Winter Seasonal Beer Holly (Christmas Ale)

[xxR4fterm4nxx]

That sounds awesome! Tell us how it tastes. I'd be curious to know how it aged.


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[Bradthoc]

Ive got another case of this stuff that I brewed in September last year sitting in storage that I completely forgot about!! Time to open in up and see whats crackin!!

I've got one left from my 11/2012 batch. Trying to save it until December of this year to open and see!


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[shortyz]

I've got one left from my 11/2012 batch. Trying to save it until December of this year to open and see!


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beer BONER

 

[justineaton]

Looks good, I will put it on my list and hope I remember around Christmas time.

 

[shoshin]

jmo88, thanks so much for sharing this recipe. I just brewed my 4th batch of this recipe. The first was possibly the best beer I've ever made. This is now a seasonal in my recipe arsenal

 

[saskd]

This recipe looks great and I'd love to make it my Christmas brew this year. My problem is that it's not very likely I'll have time to do an all grain batch anytime soon. To me it looks like it would be pretty easy to convert this recipe to extract. Replace the pale malt with extra light extract and the wheat malt with wheat extract and steep the rest of the grains. Does that sound right? Am I missing anything? I can do a full boil so the hop schedule should stay the same.

 

[saskd]

this brew is by far one of my favs, ive only brewed 4 times but this one kills it. Incase anyones doing some extract brewing i replaced the 13lbs of 2 row with 6.25lb of extract. Abv worked out to like 7.1, a little lower then original recipe but i think its good. Could probably kick the extract up a bit to bring the abv up i guess.

Oh on another note i added some brown sugar after primary, no idea why i did this but its good lol

The spice tea makes this beer glorious! next brew i might go with 2 fresh vanilla beans because i found the vanilla is a little hidden behind the orange zest.

Bottled this and popped the first one a week later (couldnt resist) Decent carb, so i bet in 3 weeks itll be awsome.

I missed your post when I first read through this thread. Glad to here the extract version worked out. What did you do about the wheat? Did you steep it, use wheat extract or just leave it out?

 

[Just-a-sip]

Gonna be making this in a few weeks. Sonits ready by Christmas cant wait

 

[saskd]

Brewed my extract version last night, dialed it back a bit to 1.070 OG. I replaced the pale malt with LME and the wheat with a little wheat DME. I'm going to let it sit in primary for about 4 weeks before bottling with the spice tea. I can already tell this is going to be a good one.

 

[PawtucketPat]

Question for those who have kegged this beer - When do you do your aging? Do you just age in the kegerator? At room temp? I am planning to bottle off the keg. Could I do that and then let it age (without priming sugar)?

Thanks.


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[atimmerman88]

Question for those who have kegged this beer - When do you do your aging? Do you just age in the kegerator? At room temp? I am planning to bottle off the keg. Could I do that and then let it age (without priming sugar)?

Thanks.


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I brewed this last year. Boiled 9/2. Bottle it 9/27.

Was close to ready at thanskgiving. Got great at Xmas. Is top notch now. Mine was a tad higher OG around 1.08


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[atimmerman88]

Multiple

 

[PawtucketPat]

What I mean with respect to aging and kegging is at what stage in the process does the aging occur? I have never brewed anything with spices before. The procedure for bottling seems to be primary, maybe secondary, make tea, add tea at bottle time, age in bottles anywhere from 2 weeks to a year.

To keg I am imagining primary, maybe secondary, make tea, add tea at kegging time. What happens next? In the kegerator on gas for aging? Or room temperature? I guess the real question is: Does the beer temp matter while the aging and mellowing occurs? My guess is no, but I was hoping that someone with experience in kegging spiced beers would chime in.

I am planning to brew this next weekend for Christmas so I was thinking something like 2 week primary, 4 week secondary, add tea, 8 weeks in kegerator, bottle for gifts in early Dec.

Thanks.

 

[atimmerman88]

What I mean with respect to aging and kegging is at what stage in the process does the aging occur? I have never brewed anything with spices before. The procedure for bottling seems to be primary, maybe secondary, make tea, add tea at bottle time, age in bottles anywhere from 2 weeks to a year.



To keg I am imagining primary, maybe secondary, make tea, add tea at kegging time. What happens next? In the kegerator on gas for aging? Or room temperature? I guess the real question is: Does the beer temp matter while the aging and mellowing occurs? My guess is no, but I was hoping that someone with experience in kegging spiced beers would chime in.



I am planning to brew this next weekend for Christmas so I was thinking something like 2 week primary, 4 week secondary, add tea, 8 weeks in kegerator, bottle for gifts in early Dec.



Thanks.

You can store kegs at cellar temps or refrigerated. The prolonged cold storage will clear the beer faster than warmer temps, but with long term storage that's not an issue.

I can't say I've seen an improvement in cold stored kegs vs cellar temps except for a difference in co2 usage. More gas for warm storage for the de volumes of co2.

Why not just bottle now if your planning on bottling later and skip the hassle and risk of oxidation ?




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[PawtucketPat]

Fair point. I don't want the yeast in the bottles. I'm planning to give these to non-homebrewers and I don't want to explain to everyone how to pour, etc. I want people to just enjoy the beer how they want to, like they would with a commercial beer.


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[atimmerman88]

Gotcha. I understand you there.

There are several bottle techniques outlined on here that should give drinkers a few good weeks maybe even months to enjoy your beer


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[atimmerman88]

Last years version which was the OPs recipe

Will be brewing again...

I think I'm going to try and get some more body in it.

Has anyone used a different yeast strain? Thinking either an English style or a Belgian style?

Thoughs


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[plankbr]

I made this batch again on Sunday. 10 gallons. I added 3 lbs of local raw honey and should clock in @ ~8.9%. This recipe was a huge hit last year. Props to the OP for sharing this awesome recipe!

 

[Geirfuglinn]

Hello all I have been reading through a lot of this thread as i think this recipe sounds great and I would love to have a tasty beer for Christmas. The one thing I could not find much out about though is if this beer kegs well. I read about everyone bottling, where I was intending to put it in a corny. Do the flavours/ spices come out right that way? Or would I also have to try my hand at bottling....

 

[DagoBrewer]

Hello all I have been reading through a lot of this thread as i think this recipe sounds great and I would love to have a tasty beer for Christmas. The one thing I could not find much out about though is if this beer kegs well. I read about everyone bottling, where I was intending to put it in a corny. Do the flavours/ spices come out right that way? Or would I also have to try my hand at bottling....

I would say take the time to bottle and let it sit a coule months, at least! Last year I brewed this and tried one after a month in the bottle and the spices were still very up front. I brewed it in late august and mid December it was amazing!! I missed it this year but I think next year I may even brew it in may or june. Time is your friend on this one! This beer gets better as it ages.

 

[Geirfuglinn]

Thanks **** It is a shame though, would have liked it for this Christmas...

 

[plankbr]

You still have plenty of time to brew this for Christmas...

 

[GilSwillBasementBrews]

I kegged this beer and the flavor was pretty much consistent through the whole keg.


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[BrewCityBaller]

Last year I brewed this in the middle of October and it was still plenty enjoyable by Christmas. I will say though that it hit it's peak closer to January.

I brewed this year's batch last weekend so I expect it to be spot on for Christmas this year.

 

[Rockn_M]

I brewed this a few weeks ago and will be kegging it in about a week. I am very excited to try this during the Holidays!

 

[DagoBrewer]

Thanks **** It is a shame though, would have liked it for this Christmas...

It seems that plenty of people have had no problem kegging this beer. And there is still time to have this ready by december!

 

[plankbr]

Bottled this today! Gonna be hard to wait till December to drink it.

 

[Bradthoc]

Bottled this today! Gonna be hard to wait till December to drink it.

It's worth it. The spices really do well with age. Have one left from 2012 I plan to open over the holidays. Cheers!


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[saskd]

Bottled this today! Gonna be hard to wait till December to drink it.

No kidding. I kegged mine a week ago and it would be so easy to go take a sample. I'm trying to wait at least three weeks before I try it, but it's really testing my patience.

 

[kptnkmn]

Wow, five years after the original post and this thread is still alive and kickin! Might need to get on it and brew a batch, something to actually look forward to this holiday season. I say screw the cookies and milk, leave a pint of THIS out for Santa!