Having just survived the 2015 holidays, I've already started thinking about the next, and what homebrew my relatives might be drinking on Xmas Eve 2016...I know this past year I wished I had more ready and on tap!
And with all this thought of holiday beers, it occurred to me: I think it's about time to resurrect the HBT 12 Beers of Christmas!
For those who may have not seen or been aware of past threads, this is a shared brew project that is based on a series of recipes in Randy Mosher's book Radical Brewing. 12 homebrewers each brew one of these beers, and then send three of them to each of the 11 other brewers.
The project was first proposed by rhoadsrage in 2011, and was run again in 2012 and 2013. I was part of the first two iterations, first as a participant and then as organizer in 2012, but life got in the way in 2013, so I was unable to participate that last year. For the past 2 years, it seemed no one (including myself) was motivated enough to try and organize things. This year, I want to get it back up and running!
I'm going to borrow a bit from danbrewtan's original post from 2013 for some of the following details:
Here's the general concept:
Shipping:
Choosing What You Want to Brew:
How to not be a d*u$hb@g:
Here is the list of Beers:
(Having really enjoyed the Fruitcake Old Ale in prior years, and having wanted to brew it for quite some time now, I'm claiming that one to start...)
1) Caramel Quadrupel
2) Spiced Cherry Dubbel
3) Spiced Dunkel Weizenbock
4) Juniper Rye Bock
5) Fruitcake Old Ale (biochemedic)
6) Saffron Tripel
7) Christmas Gruit
8) Honey Ginger IPA
9) Crabapple Lambicky Ale
10) Gingerbread Ale (Teromous)
11) Spiced Bourbon Stout
12) Abbey Weizen
Sorry for the long winded post, and especially for the downer parts! This project really is tons of fun, and I hope we all have as much joy out of it this year as I have had in previous!
Brew on!
.
And with all this thought of holiday beers, it occurred to me: I think it's about time to resurrect the HBT 12 Beers of Christmas!
For those who may have not seen or been aware of past threads, this is a shared brew project that is based on a series of recipes in Randy Mosher's book Radical Brewing. 12 homebrewers each brew one of these beers, and then send three of them to each of the 11 other brewers.
The project was first proposed by rhoadsrage in 2011, and was run again in 2012 and 2013. I was part of the first two iterations, first as a participant and then as organizer in 2012, but life got in the way in 2013, so I was unable to participate that last year. For the past 2 years, it seemed no one (including myself) was motivated enough to try and organize things. This year, I want to get it back up and running!
I'm going to borrow a bit from danbrewtan's original post from 2013 for some of the following details:
Here's the general concept:
- 12 different brewers will brew one of the 12 beers of Christmas found in Randy's Mosher's Radical Brewing.
- If you don't have the book, can't borrow it, etc., I can PM the recipe to you.
- Each brewer sends out three 12oz bottles of their beer to the 11 other brewers (33 bottles sent out in total) and receives 3 bottles of each recipe in return. Maybe you drink one, share one, and age the third!?
- Some of these are fairly big beers, and need some time and aging to be optimal, so planning and brewing early can be critical. If you're bottle conditioning, be ready to bottle in time, etc. Also, one of the beers (Juniper Rye Bock) is a lager, so a brewer with a lagering fridge will be needed for that one.
Shipping:
- It will cost you some money to send out 11 packages! Getting involved in this project means you'll eventually need to wrap up 11 packages with 3 beers each, and mail them potentially all the way across the country from where you live. You may be looking at about $120 in shipping give or take (but you're getting 33 fancy Christmas beers!).
- With this in mind, it has been historically a necessity to require that all brewers will need to be located inside the continental U.S.
- If you can accept packages at a business address, that will save your fellow brewers some money. (For some reason, the big shippers charge less to deliver to a business address...)
- Speaking of the big shippers, generally if you show up at UPS or FedEx with a well packed, sealed box, they don't ask questions. Technically you aren't supposed to ship liquids via USPS, but in prior years some participants have shipped using Flat Rate boxes from the post office, and haven't had any issues.
- Shipping will need to occur the week after Thanksgiving (this year, that's the week of Nov 27th thru Dec 3rd.)
- For reference: In 2012, I posted some (admittedly perhaps overkill) instructions for packaging a 12 oz longneck for shipping, and also a post with some common box sizes that work well for shipping 3 wrapped/bagged longnecks.
Choosing What You Want to Brew:
- We'll use the same system as previous years: first come first served (with the noted restrictions below...)
- Reply to this thread if you're interested and let us know which beer you want to brew.
- As beers are claimed, I will update this post with the brewer's name next to their selection.
How to not be a d*u$hb@g:
- As much as it pains me to post this part, the simple fact is that, every single year this project has been run, there has been at least one brewer who has simply up and vanished, and at times has been shipped homebrew in good faith before their disappearance has become apparent.
- After looking over the threads from past years again, I have noted that without fail, the MIA brewers have been both
- Unpaid members
- Members for much less than 1 year
- Based on this, I wish to request that all participants be either relatively established HBT members (more than a year since joining) *or* be a paid (Supporting or Lifetime) member.
- Communicate! If for some reason you have to back out, own up to it ASAP, and hopefully allow a replacement brewer to step in.
Here is the list of Beers:
(Having really enjoyed the Fruitcake Old Ale in prior years, and having wanted to brew it for quite some time now, I'm claiming that one to start...)
1) Caramel Quadrupel
2) Spiced Cherry Dubbel
3) Spiced Dunkel Weizenbock
4) Juniper Rye Bock
5) Fruitcake Old Ale (biochemedic)
6) Saffron Tripel
7) Christmas Gruit
8) Honey Ginger IPA
9) Crabapple Lambicky Ale
10) Gingerbread Ale (Teromous)
11) Spiced Bourbon Stout
12) Abbey Weizen
Sorry for the long winded post, and especially for the downer parts! This project really is tons of fun, and I hope we all have as much joy out of it this year as I have had in previous!
Brew on!
.
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May have to pony up the bucks to become a supporting or lifetime HBT member to participate...Will try and remember to check back in here once my brewing skills get a bit sharper..
