Winter Seasonal Beer Holly (Christmas Ale)

Quote: DagoBrewer

Awesome! I just drank a bomber of this stuff! Sittin nice at about 8% and tastes epic!!

DagoBrewer did you end up using sweet orange peel? That was something i am considering. If so how did it turn out. This recipe looks like a hit. Also thought about adding the spices at flame out because of a lack of french press, like i have in a successful pumpkin ale. Has anyone tried this for a similar recipe?

dwhite8 said:

Quote: DagoBrewer

Awesome! I just drank a bomber of this stuff! Sittin nice at about 8% and tastes epic!!

DagoBrewer did you end up using sweet orange peel? That was something i am considering. If so how did it turn out. This recipe looks like a hit. Also thought about adding the spices at flame out because of a lack of french press, like i have in a successful pumpkin ale. Has anyone tried this for a similar recipe?

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Hey dwhite, yes i used sweet orange peel and it turned out awesome! I used a 2" stick of cinnamon and about a tsp of sweet o peel and a tsp of dehydrated ginger root.

I will never ever put these spice ingredients in the boil after using the french press for the tea!! It was totally worth the 10$ at walmart for the press cuz i know ill use it again for other recipes in the future.

Ive done spiced ale in the past using these ingredients in the last couple minutes if the boil and could never get it to taste quite right. Using the tea method made a world of difference!! Ive already had 3 people freak out on me about how amazing this beer tastes... And its not even aged yet!!

This brew is worth every step it calls for and then some!

Thanks for the quick response bud, and of course jmo88 for the sweet recipe. I ordered everything this mornin. I will be using S-04 (current favorite yeast). I will also us MO as my base and drop it by a pound to make it slightly less boozy which which sounds like the only consistent remark from early tastings. Ill drop the hop bitterness just a touch as well.

I'm brewing this is upon request of a friend for his wedding so i want it to not COMPLETELY overwhelm non-craft drinkers. I plan to update in a few weeks when i have a FG add the tea.

Bradthoc said:

Been looking for a Christmas recipe. This one seems to have gotten quite a few likes and will give it a shot. I'm assuming its a 5 gallon recipe?

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doh! nevermind... completely missed that bit of info.
Picking up ingredients this weekend to brew next week and hopefully enjoy Christmas Eve.

hmmm...this may be the next beer I make.

I dont see the batch size in the first post. The lack of that, OG, FG, and yeast strain tripped me up a bit.

What's your mash temp?

I mashed this beer at 152. Am using Whitbread WY1099 yeast.

I mashed at 154 and used wlp001. I ended up at about 8% abv! Great beer!

Well, I finally did it. 4-5 weeks with materials waiting for me, and I had an open window of time. The color of this is a great red. I usually batch sparge, but this one I tried my first attempt at fly sparging. It went well. So well, I ended up making 3 gallons of a session English Bitter (or at least a bitter brown beer of some sorts) with the left overs. This meant an unplanned trip to the LHBS. Oh well.

I mashed at 154, dropped the 5 min. hop addition, used chinook (had a pound on hand to use), pitched San Diego Super Yeast, and will be adding the spices to the secondary using the french press method (if I need more I can add at bottling). I'm planning on throwing in some cardamom and whole cloves as well. I'm not sure if it still constitutes the original recipe enough, but I was inspired by reading about Sweedish Glogg (spiced winter wine). I'm calling it Glogg Nog. Thank you for posting this, and everyone's input. If my version is less than expected, I'll go back to follow what you have originally posted. Thanks again.

Brewed this today and used harvested wlp002

Looked and smelled great at end of boil

Has anyone tried just adding the vanilla bean to the secondary instead of the tea mix? I wonder if that would give it too much vanilla flavor? Thoughts?

Thanks for this recipe! I'm going to brew this Sunday to have it ready just in time for New Years Eve, but I have one question: the recipe refers to Medium Crystal malt. What lovibond would that be? Thanks!

ThisKidsAlright said:

Thanks for this recipe! I'm going to brew this Sunday to have it ready just in time for New Years Eve, but I have one question: the recipe refers to Medium Crystal malt. What lovibond would that be? Thanks!

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60L. I use Hugh Baird but most English Malts labeled medium will be around the lovibond. Love those English crystal malts...

Alright so I'm pretty new to homebrewing but I've jumped In head first and love doing it so far. I only have 5 batches under my belt to date, 2 extract and 3 partial mash but all of my batches have turned out pretty good in my opinion and In the opinions of my willing taste tasters : )
Right now I'm working on making the move to AG but I'm not there quite yet.. I love the sound of this recipe and after reading through all the replays I want to try it out. But how do I convert an AG recipe into a partial mash??

I know a guy on page 2 or 3 did a partial mash but I have no idea where he pulled the amounts from... Like I said, I'm new to most of this so I would love some insight. Thanks!

jmo88 said:

60L. I use Hugh Baird but most English Malts labeled medium will be around the lovibond. Love those English crystal malts...

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Thanks a lot!

Does this recipe need to be altered for BIAB?

cpesko said:

Does this recipe need to be altered for BIAB?

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I did it BIAB over weekend and hit 1.068 og
Mashed at 152 for 1:15 then did a mash out to 168 before lifting and draining/squeezing.

BPhad said:

I did it BIAB over weekend and hit 1.068 og
Mashed at 152 for 1:15 then did a mash out to 168 before lifting and draining/squeezing.

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Thanks Look forwarding to brewing this weekend. :rockin:

Looking forward to bottling this in the next week or so

Just brewed beer last night hit OG but only got 4 gallons after boil, first time doing AG in awhile, what are your guys opinion about topping off bad or good and I'm guessing it is going to effect the tea

drewnasty said:

Just brewed beer last night hit OG but only got 4 gallons after boil, first time doing AG in awhile, what are your guys opinion about topping off bad or good and I'm guessing it is going to effect the tea

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I wouldnt top it off, just adjust when you make the tea. I just cracked one of these last nite after a few more weeks in the bottle. It tasted really good!!

jmo88 said:

Single Step Infusion (67C/152F)

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I don't have any brewer's software. Could someone tell me what temperature they had their water at to reach a mash temperature of 152? I plan on following this recipe as it is.

Bradthoc said:

I don't have any brewer's software. Could someone tell me what temperature they had their water at to reach a mash temperature of 152? I plan on following this recipe as it is.

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Theres plenty of free online calculators for this stuff. Brewersfriend.com is the one i use. It all depends on the temp of your grain and the heat loss to the tun, all of these are factored into the calculator. Check it out, its very helpful.

Just sampled this, smooth and flavorful. Big vanilla now, will try again in a few weeks and see how it all comes together

Just brewed this up today. Hit 1.068. Looks and smells great. My first AG brew!

Mine is about 3 weeks in primary now. Gonna brew up the spiced tea this weekend I guess, and throw it in the keg to hopefully be ready for Thanksgiving. Might still be a tad green, but i bet it will taste great. Should be nicely aged by Christmas.

I suppose it would be pushing it to have this brewed and bottle conditioned before xmas this year....

atimmerman88 said:

I suppose it would be pushing it to have this brewed and bottle conditioned before xmas this year....

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I'm probably going to try it. If I can get it to ferm, closely controlled with good pitch rate, in a week or 9 days, I can crash it and keg it inside of 2 weeks. That gives me about a month to condition.

I suppose I could do that. I'd really like to give it a month in bottles.

I did a pumpkin ale that took nearly that long for the vanilla to mellow out, used 1 bean for 5.5 gallons.

atimmerman88 said:

I suppose I could do that. I'd really like to give it a month in bottles.

I did a pumpkin ale that took nearly that long for the vanilla to mellow out, used 1 bean for 5.5 gallons.

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Well you can always START drinking it a tiny bit near the holidays, treat it like a special occasion-only beer. But then it will be even better with every week.

What kind of Honey has everyone been using for this?

Cheap store bought honey

Looks quite tasty

Bottled this 3 weeks ago. I caved and tried one now. It is warm as piss, and still very flat but it tastes great.

Cant wait for it to carb and mellow!

cpesko said:

What kind of Honey has everyone been using for this?

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I bought raw honey at Whole Foods
About $7 for 22oz

cpesko said:

What kind of Honey has everyone been using for this?

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I always try to use local honey from the Farmer's Market. It really helps out your local beekeepers and you can be confident that it hasn't been pasteurized or had anything added to it. Plus, I find it to be cheaper than store bought.

Brewed this on October 28th, won't be able to bottle it until November 21st. Hopefully that will be long enough for this to be awesome by Christmas!

So i am finally getting around to this beer hopefully tonight. Going to pick up the grains atleast this is my first all grain batch. Ended of buying a 70 qt Coleman last night instead of BIAB. (because i don't really have a pulley system) I just want to confirm 4.5 of strike water and should it still be a full sarge of 3.0 gallons?

There's a chart in Joy of Homebrewing. Was a small problem I had with this brew as my second AG. You may end up with more water in the brew pot than for a lesser grain bill, so you probably need to boil some of the water off before starting the 60 min brew cycle. So you don't end up with more wort than carboy.