Is it too early to brew a winter warmer?

I'm thinking I want to brew my high gravity winter beer right now so it can get some good bottle conditioning time. I'm thinking something that will be delicious around January on a very cold night, or after a long day of skiing.

Does anyone have any recommendations for a recipe like that? I've never done a winter beer before (I usually just brew IPA's and the like)

I brewed mine a month ago, an old ale that is now in the secondary with Brett from Orval bottles, I will add oak chips in a couple of months.

I figured that brewing early would give the brett some time to work its magic.

I got the recipe from Brewing Classic Styles then tweaked the hops and grains to my liking.

It's not too early IMO. That stuff tends to last a while in the bottle. That actually sounds like a good brew for me make! I'll have to do a search for a recipe when I got more free time today. I'm still banging my head on trying to figure out why the new Windows 7 Computers won't connect to our accounting software via ODBC...

How do the winter Warner's generally work? Is it like a classic spiced ale, or just a big bold stout? I remember Celebration being delicious, but I also love New Belgiums Frambozen and Two Below, all of which are completely different...

I brewed mine back in late June, been bottled for a couple weeks now.
8.5% Old Ale

No time like the present!

I brewed mine last November and hoped to enjoy it late in February. It was good but still a bit harsh. I have tried one occasionally and they are still getting better.

I brewed my wee heavy last December and an old ale shortly after that. Both should be ready for drinking before the end of this year.

IMO, you're either starting too late, or on time. I wouldn't go much longer before brewing it up. Especially if its going to be in the range to be a real 'warmer' brew.

I brewed mine early this month. I don't plan on tapping it until close to Christmas.

BudzAndSudz said:

I'm thinking I want to brew my high gravity winter beer right now so it can get some good bottle conditioning time. I'm thinking something that will be delicious around January on a very cold night, or after a long day of skiing.

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You're in CO. Don't you have winter like 8 months out of the year?

A winter warmer here would mean a cream ale.

I'm with golddiggie on this.

I'm not trying to make it a HUGE warmer, but shooting for the 8-9% abv would be nice I think. Do you guys shoot for like a spiced ale, or more of just a big, malty IPA with tons of Carmel malts?

I do a dark spiced ale.

Don't bother with IPA recipes, they'll lose their nose by winter. You want something malty, like a Wee Heavy or a barleywine.

Here's the grain bill for mine. I've been using a 62qt bayou classic with a copper manifold. I'll be converting it to all grain the next go around because I just got a 30gal mash tun. It took about 4 months to mellow out. But it was february by then and wasn't really cold enough to drink here in vegas.

david_42 said:

Don't bother with IPA recipes, they'll lose their nose by winter. You want something malty, like a Wee Heavy or a barleywine.

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I was only saying IPA because Sierra Nevada's Celebration ale (although not a winter warmer) is very delicious, and billed as a malty and carmely IPA on their website. It's pretty good as a starting point but I'd want to shoot for a bit higher ABV.

BudzAndSudz said:

I was only saying IPA because Sierra Nevada's Celebration ale (although not a winter warmer) is very delicious, and billed as a malty and carmely IPA on their website. It's pretty good as a starting point but I'd want to shoot for a bit higher ABV.

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I've had Celebration and I found it to be a bit hoppy for the style. I like it.

Or what about Great Divide Hibernation? Has anyone tried that? I would love to find a good recipe for that.

@ BudzAndSudz - here's the pic I was talking about. I'll be plumbing everything in the next couple weeks. I just have to order a bunch of stainless fittings. And build my heating elements.

BudzAndSudz said:

I was only saying IPA because Sierra Nevada's Celebration ale (although not a winter warmer) is very delicious, and billed as a malty and carmely IPA on their website. It's pretty good as a starting point but I'd want to shoot for a bit higher ABV.

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I like Celebration a lot. It is a very good IPA, but it's just not what I think of as a 'Holiday' beer.

I'm a big fan of Great Lakes Christmas Ale. It's a winter warmer but it's not a real BIG beer like a barleywine or something along those lines. I'm planning on brewing up a couple of batches of a recipe I think will work pretty well as soon as I have buckets open up which should be this weekend!

Ok, I picked up some ingredients today to brew my winter warmer. The biggest questions I have now are;

a) Primary for a month, then age in bottles for a couple months?
b) Primary for a month, secondary for a couple weeks and then age in a keg for a month? (force carb or sugar carb in the keg?)
c) Primary for a month, secondary for a couple months, and then force carb for a week or two to serve.




Also, here's the recipe I settled on;

14# Vienna Malt
1.5# Flaked Oats
1# Biscuit Malt
12 oz. Caramunich
8 oz. Special Roast
6 oz. Chocolate Malt

1 hour mash at 154
65 minute boil

1 oz. Chinook at 65 minutes (was going to do amarillo, but LHBS was out of them).
.5 oz. each Northern Brewer & Nugget 15 min.
.5 oz. each Northern Brewer & Nugget 5 minutes

Yeast: Wyeast 1098(British Ale)


Calculates out to about OG of 1.089 and an FG of 1.022 ish for around 8.5% ABV.

First option. Opening the bottle and pouring it in after a long day of snowshoeing sounds a lot better than just pulling a tap handle.

jfr1111 said:

First option. Opening the bottle and pouring it in after a long day of snowshoeing sounds a lot better than just pulling a tap handle.

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I agree with this, plus anything over 8% on tap is asking for trouble.

Just figured I'd be the pedant and point out that "winter warmer" is a specific style, and it's not spiced. A good (and delicious) example is Samuel Smith's Winter Welcome.

The BJCP guidelines include winter warmers as a subset of Old Ales.

And I'd bulk age it for longer, bottling it maybe 6 weeks before you intend to drink it.

I didn't spice mine, but I also didn't read the BJCP guidelines. Thanks for the heads up!

Also just wanted to let everyone know that I brewed this on sunday. I'm getting increasingly fed up with the poor maintenance of my LHBS' grain mill, and my efficiency has been getting consistently lower the last couple batches because the darn thing can't get a good crush on anything no matter what. I ended up with an OG of right around 1.072 instead of the 1.080 I was shooting for, but I think it'll still come out as a nice beer.

Damn, I can't believe I missed that section of the BJCP??? And I've been meaning to memorize that thing... :cross:

Double_D said:

@ BudzAndSudz - here's the pic I was talking about. I'll be plumbing everything in the next couple weeks. I just have to order a bunch of stainless fittings. And build my heating elements.

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Hey, check out what I just finished building




You may have been my first inspiration to get that project started.

So I stole a test bottle of this the other day to see how it was progressing and it's damn nice. So nice in fact that I'm going to make another 10 gallons of this to be ready in springtime. I had a novel thought though; I know you shouldn't mess with a good thing, but I was thinking some actual roasted chestnuts might be an interesting addition to a winter ale, and give it a bit of that winter authenticity. Surprisingly google turned up almost no results for this. Any thoughts?

jfr1111 said:

First option. Opening the bottle and pouring it in after a long day of snowshoeing sounds a lot better than just pulling a tap handle.

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Maybe it's because I'm still wearing shorts and sandals, but unless it's a belgian I thinks it's very gratifying to pull a tap handle as long as the nectar of the gods flowing out is something I made.

cfonnes said:

I agree with this, plus anything over 8% on tap is asking for trouble.

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The abv of my brew has never caused me problems as far as my kegerator is concerned. Within the last 11 months I've gone from an 11.5% winter warmer to a 3.5% berliner weisse. The major difference is line length and carbonation pressure. As a matter of fact the majority of the beer I make is between 6.5% - 9% abv and I don't do anything different.

Unless you mean it's just too easy to get to. Then I completly understand! At least you're drinking the strong stuff at home...