Autumn Seasonal Beer Joie De Vivre (Fake Imperial Pumpkin)

[PolarisSnT]

I used pre-ground cinnamon, fresh grate nutmeg, and fresh ground clove and after a week in the carboy all I seem to taste is clove. SWMBO thinks Im nuts and feels that it is balanced but all I seem to get is overwhelming clove.

 

[passedpawn]

Some people hate cloves. I.e., I used to love german hefe's, now I can't touch them. Ech.

Spices are a bit of a wild card. I think they can differ greatly due to age, form, origin, etc.

FWIW, I don't think I'll use cinnamon anymore. Bugs me in these beers.

 

[PolarisSnT]

Some people hate cloves. I.e., I used to love german hefe's, now I can't touch them. Ech.

Spices are a bit of a wild card. I think they can differ greatly due to age, form, origin, etc.

FWIW, I don't think I'll use cinnamon anymore. Bugs me in these beers.

It's not a bad thing, I just want to have a balanced beer that tastes like pumpkin pie.

If it does not seem to mellow I think a spice tea is in order.

 

[PolarisSnT]

Added two tsp of McCormack's Pumpkin Pie spice to a spice bag and steeped that in hot water for 15 minutes. I strained the 'tea' through cheese cloth so that most of the lumps were removed, added my priming sugar and will be adding this to the bottling bucket.

The beer tastes great right now, just the spicing left something to be desired. I wanted a really strong spice presence but YMMV.

 

[bolus14]

Has anybody made this in the last 4 years? Sorry to revive an old thread, but I'm always looking for a different Pumpkin beer besides the normal "Pale" with Pumpkin and spices, this would fit the bill, likely not till next year now but I like ot start planing my brew schedule for the next year in the fall.

Is the OP the correct recipe or should the spices still be cut by 25%?

 

[passedpawn]

Yea, I'd cut the spices down by 25%. I'd reduce the cinnamon to 1 tsp (from 4). I'm just sick of cinnamon in holiday beers and 4 tsp was a lot. Your taste might be different than mine though.

BTW, when I posted this recipe, I had put ounces instead of teaspoons for the spices. Some people made it and disaster ensued. I did fix that though.

I can tell you that this beer was super good.

 

[bolus14]

How quickly would you say this could be ready, might try for this year, but I've got 3 fermenting right now and two planned to go on yeast cakes as soon as two of those three finish. I try to finish up my brewing by October since it starts to get cold, kids have sports, and football takes Sunday's out of the picture for brew days

Have you tried anything other than Scottish Ale yeast? I have some 1450(Denny's Favorite) all set to go in a mason jar or I could harvest some 1728(Sottish Ale) from some bottles of an Oatmeal Stout that I have. LHBS doesn't stock many Wyeast strains, they can get them but i can be a week or two if I go through them so I try to use what I already have in the fridge.

 

[passedpawn]

I'd say that the beer would be ready for bottling 3 week after brewing, and 3 weeks after bottling it would win the admiration of your comrades.