First taste of Christmas Ale....not so good...

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Spiced beer I assume? Give it time.....

Recipe/fermentation details?

...give it time...

I've had several beers that I thought I had ruined somehow, only to find after they aged "properly" were some of my favorites. Looking back, most were spiced beers of some kind (pumpkin spice, Christmas spice, Winter warmer spice...............you get the picture)

Hope this is the case with yours!

Haha, I wasn't expecting any replies, thanks for caring! I erased my original message because I concluded that it just needs more time. It's actually not spiced, here's what I did:

75% 2-Row
11% Crystal 120
11% Honey Malt
3% Brown Malt

.4 oz Galena 60 mins.
1 oz Sterling 15 mins.
1.5 oz Sterling 5 mins.

OG 1.051, FG should be about 1.014 for 4.9% ABV, IBU 45, BU/GU .9, fermented w/ Wyeast 1272.

The idea was to brew a relatively low-gravity Christmas beer. I wanted lots of dark fruit flavors and some residual sweetness, hence the large % of 120 and honey malt, but I wanted a touch of roastiness in there too so I added 3% brown malt (one of my favorite malts, by far). I also wanted it to be nice and hoppy so I chose some "spicy" hops for the Christmas theme. I guess you could say I was inspired by Deschutes Jubelale but I wasn't going for a clone, I used it as inspiration and then formulated the recipe based on my own imagination and personal taste.

I really don't brew many hoppy beers, I guess you could call me a malthead (versus a hophead) and in my experience my hoppy beers always take longer to mellow out. I checked the gravity yesterday for the first time and I'm at 1.016 so I have a couple of more points to go to hit FG but the flavor of the sample was terrible. After thinking about it, I realized that it tastes like freshly boiled wort - the hop bitterness just dominates and is kind of gross. Even my malty beers that are very lightly hopped (think Scottish Ale) have this taste right after the boil so I think this beer has enough hops in it that it's going to take a while for that hop harshness to mellow out.

It may take a bit more time for your liking if you're not a hop guy, but given that you haven't even bottled, I would be far from giving up hope on it just yet... It seems like a pretty tasty recipe to me.

Your grain bill sound really good! Id actually be interested in know how this one ages........

What is Galena?

That much hops right at the end seems more in line with an IPA. Give it a couple months for the hop presence to settle down.

501irishred said:

Your grain bill sound really good! Id actually be interested in know how this one ages........

What is Galena?

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Galena hops are a widely used bittering hop. From what I understand they were Brewer's Gold that were openly pollinated so it's a hybrid hop but it's a really high alpha acid (the ones I have now are 13.4%, that's why I only needed .4 oz) hop that produces nice, clean bitterness.

Sterlings are just a nice spicy hop in my opinion. They do have a touch of citrus in my experience but when I'm looking for spiciness, they are my go-to hop.

I knew I was going high with my IBU's, the BU/GU is .9 on this one which is definitely approaching IPA bitterness as Saxomophone said, but I really expected the crystal 120 and honey malt to be able to stand up to that. I'm thinking it will, I'm going to leave it in the carboy for another week and I'll be at FG by then, then I'll bottle and age for another 3 weeks and then I'll post again to this thread to let you know how it turns out.

Sounds good, I look forward to your results.

As for the Galena hops, I'll have to give them a try. May have to go on line, I've never seen them in my LHBS.

I just wanted to add something to this thread.....I tried my first Cascadian Dark Ale today, Deschutes Brewery's Hop In The Dark.....I was shocked....it tastes VERY similar to what I brewed.....I'm thinking maybe I just don't like this style?! I really love malty and hoppy is nice now and then but I'm thinking that mixing the two just doesn't work for my palate......

Okay, ignore everything else I've posted so far. The beer is now bottled and fully carbed and tastes fantastic. Tastes much closer to Deschutes Jubelale than it does to a CDA....beer is a mysterious thing.....I've had beers that tasted great right out of the carboy and still tasted great after bottling, others that have tasted great out of the carboy and then not so good after bottling, and then this one that tasted horrible out of the carboy but fantastic after bottling........either way, this beer turned out absolutely fantastic and I will definitely brew it again so all of the worrying and belly-aching was for nothing! The crystal 120 and honey malt are really shining through and the malt/hop balance is just perfect

Mmmmm....Galena. Need to order some more soon. I've been on a UK and Noble kick lately, so it's about time to find my way back to the bigger boys.

I just cracked one of my winter warmers the other night. Thinking I used a touch too much Special B since the raisin flavor is really forward, but it's not bad by any means. It's also only 2.5 weeks into the bottles, so like everything else beer related, time will tell all.

I made a Winter Warmer ale last December hoping to enjoy in late February. It was a higher gravity beer and was harsh in Feb/March, better in June, coming into it's own in September and I expect them to be great this winter!

People really taste the beer before carbed???????WHY?

Sometimes it tastes like crap, but are you really going to dump it at that point?

Unnecessary worry if you asked me.

I'm happy it turned out but am confused how it was in the carboy on 11/17 and not yet at fg, but is now fully carbed and drinkable on 11/21. Did I misunderstand something here?

Whattawort said:

Mmmmm....Galena. Need to order some more soon. I've been on a UK and Noble kick lately, so it's about time to find my way back to the bigger boys.

I just cracked one of my winter warmers the other night. Thinking I used a touch too much Special B since the raisin flavor is really forward, but it's not bad by any means. It's also only 2.5 weeks into the bottles, so like everything else beer related, time will tell all.

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Too much Special B? No such thing for me, I love that rasiny, figgy, dark fruity flavor in a dark beer.

jaynik said:

I'm happy it turned out but am confused how it was in the carboy on 11/17 and not yet at fg, but is now fully carbed and drinkable on 11/21. Did I misunderstand something here?

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It was at FG on 11/16, I just didn't know it. I mashed @ 158 because I wanted plenty of body and residual sweetness to balance out all those IBU's. I checked gravity again on 11/18 and it hadn't moved so I went ahead and bottled. 2 days in my mini warm room and it's fully carbed and delicious. That's why I'm so amazed at this....just a few days ago I was bitching about ****ty beer and now I'm thrilled because what I brewed is pretty much amazing.

I don't do things the way most people recommend them on this site. I usually bottle after 7 days and my beer is usually fully carbed within 3 or 4 days and ready to drink. Yes, it ages and matures after that but I make a lot of malty beers (stouts, brown ales, scottish ales) and I really prefer them as fresh as possible. The conventional wisdom on here seems to be that that's the complete wrong way of doing things, the beer needs to be in the carboy for 2 or 3 weeks, then bottle conditioned for another 2 or 3 weeks but I've been brewing all grain for a little more than 2 years now and I brew, on average, probably 1.5 beers per month and I've found that I make better beer this way.

First, I ALWAYS make the proper size starter on a stir plate w/ yeast nutrient, and I control my fermentation temps w/ a Johnson A419 controller and chest freezer so my beers are usually completely fermented after 3 or 4 days. If I'm going for a more estery English style I will calculate my starter size using my brew spreadsheet so that I get as close to 0.75 million cells/ ML-P (and ferment a little warmer) but if I'm doing an American style I usually pitch 1.5 million cells/ML-P so that there isn't much of a growth stage (and ferment as cold as possible) and I get a really fast ferment. I also aerate w/ pure 02 on all my beers.

I think that bottling after just 7 days is better if you don't add fresh yeast because the yeast is still fresh so your beer carbs up a lot faster and the yeast are still active enough to absorb any O2 that might get into the beer during the bottling process. I think maybe they are also in better shape to clean up any fermentation biproducts that were produced during the carbing process. I don't have any real evidence to back this up other than my beers which are usually pretty damn good (I'm not 100% sure that yeast can still absorb O2 after they're done fermenting).

The only beers I do an extended secondary on are high ABV and Belgian Dubbels and Tripels and I always crash those at around 35 degrees for a few days and then add fresh yeast at bottling. Even with those though I usually only do 1 week primary and then 2 weeks in secondary (around 45 - 50 degrees) and then I bottle. When I first started brewing all grain I was using Northern Brewer kits and I followed their recommendations which were usually 1 - 3 weeks in primary, 2 - 3 in secondary and 2 -3 bottle conditioning. I did that for probably a year and I never added fresh yeast. My beers would take forever to carb and they just weren't as good as they are now.

That is pretty interesting. Thanks for sharing the method. I have no luck with carbonation before a week or so in bottles so am jealous of you. Do you carb them low being malty beers?

jaynik said:

That is pretty interesting. Thanks for sharing the method. I have no luck with carbonation before a week or so in bottles so am jealous of you. Do you carb them low being malty beers?

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Just depends on the style....if I'm going for an authentic English style I'll carb lower but other than that I actually carb relatively high. When the yeast are still fresh and you put them in warmer temps they eat the sugar up very quickly.