus, and Apollo. Any suggestions on what to sub with and how much?
 
Aren't cascades lesser alphas than centennials? Should I adjust? I'm still not read up on how the alpha thing works.
 

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