Seasonal Ales

I want to do some seasonal ales this year, particularly maybe a pumpkin ale for Sept/Oct and a spiced ale for Christmas.

I have no idea what recipes I'm going to use yet. When do I need to get these fermenting (AKA when do I need to decide by) to get these properly aged for the seasons?

I'm thinking like two months conditioning time?

Thanks in advance.

Depends on what you are doing specifically. I am a new brewer so I am not getting too involved on the christmas ale. Doing a spiced brown ale. It won't need much time. Might not do it till Oct.

Paulgs3 said:

I want to do some seasonal ales this year, particularly maybe a pumpkin ale for Sept/Oct and a spiced ale for Christmas.

I have no idea what recipes I'm going to use yet. When do I need to get these fermenting (AKA when do I need to decide by) to get these properly aged for the seasons?

I'm thinking like two months conditioning time?

Thanks in advance.

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I'm planning on brewing my Moon Hill Pumpkin Ale on July 31st. I'm going to leave it in the fermenter for the whole of August, bottle it, and let it condition till anywhere from mid-October to Halloween.

This will be my first Pumpkin beer, but from what I hear, the longer you bottle condition, the better the spices meld with the rest of the flavors.

Its never too early if you can save them, I had one that needed time because i carmalized by baking the pumpking first,and it was a harsh bitter that is pretty much gone and took 2 months, to really get good.Im definatly making another but saving the rest to condition till then.Had i not carmalized it so much,it would have been a shorter conditioning time.Plus if you overspice it you would want to give it more time to mellow.
My recommendations are dont overcarmalize your pumpkin if you bake it,and dont overspice it, I would read around by searching it and reading discussions or recipes or even kits.

unionrdr said:

I modded a cooper's dark ale can to make my Whiskely Ale. It's been bottled a little over 2 weeks. Not expecting to try one till maybe near the end of August. The recipe is in my whiskely ale in the fermenter thread.

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thats crazy, i cant bear 2 try one less than 3.:cross:

I am planning on doing Mr. Steve's pumpkin ale, as well as his Oktoberfest for fall. I haven't thought about my Christmas beer yet.

unionrdr said:

I've been conditioning myself to wait till I'm sure it's ready. Getting to be a zen thing...

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Thats pretty good, i usually have to find new beers i havent tried to get my fix. Then i get bored and i still end up trying my batches too early.Well not too early just not quite there yet.- Ha ha, its still like cheating a christmas. No matter how many times i brew it ill open up early.

onipar said:

I'm planning on brewing my Moon Hill Pumpkin Ale on July 31st. I'm going to leave it in the fermenter for the whole of August, bottle it, and let it condition till anywhere from mid-October to Halloween.

This will be my first Pumpkin beer, but from what I hear, the longer you bottle condition, the better the spices meld with the rest of the flavors.

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I looked at your Moon Hill Pumpkin Ale recipe and I like it, that might be the one.

Thanks for all the feedback!

This will be my first year to attempt a pumpkin ale and a christmas ale. Any good beginner tips or recipes

Paulgs3 said:

I looked at your Moon Hill Pumpkin Ale recipe and I like it, that might be the one.

Thanks for all the feedback!

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Glad it looked good to you. It's an unproven recipe so far, as I haven't even brewed it yet. But I did order up all the ingredients and will be doing it soon. I'm going to post the finished recipe in the recipe section soon too. I made a few tweaks to it.

Beers like those which are noticeably spiced need time to let the flavors meld so the longer you can give them, the better. I would think about starting both soon, or at least the pumpkin as soon as you can find pumpkin in your area and the christmas ale in a month or two.

This Christmas I am doing a dark saison with brett, homemade dark candy sugar and cinnamon. It has been in the fermenter since March and won't get bottled until early November and opened early to mid December. Brett takes a long time to finish working so I needed it to hang out in the fermenter until it's done.