Christmas/Winter Ale Recipe Help

[brackbrew]

Help!

My wife's family is requesting a christmas-y/winter ale for our usual Christmas Night gift exchange. My mom always makes an incredible cranberry relish that I thought I could rack a basic beer on top of (and maybe add some cinnamon and/or nutmeg) to create a pretty good holiday ale. Here is the cranberry relish recipe:

1 12oz. Bag of cranberries
1 Apple (whole)
1 Orange (whole w/ rind)
1 Cup sugar

My question is what kind of beer do I brew (grains, hops, yeast?) to rack on top of that, and how do I scale the cranberry relish up (how much of that should I have in the secondary)?

I'm looking to brew this on Saturday. ANY help or input would be INCREDIBLE!!!

Thanks and have a happy Thanksgiving!!!

 

[Flywheel]

My first thought was a Kölsch (good kit from NB). The lightness would make the color of the cranberries/orages come through. But perhaps you're looking for something darker.

 

[brackbrew]

Yeah, I was thinking of something of a dark amber or a light brown, with a decent body...

 

[electric_beer]

Do you like Belgian beers or something more basic?

A tasty Northern Brown Ale:
8lbs Marris Otter
1lb Carmel 60
12oz Munich
4oz Chocolate
4oz Carmel 90
3oz Special B

FWH - Fuggles (18 IBU)
30min - Fuggles (7 IBU)

OG - 1.051 FG 1.012 SRM 18

Something Belgian would be a more simple grain bill:
10lbs Pilsner
2lbs D2 dark candi syrup

As for hops maybe:
60 min - Styrian Goldings (16 IBU)
30 min - Saaz (5 IBU)

Hope this helps.

 

[brackbrew]

I guess I should also say I'll be using a partial mash method for the beer...

 

[jtkratzer]

This is something I have going now that could be tweaked:

3.3 lbs. Plain Amber Malt Extract
2 lbs. Plain Amber Dry Malt Extract
8 oz. Crushed Crystal Malt
1 oz. Willamette Hops (Bittering @ boil)
1oz Cascade at 30 minutes
1 oz. Willamette Hops (Finishing @ Flame Out)

Spices:
1 whole clove (2-3 teaspoons of ground)
4 cinnamon sticks broken into pieces, not ground
1 whole nutmeg, smashed (or 2 tsp ground)
1.5 oz freshly ground ginger

5 lbs chopped tart Granny Smith green apples
(stem and stickers removed, whole apples dunked in sanitizer, then chopped. I used an apple slicer that removes the core, and then cut the slices again to fit into the carboy. I also left the skin on the slices)

64 oz Apple cider (no preservatives, might need to buy organic) added to secondary
2 lbs Honey added to secondary

Nottingham ale yeast (dry packet)


You could swap the relish for the apples and maybe use a splash of cranberry juice instead of cider. Where in Lancaster are you? I was going to hit the homebrewer's club meeting tonight for the first time, but I had plans already. I'll shoot for next month.

 

[brackbrew]

So do you think 5lbs worth of the cranberry relish? I'd worry about having 5 cups of table sugar in that when I rack the beer onto it...

 

[jtkratzer]

So do you think 5lbs worth of the cranberry relish? I'd worry about having 5 cups of table sugar in that when I rack the beer onto it...

No idea...I just thought I'd give you something I have going that you could use as a base to tweak as far as what grains/extracts and spices I'm using for a holiday beer.

 

[indigi]

If you're bottling, I'm really skeptical it'll be ready for Christmas. You're going to want to let it sit on the fruit/relish for quite some time to make sure the yeast have eaten up all the available sugars (avoiding bottle bombs) and extracted as much flavor as possible. In any case, five pounds of the relish wouldn't be too much at all. Personally I'd take a simple dubbel recipe and go with that.

 

[electric_beer]

So do you think 5lbs worth of the cranberry relish? I'd worry about having 5 cups of table sugar in that when I rack the beer onto it...

Just on impulse I'd say 5 cups would be fine in a Belgian (just lessen the rest of the total sugar so its only 15-20% of the grain bill INCLUDING the 5 cups). It might even make for a really interesting beer.

MAYBE in an English style. Sugar will dry a beer out, so something with a fair amount of crystal or a higher mash temp to keep the FG a little higher.

There aren't any preservatives in her recipe, right?

As for partial mash that's easy. Just replace the base malt with DME or LME until you hit your numbers. Roughly half of the listed amounts for extract. Pilsner for the Belgian and Golden Light Extract for the (if you can fine an english variety even better) Brown Ale.