Spiced Winter English Barleywine

I'm looking at making a spiced winter english style barleywine soon to age for some Christmas parties.

There is a really great local spiced amber ale that I like by Thunder Canyon Brewery called Ornament Ale, but they aren't forthcoming with the recipe so I'm kinda guessing on my own here.

The base for this Barleywine is a lightly modified Deschutes Mirror Mirror clone approximation with some slight tweaks.

I've never used spices like this before so I'm looking for some opinions on increasing or decreasing spicing amounts.

Recipe Specifications
--------------------------
Batch Size: 5.50 gal
Boil Size: 8.51 gal
Estimated OG: 1.099 SG
Estimated Color: 9.5 SRM
Estimated IBU: 38.8 IBU
Brewhouse Efficiency: 75.00 %
Boil Time: 120 Minutes

Ingredients:
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Amount Item Type % or IBU
17.00 lb Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM) Grain 85.00 %
2.00 lb Munich Malt (9.0 SRM) Grain 10.00 %
0.50 lb Caramel/Crystal Malt - 40L (40.0 SRM) Grain 2.50 %
0.50 lb Melanoiden Malt (20.0 SRM) Grain 2.50 %
1.00 oz Simcoe BYOB Plug [12.90 %] (120 min) Hops 38.8 IBU
0.12 oz Ginger Root (Boil 5.0 min) Misc
1.75 gm Cloves (Boil 0.0 min) Misc
2.00 qt Cinnamon Stick (Boil 5.0 min) Misc
6.00 gm Nutmeg (Boil 0.0 min) Misc
1 Pkgs Dry English Ale (White Labs #WLP007) [StarYeast-Ale


Mash Schedule: Single Infusion, Light Body, No Mash Out
Total Grain Weight: 20.00 lb
----------------------------
Single Infusion, Light Body, No Mash Out
Step Time Name Description Step Temp
60 min Mash In Add 27.00 qt of water at 163.9 F 153.0 F

I'd really watch it with the cloves. They can come out way stronger than you may think. Are those whole cloves?

In one of the recipes I used some guidance on spicing from yes, they are whole cloves.
What do you recommend? I've never used any spices like this before in a beer so I'm all ears.

OK that was weird. I posted and it triple posted my reply. I deleted one of the 3 and they all disappeared..


.. I'm not sure what amount is good. I just know they can be really strong. If you are aging this for month and months like a true BW then you will probably OK as you are following a recipe.

If you can, get whole nutmegs and grind them just prior to use on a microplane. The aroma and flavor is 100% better that way than the preground stuff in a jar. It also really has that "christmas" scent, I think because it reminds me of eggnog.

You got a recipe for that Holiday Spiced Ale in your sig KingBrianI? You made it before?

saq said:

You got a recipe for that Holiday Spiced Ale in your sig KingBrianI? You made it before?

Click to expand...

Here's a link to the thread I talk about it. https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f12/im-brewing-my-winter-warmer-tomorrow-127484/ It's actually a hodgepodge recipe to use up some grains I had lying around. I used the yeast we're using for the westy clone, and I made some candy syrup for it like the westy. Gravity samples have been very good but the spice note is low. I'm about to rack it to secondary on top of an ounce of house roast french oak cubes that have been soaking in some black rum and spices for a couple weeks.

I'd up the IBUs a bit (.6-.7:1 IBU-SG). Also I love Maris Otter in my big beers, every huge beer I have done I use Maris Otter as the base malt and it ROCKS.

Brewing this on Saturday, cooling my starter right now. I think I'm going to do a spice tea and add it to taste in the keg. I think it's going to be a killer barleywine so I'll probably bottle some before the spicing and see how it ages.