How did your homebrew do at Christmas?

[MBasile]

*By "Christmas" I mean whatever winter holiday you celebrate...

I'm sure many of you brought homebrew to Christmas, so how did it go over? The older generations of my family are the "Wine is good, beer is trash" folks but everyone that tried my Cherry Stout and spiced holiday "Festivus Ale" loved it! And they didn't just say they loved it, I saw no full glasses.

Oh, and I kept the IPA under wraps for the younger family members that I knew actually liked IPA's

 

[motobrewer]

my holiday brew sucks, lol. just kind of bitter (from bitter orange peel, not hops) and the spices didn't go together at all.

0.5 oz bitter orange peel
0.5 oz ground dried ginger (freshly-ground dried ginger)
0.25 tsp ground nutmeg
1.0 tsp ground cinnamon

7 lb dme
0.5 lb caramunich II
0.2 lb honey malt

1oz amarillo at 60

not good...

 

[brrman]

I had no beer on tap this Christmas ... Had some leftover bottled Oktoberfest that went over well though.

 

[Mista_Sparkle]

I got the comment "I dont like beer I can eat."

It was a red ale...

He went back to drinking miller chill

 

[KYB]

I brought 2 kegs, one Kentucky Common and one Irish Red, and my family killed them both.

 

[IrregularPulse]

I will find out tomorrow on New Years. I'm very excited. about 10-15 people at our party and I'll be serving 10G of Simcoe Blonde and 5G of Orfy''s Mild.

 

[veeellgee]

The bastards wiped me out! Emptied 5G of Graff's cider as well as the remaining wheatbeer and IPA bottles... I think I stashed one IPA away in the back of the fridge for later tho'

 

[EoinMag]

I emptied a 5 imp gallon King Keg of an APA I made, 5.9% and I got rid of 20l of a brown ale at 4% that went down nicely as a session ale. In all very little BMC was drunk between us.

 

[MBasile]

my holiday brew sucks, lol. just kind of bitter (from bitter orange peel, not hops) and the spices didn't go together at all.

0.5 oz bitter orange peel
0.5 oz ground dried ginger (freshly-ground dried ginger)
0.25 tsp ground nutmeg
1.0 tsp ground cinnamon

7 lb dme
0.5 lb caramunich II
0.2 lb honey malt

1oz amarillo at 60

not good...

The recipe I used was from Papazian's The Complete Joy of Home Brewing. It used sweet orange peel and no nutmeg. It went over pretty well but had too much of a ginger kick at the beginning. I managed to save one bottle of it, so I'm going to see how it tastes after more aging.

Recipe Specifications
--------------------------
Batch Size: 5.00 gal
Boil Size: 5.72 gal
Estimated OG: 1.058 SG
Estimated Color: 14.3 SRM
Estimated IBU: 39.4 IBU
Brewhouse Efficiency: - %
Boil Time: 60 Minutes

Ingredients:
------------
Amount Item % or IBU
7 lbs Pale Liquid Extract (8.0 SRM) 78.87 %
12.0 oz Caramel/Crystal Malt - 20L (20.0 SRM) 8.45 %
2.0 oz Black (Patent) Malt (500.0 SRM) 1.41 %
35.44 gm Amarillo Gold [8.60 %] (60 min) 38.8 IBU
14.18 g Saaz [3.90 %] (2 min) 0.6 IBU
0.75 oz Orange Peel, Sweet (Boil 10.0 min)
1.00 oz Ginger Root (fresh grated) (Boil 10.0 min)
10.00 g Cinnamon Stick (Boil 10.0 min)
1 lbs Honey (1.0 SRM) 11.27 %

 

[Shooter]

I got the comment "I dont like beer I can eat."

It was a red ale...

He went back to drinking miller chill

Sounds to me like he doesn't like beer period!

 

[motobrewer]

if i brew a holiday ale again, it will be sans-nutmeg, swap bitter for sweet orange peel, and bump the cinnamon to 2 tsp. ginger level seemed to be ok. maybe a small amount of flavor/aroma hopping, ala east kent or williamette.

i'm very disappointed. I'll have 3 live taps for our NYE party tomorrow, and all 3 are gross! holiday ale, lacto-infected porter, and a commercial light lager from a very local brewpub that I'm not a terrible fan of. the only reason I have it is because my wife's uncle works there. I hadn't had it before ordering. I figured how bad could it be?

 

[EoinMag]

if i brew a holiday ale again, it will be sans-nutmeg, swap bitter for sweet orange peel, and bump the cinnamon to 2 tsp. ginger level seemed to be ok. maybe a small amount of flavor/aroma hopping, ala east kent or williamette.

i'm very disappointed. I'll have 3 live taps for our NYE party tomorrow, and all 3 are gross! holiday ale, lacto-infected porter, and a commercial light lager from a very local brewpub that I'm not a terrible fan of. the only reason I have it is because my wife's uncle works there. I hadn't had it before ordering. I figured how bad could it be?

Don't be tempted to do the beer geek thing and diss the beer straight off, just mention it's not as good as it could have been are you asked, just let people get down and enjoy it.

 

[MBasile]

Don't be tempted to do the beer geek thing and diss the beer straight off, just mention it's not as good as it could have been are you asked, just let people get down and enjoy it.

Yeah, I wasn't really pleased with my Cherry Stout, but once everyone said they really liked it I was open with my dissatisfaction with it.

 

[motobrewer]

yeah, i'm definitely not a beer geek, and I'm not gonna whine or self-loathe about it. i'll tell my friends my opinion. they can form their own.

 

[BillyBeer]

So far so good. I finished my keezer just in time for the Holidays and we have another party for New Years. I started with 30 gallons on tap

IIPA
Cascadian Dark Ale
SNPA
Blue Moon Clone
Newcastle Clone
Frodo Baggins Brown Ale

I love me some beer!

 

[Hammy71]

I brought a keg to my locals x-mas shrimp feast for the kitchen help and they killed 3/4 of the damn thing. Was a APA, nothing really special, just a little high in the ABV 6.7%. The BMC drinkers were seeing things after an hour or so....lol. My x-mas ale I brewed was a Saint Arnold Christmas Ale clone from BYO. Now that is/was a hit. Came out awesome and by far one of the best brews I've ever made. Nothing but compliments from the bottles (made with BM's beer gun of course) I gave out. I gave my Bud-Lite-Lovin neighbor his on Christmas eve and he staggered back over around 9 o'clock (7.5 % will do that to someone used to a 24pack of BL a night), banging on my door for a refill. Made me feel good....except the bastard came over with a 22oz schooner....guess I'll have to make 10 gallons next year!!

 

[azscoob]

I got the comment "I dont like beer I can eat."

It was a red ale...

He went back to drinking miller chill

Were it my house I would have told him to get out before I set him on fire. I was given one of those to try, they insisted it was waaay better than a regular miller light, they were right, it tasted like bile!

 

[DeathBrewer]

My "British Steam" was a little heavy, but I enjoyed it. It is finished. We broke into my final kegged beer, a simple hefeweizen, over x-mas and it is DAMN tasty. Tastes really fresh for sitting around 3 months!

Looks like I'll have to get back to brewing so I can restock!

 

[phrogpilot73]

Let's see, my friends and I killed what remained of two kegs (an English IPA and an English Best Bitter). It worked out to be about 5 beers each. The next day, my day came over and when I asked him what he wanted to drink... "One of your homebrews." With nothing available. Note to self. Next year I'll have more.

 

[beer_guy_dave]

My local HBS proprietor put together a kit called Big Ben's Bad Ass IPA. It went over REAL big with some family beer afficionados.

 

[jezter6]

My friends suck. I took over a 1/2g growler of scottish 70, a 1l fliptop of ESB, and 2 bottles of mead.

ONE person had a pint of scotty, and we killed the mead.

ONE pint of beer gone...I will never take homebrew to my friends again.

Funny though, they show up to brewday and drink homebrew, and when they come over to watch football they'll have a brew or two, but I bring it for the holidays and everyone's drinking cranberry juice and sprite...and I saw a Corona come out.



I wish I had better beer snob friends.

 

[freebd]

I took a bottle of aphelwien to my parents house for christmas...I had one glass.. the wife is pregnant...so she had none.. my sister smelled it and and curled her nose and said no thanks....(mom later tells me that my sister is afraid that anything homebrewed will posion you) ha ha ha ...then mom drank the rest of the bottle...I was pleased...

 

[MBasile]

I took a bottle of aphelwien to my parents house for christmas...I had one glass.. the wife is pregnant...so she had none.. my sister smelled it and and curled her nose and said no thanks....(mom later tells me that my sister is afraid that anything homebrewed will posion you) ha ha ha ...then mom drank the rest of the bottle...I was pleased...

haha, yeah, I got one of the "No thanks, I don't want to go blind" comments. Whatever, more for everyone else

 

[bosunbrew]

Gave everyone at work (15 people) a 22 oz bottle of holiday ale. Everyone thought it was awesome. "Keep that recipe", "best beer I ever had", "now THAT's a thoughtful gift", stuff like that. The cool thing is that most are not really into craft beer, so I think it opened some doors. I actually just used the holiday ale recipe from Papazian, minus the orange peel, and I also went really light on the spices-- plus it had plenty of time to mellow out, so the spice was subtle. It ended up having a nice reddish color, also.
I also tied some "turk's heads" around the bottle and used an old nautical chart for nametags, a lot of work but it was cool:

[/IMG]

 

[MBasile]

Gave everyone at work (15 people) a 22 oz bottle of holiday ale. Everyone thought it was awesome. "Keep that recipe", "best beer I ever had", "now THAT's a thoughtful gift", stuff like that. The cool thing is that most are not really into craft beer, so I think it opened some doors. I actually just used the holiday ale recipe from Papazian, minus the orange peel, and I also went really light on the spices-- plus it had plenty of time to mellow out, so the spice was subtle. It ended up having a nice reddish color, also.
I also tied some "turk's heads" around the bottle and used an old nautical chart for nametags, a lot of work but it was cool:

[/IMG]

Yup, those are the responses (and same scenario, non craft beer drinkers) I got with that recipe. Good job on cutting back the spices, the recipe as-is definitely kicks you in the face with ginger. I have three bottles left that I'm aging so I can see if I need to alter the recipe for this year or just age it longer.

 

[Yuri_Rage]

I went through about 10 gallons of beer on a single day and got a lot of positive feedback. Some were pleasantly surprised that homebrew can actually be good beer.

 

[mmb]

Stout, Orfy's Hobgoblin clone and my "Fizzy Yellow Ale" went over well with others. Had another "You should sell this!" comment with one of Orfy's recipes..

Only had 5 on tap. The 12.5% barleywine kicked a few in the head, the apfelwien was a bust (again), and the ESB was perfect but nobody really got into it.

 

[IrregularPulse]

Orfy's Mild and a Simcoe Blonde went over very well at New Years. There was one Heiney drank until I told the guy the taps were open for everyone to kill. I didn't see anyone drink any beer after that that wasn't mine. There was punch consumed though by some lady's between beers. Got all positive feedback and was surprised at some of the people who had multiple pints of the Mild. Didn't peg them for "dark beer" drinkers . Got the always funny and welcoming comment of "This tastes as good as something you can buy"!

 

[ZenBrewer]

Family and friends loved my Oatmeal Wheat Stout and Juniper Berry Christmas Ale. They especially liked pulling their own from my new keezer.

5 gallons of the stout gone, and about half the Juniper Berry Ale.

 

[DubbelDach]

Chocolate Orange Stout went over very well, moreso on the presentation than the beer... The orange was not strong enough unless you ate the candy with it...

 

[Ragutis]

I broke out the Belgian Tripel that I brewed on the Summer Solstice and it was a huge hit. Several people commented that it was the best beer they had ever had.

 

[Edcculus]

My dad really liked the keg of smoked porter I brought home, despite it being a little under attenuated. Mom didn't really like the smokiness, but she's not big in porters or stouts in the first place. I was actually hoping it would get finished, but I wound up taking a little less than 2 gallons home. If it would have been an APA, I'm sure one keg wouldn't have sufficed.

My bottled RIS was a huge hit. I gave it out as presents, and cracked a few bombers at our solstice party. A few guys didn't know it was homebrew until they heard me talking about brewing it.

 

[jonp9576]

i've been brewing for about a year and a half and i've been getting friends drunk off of my brew, but they will drink anything i put in front of them.

this year i was finally proud of my winter spiced ale so i took it to christmas dinner.

my sister's boyfriend is a self proclaimed "beer guy" he loved it.
the other members of my family liked it as well.

my family is a yuengling(sp) or miller lite or nothing. so i dont know how well that speaks for my brew, but it was definately a crowd pleaser

 

[humann_brewing]

I thought it went great. For the people that like beer, they thought everything I had was great.

For people that like coors light, not so much.

 

[pnj]

I took 3 six packs and 6 22's down to my brother. Pretty much was my entire stash but I never get to share w/ him since he lives 3 hours away.

My brother liked the one or two he had during holidays. Some still needs some conditioning time so I'll have to wait and see what he says about that.

The best part was, my brother IN LAW was at the party. He only drinks one or two beers a month but he said, "I like beer with flavor." I offered him one of my Amber Ales and he poured most of the beer, then swished the bottle to get the "good stuff" and poured the rest. He loved it. I was able to educate him about hops. He didn't know there was more then one kind of hop.

No one else drinks in my family....

 

[caspio]

No one touched the case of Sierra Nevada I had in the fridge during our new year's party, so I must be doing something right. Had a lot of variety so we didn't finish off any kegs, but some are quite a bit lighter.

Also, for the first time ever, my mom asked me to bring some homebrew when I went over for dinner. The spiced winter wheat is low enough IBU that she finished a couple pints.

 

[android]

got nothing but good feedback regarding my beers... i wasn't stoked about my munich helles, but that one really seemed to be popular. the APA and bottled RIS were enjoyed as well. during NYE, i did some flights with all 5 kinds i have currently, that was a lot of fun. was gonna do apfelwein instead of champagne for midnight, but champagne prevailed.

 

[IrregularPulse]

The Blonde went over better that I'd thought. Pulled a pin last night and got a burp right at the end of the pint. I suspect lots of spitting when I try and pull one tonight. Guess I gotta switch my line over to keg#2 of it

 

[jrfuda]

I made a variation of BierMuncher's Cream of 3 Crops Cream Ale specifically to be served on Christmas Day (we were hosting the meal for ourselves and 2 other families). It was a hit, one guy drank 4 pints of it. I specifically wanted a homebrew with a wide appeal, and this one did the trick.

 

[BenjaminR]

I brought home 5 gal of Honey weiss and it was killed.

My biggest fan was the Sec. of transportation. His comment was "I knew I would like it based off the color before I drank it, but after drinking it I like it even more!"

Big success and the whole family loved it. Now I have to brew some more, what a shame.