Winter Seasonal Beer Holly (Christmas Ale)

I cracked the first one last night after about 2 1/2 weeks in bottles. It was delicious. Lots of vanilla flavor, more than I was expecting. Very tasty though.

daniel_conklin said:

Could someone please verify where the vanilla bean is used? Do you boil it in the tea or add it to the secondary?

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I put mine in the secondary. Then I took it out of the secondary and put it in the tea after I took it off the boil. I ended up with the perfect amount of vanilla flavor.

Mine has been about 3 weeks since brewing, cold crashing for the last week due to time constraints. Today I'll boil the tea and rack this to kegs. Once it's carbed I'll start sampling it and plan to bottle off the keg about a 12-pack or so to take with us on Christmas Vacation trip to Georgia (driving) for relatives. Hoping it's mellowed by then, about 2 weeks from now.

Fordzilla said:

I cracked the first one last night after about 2 1/2 weeks in bottles. It was delicious. Lots of vanilla flavor, more than I was expecting. Very tasty though.

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The vanilla will subside if you age it longer. It really comes to after four weeks.

I made the tea for 9g of this on Saturday. I used two whole vanilla beans, sliced and scraped and I still hardly tasted the vanilla. I didn't get a cinnamon stick, so I used about 1/2tbsp of ground cinnamon, 1tbsp ground ginger. I used a syringe to put 1ML in 2oz of beer, then 2ML was where I started tasting it. That meant that all of the tea went in. Still didn't taste much vanilla, but it's not carbed and I know that changes things a lot, from experience.

I also used WLP500 which has a big clove note to it, so it may be overpowering at this point. Anyways, kegged to two-5g cornies and it's on gas right now. Wanting to bottle off a 12-pack in 10 days and take with me on Christmas drive to Georgia for relatives. Probably won't be great quite yet by Christmas (15 days since spicing) but I can recommend they save most of the bottles until January.

I recently used wlp530, which didn't give much clove or spice, but did impart lots of fruity esters.

My 2012 version was a split batch of sorts. We mashed with some roasted acorn squash, we then fermented half inside a pumpkin(!) and half in glass- both used Belgian Leuven Yeast (WY3538). The pumpkin half became our fall pumpkin beer, which we bottled half with spices, half without. The clean side became our christmas beer which we bottled with the traditional spice tea. In all the version, I'd say the pumpkin fermented/unspiced was my favorite. Pumpkin with spices was pretty decent. The Christmas version was not improved by the squash, though I can't tell if the Belgian yeast helped or hindered. The mix of spice and sweet notes from the squash was just a bit too cloying. The lesson is don't fit all the flavor profiles of your fall seasonals into one batch.

Is one pack of Safale-05 enough for a 5 gal batch or are you guys using two? mr malty says 1.3 packs but i dont want to waste a second pack if its not needed.

Just cracked one of these last night! It has changed so much since i last tried one a little over a week ago!! The ginger is finally at the back end and the vanilla and cinnamon are up front followed by nice hops flavor with sweet almost chewy malt flavors!! My good friend who is a beer and wine critic was over and we compared this with a couple other holiday ales and he says mine was "by far the best Christmas brew he has ever tasted" Awesome recipe, thanks!!

zeprock2 said:

Is one pack of Safale-05 enough for a 5 gal batch or are you guys using two? mr malty says 1.3 packs but i dont want to waste a second pack if its not needed.

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Make a small starter. Sanitize a jar, boil some water and DME, cool, add to jar with yeast, cover in sanitized foil, shake from time to time. Counts will multiply enough to only need one pack.

tre9er said:

Make a small starter. Sanitize a jar, boil some water and DME, cool, add to jar with yeast, cover in sanitized foil, shake from time to time. Counts will multiply enough to only need one pack.

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Ok thanks. I wasn't sure if you could do staters with dry yeast.

Willie3 said:

Usually adding H2O is performed post boil pre fermentation. But theorhetically speaking I suppose it might work. Dunno Never tried, but I am curious as to how it turns.

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I've heard of some major brewers that do that - brew at high gravity and dilute. Perhaps do some and not all?

Turned out great, a big hit

Thanks for the recipe jmo88

Merry Christmas everyone! Will be enjoying this beer tonight with friends and family. Be safe tonight. If you drive drunk, I will find you and kick you in the nuts (if you have nuts).

Awesome beer! Wish I made ten gallons. Merry Christmas everyone!

Sipping one of these now. Merry Christmas and thanks for the recipe jmo88

Mine didn't make it by Christmas, but it's good stuff. I bottled it a week ago, and it surprising how quickly the vanilla flavor attenuates and citrus aroma comes out as it conditions. It's been getting better ever day, hopefully it won't peak before too soon.

Here's a pic of my 2012 version. Brewed November 3rd.

zeprock2 said:

Is one pack of Safale-05 enough for a 5 gal batch or are you guys using two? mr malty says 1.3 packs but i dont want to waste a second pack if its not needed.

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I only used one pack without a starter mine turned out fine.

I might make this one in the fall for xmas. I keg all my beers, so would I add the tea to the keg and carb/age? What kind of wyeast would you suggest.....1056?

JMO you should edit the OP and put the yeast in there. I know I've looked through the thread for it at least a few times.

I brewed this with wlp002

mike_in_ak said:

JMO you should edit the OP and put the yeast in there. I know I've looked through the thread for it at least a few times.

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Im guessing you are using the HBTalk app? The full site has it listed. For some reason the app doesn't show the recipe stats that you're required to fill in when submitting a recipe—like OG and yeast. I can't edit that info either.

It's listed as safale 05 but my favorite so far has been wyeast London III.

Thanks. I blame my iPhone. For everything.

I used wyeast 1728.
It made a fantastic Scottish Ale.
Got rave reviews.

I entered this in a competition and although I didn't place, it (Dr. Toboggan) scored a 41, so I'm super happy.

Cheers for the awesome recipe

m_stodd said:

I entered this in a competition and although I didn't place, it (Dr. Toboggan) scored a 41, so I'm super happy.

Cheers for the awesome recipe

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How long was it aged?

mike_in_ak said:

How long was it aged?

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Bottled the last week of 2012, tasted last week.

Holy smokes, that's not even old yet! What the hell are going to have 3-4 months from now?

Good show!

I just popped one of these last night... This beer definetly ages well!! I bottles this stuff october 1st 2012. I have a case of bombers left that ill be tasting one a month this year!!

What would you say is the base style of this beer? Amber Ale?

I would say a dark and heavier red ale.

Anyone ever try spicing this with pumpkin spice instead? I have five gallons aging and was thinking of splitting the batch and doing one spices as instructed and one as a pumpkin instead.

AR-Josh said:

Anyone ever try spicing this with pumpkin spice instead? I have five gallons aging and was thinking of splitting the batch and doing one spices as instructed and one as a pumpkin instead.

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I was actually thinking of trying this. I cracked one of these I brewed in late September last year with a friend of mine last night, holy crap this thing ages extremely well!! We were thinking of doing a split batch of this recipe making one a harvest pumpkin ale and the other will stay a Christmas ale!!

i brewed this recipe up on Monday for this holiday season.

Recipe was as listed, hit 1.082 for 6 Galllons, 5 on WLP001 1 gallon on S04

Thinking this might be my next brew. I have a porter fermenting right now. I'm thinking of using that yeast cake, WLP002, for this batch.

The other change I'm thinking of making is removing the honey and using the 270F syrup from https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f12/20-lb-sugar-jar-yeast-nutrient-114837/. I'm thinking that might bring out the vanilla and plum notes.

After tasting a couple of my home brews and a friends brews I have found that I'm not a fan of honey in beers. There's just something in the after taste that I don't care for. It's been there in each beer that the two of us have made with honey and for the most part it has been the only common thing amongst the recipes.

Any thoughts on this change?

Two questions while I'm looking to get the ingredients rounded up, hopefully LHBS will have everything, so I can brew this weekend.
I'm planning to use the cake from the porter I have finishing up and will bottle this weekend, I used WLP002 for that. I'm just wondering how malty this is with a "clean" yeast and whether the 002 will over do it, I like a maltier brew so I'll probably stick with this decision. Just looking for thoughts.

Also, I don't have a french press, I know I could drop the $10 on one just not sure how often I'd use it so... Is there anything wrong with grabbing a quart of the beer, add spices and priming sugar, bring to a boil for about a minutes, steep for 15 minutes, make house smell like christmas , cover with sanitized lid, cool, and pour into the bottling bucket. What other advantage does the french press give you?

The French press was used just to strain the tea ingredients from the liquid. It's just what I use for teas and coffees. It has no real advantage to putting the ingredients into a mesh bag and steeping in a pot.

I'm brewing this on Sunday. I brewed it last year, and still have a few bottles around. This is great stuff!

Brewed it today and looking forward to it.