Boulevard Chocolate Ale Recipe

[Marc77]

Resurrecting this thread once more since the 2014 edition came out. Honestly, I didn't even like this years but it did make me go to Boulevard's site. They have some details on their site:

Color (EBC) 41
Bitterness (IBUs) 24
Original Gravity (Plato) 20
Terminal Gravity (Plato) 4
Alcohol (ABV) 9.1%

Chocolate Ale is full of surprises, beginning with a glowing amber hue. The aroma is given over to earthy, fruity cocoa, with just a hint of hops. Smooth layers of dark chocolate intertwine with threads of caramel, vanilla, and nutty malt as the flavor warms and rounds to a bittersweet finish.

Ingredients
Malt: Pale Malt, Caracrystal Wheat, Simpsons Honey Naked Oats
Adjuncts: Dextrose
Hopserle
Other: Cacao Nibs

Because of this I put together a recipe using just those ingredients.

OG - 1.083
FG - 1.021
ABV - 8.15%
SRM 20.21
IBU - 23.75
Batch size - 11 gallons

22.5 lbs 2-row
8 lbs CaraCrystal Wheat Malt
1 lbs Golden Naked Wheat
2 lbs Dextrose

Hop schedule
3 oz total
1 oz - 60 min
1 oz - 30 min
1 oz - 15 min

Yeast
American Ale 1056

Cacao nibs roasted, added to small amount of vodka, crushed and some vanilla added. Then added to the primary/secondary.

I have no idea if this is way out of left field, kinda close or what. But with what I got I figured I'd take a stab at it. This would be my first time putting together a recipe so....thoughts?

 

[c0bra]

so....thoughts?

If you're shooting for a straight clone of the 2014 version, then I would personally make some adjustments. Did you just want to add some vanilla flavor/aroma, or did you detect some? To me the beer seems like a very clean almost barleywine but with very little hop character and almost no malt character, just a tad. But I had a cold, so there you go.

I would drop the vanilla and only do bittering hops. It seems to me like they're using the alcohol as a solvent and stripping the nibs in secondary. If it's lacking anything then you can adjust upwards on another go-around.

 

[dbals]

So I contacted them sometime ago and it took months to get a response, they gave my the recipe for Tank 7, but they did respond:

"The malt bill is amazingly simple. We just use Pale Malt and a bit of Crystal Wheat to get the color and slight nuttiness. We don't add any roasted or chocolate malts. This beer is a vehicle for showcasing the flavor from the nibs. In crafting this beer we all agreed that lots of chocolate beers seem to use the chocolate as an afterthought (chocolate porters/stouts, etc) so we wanted to design a beer that would allow the cocoa to shine.

You're spot on for gravity, but we look for 30 IBUS in the finished product. All of the hops are added within the first 15 minutes of the boil, so I'd go with whatever you normally use for bittering. And you're correct with the nibs. We add them like we would add dry hops near the end of fermentation. Also, we fermented with a Scottish strain. It's very alcohol tolerant, highly flocculant, and contributes some subtle fruity notes to the beer."


Hope this helps,
Dan

 

[c0bra]

Figuring out the pounds per gallon on the nibs...

This article: http://www.kansascity.com/2014/01/22/4770255/boulevard-brewing-is-bringing.html says that Boulevard made 2,800 6th barrel kegs, that's 467 barrels. They also made 9200 cases at 12 bottles per case, 750 ml per bottle = 82800000 ml = 694 barrels.

The article also says 3,000 lbs of nibs. 3000 lbs per 1161 barrels =~ 2.6 lbs per barrel = 0.084 lbs per gallon = 1.3 oz of nibs per gallon, or 6.7 oz per 5-gallon batch. Sound about right?

 

[Marc77]

That's the thing with the chocolate ale, to me all 3 times it's been made it's tasted different. I loved the first year, it tasted like a hersey's chocolate bar but in a beer.

I wondered if they didn't let the nibs shine. From what I read I'm guessing the nibs were either super rare, super expensive or both.


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew

 

[boxerbrews]

Rise from your grave old thread...

Well, I brewed up my attempt at a clone of this with some help from the wonderful staff at Boulevard. The Wyeast Scottish strain is a boss and it munched its way right past my target gravity of 1.016. I had much better efficiency than I usually get and ended up with a much higher OG than anticipated @ 1.082.

1.090 OG
1.014 FG

It’s only been 5 days since pitching, so there is still some cleanup the yeasties need to do and then I’ll add my nibs. The sample tasted pretty good though.

I’ll probably bottle in another week or so and add a tiny amount of champagne yeast to help the stressed Scottish yeast carb up. It’ll likely need a couple months in bottles before it is sufficiently conditioned.

When it’s ready, I’ll post a photo.

 

[dbals]

Please let us know!

 

[boxerbrews]

I’ll get a photo posted later tonight.

If anyone is in the KC area and wants a 22oz bomber, I could part ways with about 3-4 of them. No way in heck I can drink an entire batch all to myself.

PM and we can arrange a public place to meet.

 

[boxerbrews]

Nice bit of chocolate on the nose with hints of bready malt and a definite presence of alcohol warmth.

Chocolate first and foremost at first taste. Quickly fades to the base beer malt profile and finishes with a sweet dough character coupled with the warming alcohol. I think I inderpitched slightly, so there’s a tiny hint of stressed yeast in there, but you’re average Joe won’t get that at all.

Happy overall with it. It’ll be fun to see how it ages.

*stupid sideways phone picture*

 

[dbals]

Could you post your final recipe? thanks