Help a Newbie with his holiday brew recipe?!

Hi there,

So I'm planning to brew tonight, and I plan on following a recipe from a local homebrew store. I want different opinions on how you all think it will turn out. I originally went in thinking I want a christmas beer to give as presents (and enjoy myself as well!), now I'm wondering if this will be too spicy for my liking. I like it when beers have flavor, but are still easily drinkable. In other words, I want to be able to have a few beers in one sitting, and not have it be too rich or overwhelming to where I will only want to drink one.

Ok, here's the recipe. 5 gallon batch.

9 lbs Pale Malt extract

Grains:
Belgian CaraVienne 8 oz
Chocolate Malt 4 oz
British Crystal 135L 4 oz

Hopping Schedule:
1. Whole Perle (8.2%) 0.6 oz 60 min
2. Whole Cascade 0.5 oz 30 min
3. Spices 10 min

Spices:
1 tbl ground ginger
1 tsp allspice
1 tsp whole cloves
4 cinnamon sticks
1 tsp nutmeg (optional)
*you may add the zest (peel) of a couple oranges as well

Starting gravity: 1.067
Yeast: Safale s-04 (English Ale Yeast) (dry)

Oh and I'll probably use a tab of whirlock to settle everything down.

Anything I should add or take out? I'm wondering if this will be more thanksgiving-ish rather than Christmasy? I think I like the idea of cinnamon, not sure of the others. Anyone with suggestions would be awesome!!!
Thanks!

You are certainly pushing the upper bounds of what I would consider tasteful spicing. I'd probably cut the spices by 50%-75%. You can always add more to the secondary, or as a tea at bottling if they aren't prominent enough. In fact I like to add spices later for holiday type beers, it give a fresher character since they aren't damaged by boiling or swept out by the CO2 produced by fermentation.

Otherwise it looks like a solid recipe, good luck.

Oldsock said:

You are certainly pushing the upper bounds of what I would consider tasteful spicing. I'd probably cut the spices by 50%-75%. You can always add more to the secondary, or as a tea at bottling if they aren't prominent enough. In fact I like to add spices later for holiday type beers, it give a fresher character since they aren't damaged by boiling or swept out by the CO2 produced by fermentation.

Otherwise it looks like a solid recipe, good luck.

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+1, my second beer i ever made was a big huge spiced beer. I was inexperienced and over spiced the crap out of it. Took a year to mellow out. Restraint use of spices is the way to go. Personally I would add more light to medium crystal and some munich/vienna to give more residual sweetness and percieved maltiness to the beer to go along with the spices. I like the Perle as well and I would just stick with the bittering addition and skip the cascade. I don't think the american citrus hops in the finish meld well with spices...but this is all just my opinion.