Christmas Ale progress

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brewmaster27

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Well, it's been about 4 days since I started fermenting my Christmas Ale, a recipe which is sort of a conglomeration of other comparable recipes I've seen online.

The original gravity was 1.064, so it's a fairly high gravity brew (there's honey in there), and today the gravity was 1.032, but still plenty of action going on in the primary.

I tasted some of the unfinished beer, and its citrusy, not as malty as I would expect, but very bitter... too bitter in fact. The ginger is very apparent right now, but I assume that flavor will mellow out once the fermentation nears completion. If I made this again, I'd probably use a different hop, or perhaps, use Chinook (very high alpha acid %) for about half the time I steeped it in this ale.

Anyway, I was wondering if I aged this in a secondary for a while if some of the hop bitterness would subside over time, or will it pretty much stay the way it is in terms of bitterness? If it stays the way it is, I'm sure people will drink it anyway, but it will probably linger around the house for a while.

Other than the overwhelming bitterness, there are no other off flavors to speak of (none which I perceive yet anyway).
 
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