Brewing with Honey

I'm tempted to make either a Honey Spruce Ale or a Honey Brown Ale, perhaps both!! (Why not?) Can someone post recipes for these two that are good and relatively novice-level (it will be my 5th batch). I've mainly been brewing with extracts up to this point but am willing to expand. I have heard spruce ales can take forever aging, is this true?

Any recipes and tips would be greatly appreciatied!

J

I don't have any recipes for you, but I can answer the spruce question with a definitive YES! I used 1 oz of spruce extract in 10 gallons of high ABV beer, and it tastes positively awful right now. The beer tasted pretty good before the spruce addition. I only used half the recommended amount of spruce extract, and it's overpowering. I'm hoping that a bit of age (several months...maybe a year) tames this monster, but right now I can't even stand to sip a sample of it.

On the honey, make sure you add it as late to the boil as possible, like 0mins if you want to get any honey flavor and not just an expensive abv boost.