Winter Seasonal Beer Holiday Spiced Ale

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The Pol

Well-Known Member
Joined
Feb 12, 2007
Messages
11,390
Reaction score
117
Recipe Type
All Grain
Yeast
S-04
Yeast Starter
YES
Batch Size (Gallons)
5.3
Original Gravity
1.061
Final Gravity
1.016
Boiling Time (Minutes)
90
IBU
31.5
Color
17.3SRM
Primary Fermentation (# of Days & Temp)
14
Secondary Fermentation (# of Days & Temp)
14
Additional Fermentation
60 Aging
Tasting Notes
Malty, well balanced with the spices, great for a holiday grog!
10Lbs American 2-Row
8oz. Crystal 120L
8oz. Caravienne
4oz. Honey Malt
2oz. Black Roast Barley
2oz. Special B


1oz Glacier @ 60min.
1oz. Willamette @ 1min.

1 tsp Ginger @ 3 min.
1 tsp All-Spice @ 3 min.
2 tsp Cinnamon @ 3 min.

Whirflock @ 5 min.

Mash @ 155F for 60 min.
Ferment @ 66F for 14 days Safale S-04
Secondary @ 66F for 14 days
Keg Age @ 66@ for 60 days.

OG 1.061
FG ~1.016
ABV 5.8%
SRM 17.3
IBUs 31.5

DSCN0917.jpg
 
This has been a big hit at our family Thanksgiving Dinner! I actually used my turkey fryer to fry a turkey too... damn it worked so well!

EDIT: Also great with a fire in the fireplace, the tree lit, baking cookies with the kids.

DSCN0927-1.jpg
 
What SRM black roasted barley are you using? Is it Roasted Barley (300) or Black Barley (500) or something else.
 
I'll try to find something close to (400). Looks pretty darn good. I haven't had many holiday beers, but I liked the ones I have had. Think I will make this soon for Thanksgiving. I bottle so I like to give beer as much time in the bottle as possible. Might have to wait until X-mas.
 
I brewed this today. Followed recipe pretty closely except I used about 12.5 lbs of pale malt instead of 10 lbs (long story) and added 2 oz of black patent since my SRM's weren't adding up to yours. Also, I could only find 350 or 500 SRM Roasted Barely so I used 350.
 
Making this again this year? I want to do a holiday porter, I think this will make a nice base to work from, thanks Pol :)
 
This looks great, Pol.
Have you done this as a no chill version? if so, did you modify the spice additions- like you would for the hops? I am looking for guidance on whether to modify the timing of the spice additions.
thanks in advance!
 
I have done it as a no chil, and no... no changes to the spice additions. I dont think the time will matter so much at high temp. Didnt taste like it mattered!
 
You can do anything you want, but it won't be the same brew. Those two grains have completely different flavour profiles.
 
its only 2oz so I doubt it will contribute much to flavor but more towards color. This will also be my first no chill brew, the cube and ingredients minus MO which I have will be here next week.
 
Just made this, this weekend missed my OG by a bit due to some propane issues, still smelled pretty good and is fermenting away in the basement now. We'll see how it turns out....
 
Brewed this bad boy up today as a partial mash and it tasted amazing! Racked into primary at 1.060. Went with 1.3tsp of cinnamon and just a pinch of ginger and scottish ale wyeast. Thanks for the recipe!
 
looks like a great recipe!

one question - are you really getting 30+ IBU's out of 1oz of Glacier?

thanks!
 
Thats a good point. My beersmith says 18.8 IBUs total. 18 for the glacier and .8 for the Williamette. I didn't pay any attention to it when I made it, it will be well balanced I think and the hops aren't the focus of the beer anyway.

My batch of this has been sitting in primary for 5 weeks now. I want to bottle it soon, so it is ready fo thanksgiving. If I wait any longer, it will have to be for christmas.
 
how long would you say this needs to sit in bottles (not including the normal bottle conditioning carbonation). Think I can get it done for thanksgiving?
 
Pol and gang, is this a beer that could possibly be used as a parti-gyle? I've been wanting to try a gyle, but am a little lost.
I've put this into beersmith, doubled the grain and hops, and kept it as a 5 gallon batch. I messed w/ the hops a bit to keep the IBU's around 19. However, the color ends up being black. I'm sure I can adjust the specialty grain to lighten it up, but was wondering if any of you had more experience with this.

I'm thinking 5 gallons of the holiday ale est. OG 1.1

then another 5 or 6 gallons of a brown or whatever this style would suggest. Any thoughts?
 
Smelled really good during the boil...spiced were scant, but were definitely noticeable while boiling. I substituted Wyeast 1028 (London ale) w/1.6L starter for the S-04, due to availability locally. I'm hoping for a nice english ale-type flavor. Fermentation was going gangbusters after about 4-6 hours.

I was tempted to add some cloves, due to my friend's preferences, but resisted the urge since I've been hearing from numerous sources that it's easy to over-clove with spiced ales. I think this is a good spice combination. Since this is my first spiced ale, it'll give me a baseline to see how I might like to adjust spices....which may not even be necessary.

Although I boiled off a little too much (down to about 4.5 gals), the OG came out at exactly 1.060. I added a smidgen of water along with the yeast starter to bring to 5 gals, and ended up with about 1.055-ish. No matter...I have high hopes for this one. Now the tough part....waiting!
 
Update: Well I cracked open my first bottle. I knew it wouldn't be ready in time for Christmas, much less Thanksgiving, but thats ok - I didn't want to share anyway. My girlfriend really digs this one, as do I. It will be better in another 3-4 weeks when the spices mellow out. The ginger (I think its the ginger) has a large presence, plus I over carbed it just a little bit (bottle conditioned).
 
I brewed this up last Saturday. It smelled and looked amazing, and the Safeale-04 took off like a rocket. Luckily I got a blow-off on all my brews, but this one was a rager. I'll let yalls know how the finished product tastes.
 
I brewed this today. The aroma was great. Should be ready the first week in December. I can't wait!
 
what changes would you make (other than upping the 2-row) to get this beer into the 7.5% ABV range? Initially I thought:

13 lb 2-row
1 lb Honey Malt
.75 lb C-120
.5 lb Caravienne - also looking for a sub for this as my lhbs doesn't have it
.2 lb Roasted Barley
.2 lb Special B

Gets OG up to 1.072 with my eff.

Would also up the IBUs to around 30 to compensate for additional grain bill.

Critiques?
 
I've got 5 gallons of this kegged and on gas now for about 3 weeks. I'm trying really hard not to tap into it until it has had some time to age and nicely.

I like that the recipe puts a mandatory 2 month age, since every beer I've made it substantially better after it has been in the keg/bottle for at least 2 months.

This stuff is going to be gold come Thanksgiving/Christmas.
 
I've been looking for a recipe for my first spiced recipe and I think this is going to be it. The hardest thing is going to be waiting for it to finish as the holidays roll around. Could anyone convert this to an extract version? I'd do it myself but I don't have my trusty beersmith available at the moment and I don't think my fermenter wants to be empty any longer.
 
Here's what Beersmith gives as an extract version, YMMV:


BeerSmith Recipe Printout - http://www.beersmith.com
Recipe: Copy of Holiday Spiced Ale
Brewer: The Pol
Asst Brewer:
Style: Spice, Herb, or Vegetable Beer
TYPE: Extract
Taste: (35.0)

Recipe Specifications
--------------------------
Batch Size: 5.30 gal
Boil Size: 6.07 gal
Estimated OG: 1.061 SG
Estimated Color: 17.1 SRM
Estimated IBU: 21.1 IBU
Brewhouse Efficiency: - %
Boil Time: 60 Minutes

Ingredients:
------------
Amount Item Type % or IBU
8.84 lb Pale Liquid Extract (8.0 SRM) Extract 85.41 %
0.35 lb Caramel/Crystal Malt -120L (120.0 SRM) Grain 4.78 %
0.35 lb Caravienne Malt (22.0 SRM) Grain 4.78 %
0.19 lb Caramel/Crystal Malt - 20L (20.0 SRM) Grain 2.55 %
0.09 lb Black Barley (Stout) (500.0 SRM) Grain 1.24 %
0.09 lb Special B Malt (180.0 SRM) Grain 1.24 %
1.00 oz Glacier [5.60 %] (60 min) Hops 17.7 IBU
1.00 oz Williamette [5.50 %] (5 min) Hops 3.5 IBU
1.00 tsp All-Spice (Boil 5.0 min) Misc
1.00 tsp Ginger Root (Boil 5.0 min) Misc
2.00 items Cinnamon Stick (Boil 5.0 min) Misc
1 Pkgs SafAle English Ale (DCL Yeast #S-04) Yeast-Ale


Mash Schedule: None
Total Grain Weight: 10.46 lb
----------------------------
Steep grains as desired (30-60 minutes)
 
I brewed a partial mash version of this last night. Here is the recipe I used:

6lbs Pale liquid malt extract
2.36 lbs 2-row
0.4 lbs crystal 120
0.4 lbs Caravienna (cara 20)
0.2 lbs Honey Malt
0.1 lbs Roast Barley (300 SRM)
0.1 lbs Special B

Same spices as the original recipe. Same yeast too.

My LHBS doesn't carry Glacier hops, so I used Williamette for both additions. My OG was 1.055, so I was a little off my target. It smelled good going into the ferementer, but my only worry is that the spices will be too much. I'll post an update after it is done ferementing.
 
I also did a partial mash this past weekend. Here's what I used:

5lbs light DME
1.5lbs 2-row
8oz. Crystal 120L
8oz. Caravienne
4oz. Honey Malt
2oz. Black Roast Barley
2oz. Special B

Same hops and yeast as the original recipe, but I did add 1tsp of nutmeg in addition to the original spices. Smelled great going into the carboy. Had an OG of 1.062. It's fermenting at 64-65* right now.

It was probably the smoothest brew day I've had yet, and had airlock activity hours after pitching, so I'm very optimistic about this. I'll post an update in a couple of months.
 
This looks great! Using it as a base for Winter Ale, Going to up the spices a bit and add a cup of molasses to the boil, well see how it goes!
 
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