First barleywine recipe

[Ari]

Hey all,
I brewed some bigger 1.080ish beers before but this is a first. Thinking a malt forward barleywine that gets a solid year of age. Possibley introduce some brettanomyces in secondary of bottling, but maybe not.
Here's what I'm thinking
3 gallons finished
1.1 og
1.027 fg
6lbs 2row
5lbs maris otter
2lbs munich 10l
1oz roasted barley or black patent

planning to mash 145-155 40 minutes each then mash out 168

bitter to 55-60ibus and throw in a few oz of cascades near the end.
Thinking low 60's with s05 or s04(wy1099) for a few weeks then secondary for about 6 months Oak cubes?

give a name like 'old saggy'

thanks,
Ari

 

[JKaranka]

Keep it very simple, that works very well with barley wines (I prefer the British ones, the American ones tend to be maltier double IPAs as far as I can tell). In this one you suggest four types of malt, oak cubes, adding brett, and a fairly characteristic finishing hop (cascade).

I did one that turned ok with maris otter, invert sugar and just a small amount of chocolate malt. Depending how dry you want the finish you can stick to just pale malt (100% pale is a good base for British style barley wines) or dry it up with some golden syrup, or go the other way and bring some less fermentable malt. I've used oak before and you want to keep it very very restrained, just to go with the malts and yeast rather than over power them. Another thing: after a year in bottle, a lot of the hop aroma will go. If you want to finish up with cascade, I'd rather add it around the 15-10m mark than later on.

Playing along, my first idea was along the lines of (3g, OG 1.088, IBU ~55)

- 5lbs American 2 row
- 5lbs British Maris Otter
- 1/2oz Black patent

60m boil:
60m - 1/2oz Magnum
10m - 1oz Cascade, 2oz East Kent Goldings.

I've never got my hands on American 2 row barley, but by everything I've drunk it's much more neutral than any British equivalent, so half that with half regular Maris Otter should give you a nice malty backbone with some flavour. The black patent is there for colour, as you won't notice much of it. If you want flavour, replace the black patent for 4-5oz of amber malt for some nuttiness, or 2oz of chocolate malt. The hops are there for a balanced floral twang.

If I went the brett route I would skip the late additions altogether and just stick in an ounce of magnum for bittering. Just let the fruit flavours of the brett shine. That said, the most crucial to the barley wine would be the choice of yeast. I'd go for Nottingham for something widely available and with a dry finish. You really don't want it to finish too sweet.

 

[JKaranka]

That said, you could make a XIXth century XXX mild, which is where modern barley wines come from. Something like:

9lbs pale malt
1/2lbs invert sugar
1/4lbs brown malt

Hop up to 60 IBU with an addition at 60m and another at 30m or 20m. You can find quite a few recipes in Shut up about barclay perkins if you're interested in that kind of thing...

 

[Ari]

Thanks for the advice. I was thinking the cascades would just ad a little resin texture and probably not much flavor or scent. What do you think about the munich? I do enjoy the flavor it adds but maybe I could reduce or not use it. I would use some nottingham but I'd like to use something I have on hand. I have the us05 and 1099 already as well as wlp090 and I don't think anything else that's really appropriate.

5lb 2-row
5lb MO
.5lb pale chocolate
1/2oz black patent

I was also thinking that I would reduce the first runnings to a syrup instead of using any caramel malts. Otherwise I do have 20, 40, 80 and 120l in my closet.
thanks again for the advice and the source!
-Ari

 

[Ari]

I may go with the single shot of hops too. It's wine after all

 

[JKaranka]

I think it's fun when it's radically simple! I always struggle, being used to adding lots of hops to recipes. Pale chocolate sounds good in that! You won't need the black patent unless you want to darken it. Another thing you can do is to use a longer boil, like 90m. Some of the old recipes have crazy stuff, like just pale malt and a 240m boil. That must caramelize some wort!

 

[Ari]

Here's what I ended up making
6lbs maris otter
3lbs 2-row
2lb munich
1lbflaked barley
.25lb black patent

1.5oz simcoe 60min
1.5ozsimcoe 5min

got 3 gallons of 1.085 wort and boiled it down to 1.090ish
I only used the first runnings.

Pitched half a pack of bry-97 and the batch that got the other half is blowing off into the barleywine. It's kinda like a mix between american and english style. I'll give it a month then put it in secondary for a while.

 

[JKaranka]

Sounds good, what colour are you expecting it to be with the patent malt? That good dash of simcoe will give it a bit of zing (don't expect it to be an IPA after 6 months, though!). Sounds like it's going to have a pretty heavy mouthfeel with all that malt and flaked barley, which isn't a bad thing.

 

[Ari]

I figured it would get into brown ale color territory. Definitely a heavy beer and it looks like the ibus are gonna be in the 100+ range.

 

[JKaranka]

Sounds like you are reviving stock ale!