12 Beers of Christmas 2022 Edition

[BAF]

Ugh, my brew day went totally awry.... I swear it's just because I'm brewing a specific beer for a specific reason.

First, I guess I didn't dial my pump back enough for my BIAB recirc, because my element looks like it was dry firing a little bit. I thought the beer seemed smokey while I was boiling it, but I kept trucking on and didn't realize the problem until after I moved the wort to the fermenter (luckily I had a false bottom in, so my bag didn't get scorched). Then, I must have bumped the valve on the fermenter when I put it in my ferm chamber. Luckily I walked by a few minutes later and caught it, only lost maybe 8 oz of wort.

So yeah, not my day. I'm still waiting for the wort to cool more before pitching the yeast (my ground water isn't very cool this time of year).

Looking for a consensus from folks though -- should I ferment this out and ship it as is, rebrew it, or drop out?

The wort tastes a touch smokey. It seems fairly subtle now... but I've never done a smoked beer before, so I'm not sure what it'll do after fermenting/conditioning.

I'm going on vacation next week, and I don't have the hops or enough wheat malt left to re-brew tomorrow. So if I do re-brew, it'll be towards the end of the month, which gives it even less time to mature.

Yea/nay on a franken-beer (as long as it turns out alright)?

 

[Hoppy2bmerry]

Well, I can’t tell you what to do, but I’ll add that according to some beer historians I’ve heard/read in the early day of malting, all malted grains were dried by the fire hence all beers had a light smoke quality. I brew a Grodziskie most years and the smoke doesn’t get stronger because of fermentation.

 

[4_Sons_Brewing]

I’ve never had a Dunkle Weizenbock, so I wouldn’t know the difference…. I don’t speak German either… so if you told me dunkle weizenbock stood for smoked beer, who am I to argue. . I wouldn’t drop out - I’m not a pro, but signed up to try a beer I hadn’t done before, get a few I hadn’t tried before and try to learn something while enjoying a few beers over the holiday season. Cheers!

 

[user 263363]

Ugh, my brew day went totally awry.... I swear it's just because I'm brewing a specific beer for a specific reason.

First, I guess I didn't dial my pump back enough for my BIAB recirc, because my element looks like it was dry firing a little bit. I thought the beer seemed smokey while I was boiling it, but I kept trucking on and didn't realize the problem until after I moved the wort to the fermenter (luckily I had a false bottom in, so my bag didn't get scorched). Then, I must have bumped the valve on the fermenter when I put it in my ferm chamber. Luckily I walked by a few minutes later and caught it, only lost maybe 8 oz of wort.

So yeah, not my day. I'm still waiting for the wort to cool more before pitching the yeast (my ground water isn't very cool this time of year).

Looking for a consensus from folks though -- should I ferment this out and ship it as is, rebrew it, or drop out?

The wort tastes a touch smokey. It seems fairly subtle now... but I've never done a smoked beer before, so I'm not sure what it'll do after fermenting/conditioning.

I'm going on vacation next week, and I don't have the hops or enough wheat malt left to re-brew tomorrow. So if I do re-brew, it'll be towards the end of the month, which gives it even less time to mature.

Yea/nay on a franken-beer (as long as it turns out alright)?

This is just my personal opinion, but unless it is an acrid taste I’d roll with it. I definitely am not scared of a little smokiness.

 

[GoodTruble]

I agree. Just run it out and see what happens. A bit of smoke flavor suits the holidays just fine.

 

[GoodTruble]

The toasted wheat for the gruit got a little more "toasted" than I expected during 30 minutes at 350F. Not burnt at all, but definitely browned. So I decided not to add a small amount of oak smoked malt I was going to add. It's such a whacky recipe anyway that it's hard to predict what impact anything will have on the final flavor. Too many ingredients I have not used before to really know how things will balance.

 

[GoodTruble]

Brewed the Gruit today. For what it's worth, the wort tasted great. That could almost be a warm holiday drink itself.

 

[user 263363]

All, I wanted to sort of give a heads up here. I brewed two different sampler versions of the Juniper Rye Braggot and I honestly think it’s just a combo that is not going to work. I believe the honey dries it out too much and the juniper sort of clashes with that.

With all this info, I’ve decided to just stick to the original recipe and do a Juniper Rye Bock. I will be brewing it next weekend to give it plenty of time to condition since it is a lager and all.

 

[4_Sons_Brewing]

I picked up the ingredients for the brown ale yesterday.

Leveraging the “Nut Brown” recipe from the HBT recipe section.

9.00 lb Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM) Grain 76.6 %
1.00 lb Caramel/Crystal Malt - 60L (60.0 SRM) Grain 8.5 %
1.00 lb Oats, Flaked (1.0 SRM) Grain 8.5 %
0.50 lb Victory Malt (25.0 SRM) Grain 4.3 %
0.25 lb Chocolate Malt (350.0 SRM) Grain 2.1 %
1.00 oz Fuggles [4.50%] (60 min) Hops 14.7 IBU
1.00 oz Goldings, East Kent [5.00%] (15 min) Hops 8.1 IBU
1 Pkgs Nottingham (Danstar #-) Yeast-Ale

I will likely cut back on the hops to only a 60 min hop addition so as not to compete with the gingerbread spices.

If anyone has experience with this recipe or the gingerbread beer I’ll take whatever feedback you might have.

 

[GoodTruble]

Has anyone ever suggested just shipping in plastic bottles? The beer will be consumed in 3 months anyway, and seeming safer/easier shipping. I have plenty of plastic bottles already (I also have plenty of glass too).

 

[Hoppy2bmerry]

Has anyone ever suggested just shipping in plastic bottles? The beer will be consumed in 3 months anyway, and seeming safer/easier shipping. I have plenty of plastic bottles already (I also have plenty of glass too).

No.

 

[j1laskey]

Has anyone ever suggested just shipping in plastic bottles? The beer will be consumed in 3 months anyway, and seeming safer/easier shipping. I have plenty of plastic bottles already (I also have plenty of glass too).

I still have some BOC from 2020 aging in my cellar

 

[JAReeves]

I have bottles and cans in my cellar as well.

 

[4_Sons_Brewing]

If worried about breakage / spillage “Jet bags” are an option. They are absorbent bags used for transporting wine on airplanes. They’re padded with something that resembles a diaper material and absorb a whole bottle of wine if it breaks in transport.

 

[Hoppy2bmerry]

One to have, one to share and one to age. I also have beer from previous years aging.

 

[JAReeves]

I vac seal mine before padding for shipping and have received bottles in gallon ziplocks.

 

[user 263363]

I second vacuum sealing. I’ve been shipping beer like that for a couple years now. I don’t worry too much because I know if one busts, it should be contained.

 

[GoodTruble]

Too early for a Christmas tree?

The Gruit is bottled (....in glass).

 

[GoodTruble]

Ship early?

My schedule is often busy, and always unpredictable.

The Gruit is brewed and bottled. I'll be home in 2 days with an unusually slow 2 weeks to follow. Can I just ship them out mid-October, or is does that violate the spirit of it all? I just don't want things to get too busy later, and I become the straggler.

Early tasting of the Gruit is.... juniper, earthy, interesting, and way drier than I expected.

 

[4_Sons_Brewing]

I don’t mind beers shipped early. - Update from me - planning to brew the brown ale / gingerbread beer this weekend. I’ve taken a few weeks off as I’ve had a busy couple of weeks, so looking forward to a brew day.

 

[4_Sons_Brewing]

The Ginger Bread Brown has been brewed. Smells amazing - the cinnamon and cloves came through strong from an aroma perspective. I’ve never used these spices in a brew before - so excited to try it. My wife (who is generally not a fan of my beers) was hanging around the garage asking what smelled so good - so I’m taking that as a good sign.

 

[GoodTimeCharlie]

Hey all,

It appears my email was temporarily blocked. Cleared that up

Anyway, just an update on the Fruit cake Old Ale. I went to bottle a couple of weeks ago. I was greater with a thin pellicle across the top. It doesn’t taste off but I don’t want to send it.

I’m rebrewing next weekend.

Looking at my work schedule, the beer schedule and the holiday season this is what I think is realistic. I just want to share here for full transparency.

Brew 8 Oct
Dried fruit around 22 or 23 Oct
Rack off 11 or 12 Nov
Bottle on the 20 or 27th. ( thoughts on how long to let it settle)
Probably able to start preparing packages that week. (28Nov to 3Dec)

The beer will not have benefited by age when received.

I apologize for that but would rather get you a better beer.

 

[user 263363]

Hey all,

It appears my email was temporarily blocked. Cleared that up

Anyway, just an update on the Fruit cake Old Ale. I went to bottle a couple of weeks ago. I was greater with a thin pellicle across the top. It doesn’t taste off but I don’t want to send it.

I’m rebrewing next weekend.

Looking at my work schedule, the beer schedule and the holiday season this is what I think is realistic. I just want to share here for full transparency.

Brew 8 Oct
Dried fruit around 22 or 23 Oct
Rack off 11 or 12 Nov
Bottle on the 20 or 27th. ( thoughts on how long to let it settle)
Probably able to start preparing packages that week. (28Nov to 3Dec)

The beer will not have benefited by age when received.

I apologize for that but would rather get you a better beer.

I’m sure I speak for most that I appreciate the transparency and no worries. I’d rather get it later than most than never at all.

Did you taste the infected batch? With such a beer as this I’m just curious how it might have tasted.

 

[GoodTimeCharlie]

It tasted dry and with a winter warmer characteristic. Lots of fruit with Cherry most prominent.

I think the reconstituted liquid that I simmered down to a syrup and the treacle I added dried it out. Rebrew will be the base recipe unaltered.

It wasn’t bad. I’m not sure it tasted like an old ale. I’ll likely still bottle it and try it again.

 

[GoodTruble]

@GoodTimeCharlie - Sorry, I should have included as my final piece of advice "don't listen to me."

The gruit also finished pretty dry. I think it works though.

 

[GoodTruble]

2 good news, 1 bad news.

First good news, I opened my first bottle of gruit, and it tastes great. Like a juniper, spiced wheat. Almost exactly what I was going for (and not as dry as I worried).

Bad news, after tasting I noticed two floaters in the glass. They were unlike anything I'd seen before. They looked (sorry to be gross) like two little loogies hovering near but not on the surface. This concerned me very much so I grabbed a flashlight to inspect the rest of the bottles.

Second good news, only one other bottle had these (and I will continue to check all of them every few days). So, I think the rest are good (unless something changes).

I don't know what to make of the two bottles. They were both flip tops that I made for myself as keepers/testers, and they have may have been leftover bottles from the week before that I cleaned and left sealed but did not re-clean when bottling the gruit. I DID clean all the regular capped bottles (including the ones going to you guys) immediately before bottling. But when filling my testers at the end, I ran out and just got tired and lazy and used a few bottles leftover from the week before (flip tops that had been sealed all week). However, even those tasted fine, carb was fine (a tad low if anything), smell was fine, and it wasn't dry. So if it was some kind of infection, it wasn't something that ruined the beer (and we'll see if I get sick tonight =c) ).

Another potential theory: the gruit has all kinds of weird ingredients, and my tester bottles all came at the end, pulling up more trub stuff off the bottom. So maybe this just some gunk from the trub that didn't really make any difference (good truble if you will).

Regardless, I'll keep checking the other bottles with a flashlight every few days. This stuff was not subtle/hard to spot once you knew to look for it. If it starts popping up in regular bottles, I will quickly rebrew. I'll go ahead and re-order the "weird" ingredients so they're here if I need them.

But otherwise, I'm happy with the gruit. I think most beer-people would immediately identify it as a gruit (in a good way).

 

[j1laskey]

Brewing the Caramel Quad tomorrow. Started the starter last night. Will ferment with WLP550.

 

[4_Sons_Brewing]

I took a hydrometer reading yesterday, (appears to be about done at 1.012) and gave the sample a taste. The spices are certainly shining, through. Leaving in the fermenter for another week or so… bumping the temp up a couple degrees to let the yeast clean up then will crash and keg. Excited to finish this one and give it a try.

 

[TBC]

Brewed the IPA this weekend. Have to order the candied ginger tonight. My label game is really slacking this year. I’ll be in touch within the next week or so to collect your addresses.

can’t wait to try this years versions!

 

[GoodTruble]

Yeah, I'm ready to ship whenever. Preferably before my schedule gets hectic again. Do we just direct message addresses?