Winter Seasonal Beer Old Fezziwig Clone

[BrokenBrew]

Recipe Type

All Grain

Yeast

Safale T-58

Yeast Starter

No

Batch Size (Gallons)

6

Original Gravity

1.057

Final Gravity

1.015

Boiling Time (Minutes)

60

IBU

27

Color

21

Primary Fermentation (# of Days & Temp)

21 @ 65

Tasting Notes

As close to Sam Adam\'s Old Fezziwig as I could get.

7 lbs. Two-row Pale
3 lbs. Munich
1 lb. Carapils/Dextrin
1 lb. Crystal 60L
12 oz. Special B
2 oz. Chocolate

.75 oz. Centennial 60 minutes
.5 oz. Cascade 30 minutes
.5 oz. Hallertau 5 minutes

.12 oz. Cinnamon stick - 5 minutes
1 oz. freshly grated orange peel - 5 minutes
1.2 oz. freshly grated ginger root - 5 minutes

Mashed in at 154 for 60 minutes. Batch sparge.

I tweaked a recipe from ChemE just a little to increase the ABV. I just finished one of these, and I have to say that this is probably the best beer I've made to date.

View attachment OldFezziwig.bsm

 

[ChemE]

Awesome, just found this thread looking to see if anyone has made any headway on this brew and was pretty surprised to see my name. BrokenBrew, did this beer turn out anything like Old Fezziwig? It sure looks like it could given the Spec B content and spices. I'm looking to brew this in the next few weeks, would you recommend any tweaks to the recipe to move it closer to the SA brew? Thanks in advance!

 

[BrokenBrew]

I'll be honest, I didn't buy SA's variety pack this year as it had mostly beer that I don't like. But - from what I recall of Fezziwig, this is pretty close. If not, it's damn good anyway.

I entered this in a competition recently, and received a 33. Not stellar, but pretty acceptable for my first comp. The only comment from the judges was that there was a little too much ginger. Probably cut it to .75 oz of fresh. I think the freshly grated ginger really comes through strong.

I'm currently drinking my second batch of it, and it's excellent.

 

[motobrewer]

how long did you let it age before sending to the comp?

 

[ChemE]

+1 to what motobrewer is asking. Ginger beers needs to age in bottles for 12ish months for the ginger to settle down. That's why I'm looking to brew this now so that it will be ready for Christmas 2010. If you got dinged for overpowering ginger and still got a 33 that's a pretty darn good recipe!

 

[BrokenBrew]

I didn't let it age very long, read at all. It sat in the bottles three weeks before I popped one open, then probably two more by the time it got to the comp.

I'll remember that about the ginger next time. By the way, I disagree about it being overpowering. I can certainly taste it, but I think it's pretty balanced.

One judge said the ginger was too much, the other didn't mention it. One judge said it needed more hops, the other said the hops were just right. Obviously, it's a matter of opinion.

 

[motobrewer]

i had a hunk of dried ginger, so I gound that up and used 0.6oz in my holiday brew. I couldn't really taste it, but then again mine was overpowered by bitter orange peel (next time i'll use sweet or fresh, and a lot less).

 

[ChemE]

Interesting and I'm just parroting what I've read on here about highly spiced beers. I'll certainly drink one every few weeks to see where it peaks, but I fully expect it to take a few months.

 

[stromam]

5 lbs. Two-row Pale
3 lbs. Munich
1 lb. Carapils/Dextrin
1 lb. Crystal 60L
12 oz. Special B
2 oz. Chocolate

.75 oz. Centennial 60 minutes
.5 oz. Cascade 30 minutes
.5 oz. Hallertau 5 minutes

.12 oz. Cinnamon stick - 5 minutes
1 oz. freshly grated orange peel - 5 minutes
1.2 oz. freshly grated ginger root - 5 minutes

Mashed in at 154 for 60 minutes. Batch sparge.

I tweaked a recipe from ChemE just a little to increase the ABV. I just finished one of these, and I have to say that this is probably the best beer I've made to date.

Note: the post says 5 lbs Two-row, but the beersmith recipe says 7. I think the beersmith one is right (based on it's calculated OG). Just be careful, I bought ingredients based on the 5 lbs. and now i'm either gonna have to go buy more or use some of my light DME.

 

[BrokenBrew]

Stromam, you're absolutely right. Typo on my part. I think the original only had 5 lbs and I upped it to 7. I've made it both ways, and the extra two pounds of two row really makes no difference. Just not quite as strong.

I corrected the original post. Thanks for the correction.

 

[MikeP]

Bottled this last night, in my sample prior to bottling, you could get a hint of the ginger and other spices, but it wasn't overpowering at all. I think it's going to turn out nicely! I'll post back in about 3 weeks or so.

 

[BrokenBrew]

I'll look forward to hearing how it turns out.

I'm making it again in a couple weeks. Going to tweak the recipe a little to up the ABV, increase the spices a little, then I'm going to bottle it in bombers to give as Christmas presents NEXT year. It'll be the 2011 Christmas brew.

 

[chrislehr]

One of my favorite beers. When I first lived in Boston, they had the 22oz bottles for the holiday season, but everytime I buy their 12 pack the white ale and cranberry lambic sit for EVER.

Thanks for the recipe... will be trying this very soon, I hope.

 

[chrislehr]

Annnd brewed. We stepped up the cinnamon to two sticks and reduced the ginger to .50 of dry and .25 of fresh ginger. Used WLP 007 dry english ale.

Lookin here:
http://www.samueladams.com/enjoy-our-beer/beer-detail.aspx?id=93fe771b-3f68-4b4d-8de8-ebf83f9bff4e

The hops/grains are listed there, might help make this get closer as well.

 

[iceman1407]

What were the OG and FG for this brew?? What yeast did you use??

 

[ususpect]

I just brewed this up with my brother-in-law last night! Thanks for the recipe, I think we followed it perfectly but it's hard to tell. This was my first shot at all-grain and man, there are lots of things to pay attention to but hopefully it'll be totally worth it!

Thanks!

 

[natureboy68]

Love ole fezziwig, and hate that SA only sells it in variety packs...any updates on this?? Prolly do 1/2 oz of ginger...

 

[NewBrewB]

Updates?

 

[tiguerhawk]

Long time reader, first time poster!


Made this as an extract, turned out awesome. Right there with Sam.

Thanks for the recipe.

 

[ChemE]

I'm glad that folks are having success with this clone. When BrokenBrew and I tried to work out a clone SA's site didn't have nearly as much information about the beer, thus the discrepancies.

 

[smurfjuice]

Evenin', to ask, what was the pre boil volume for this?? going to jump on this one ...

 

[stonecutter2]

Evenin', to ask, what was the pre boil volume for this?? going to jump on this one ...

I'm going to guess it was 7 gallons or so.

 

[smurfjuice]

Thanks Stonecutter ...

 

[waltzbrewingco]

Is there a BIAB version for a 5 gal batch?

 

[Larzean]

Is there a BIAB version for a 5 gal batch?

Should be the same recipe, you may need to adjust based on your efficiency.

 

[New2Brewing3]

Just brewed today. Can't wait to see how it turns out. Hope that it will be ready in time to have one for my Christmas morning beer.

 

[tiguerhawk]

I am enjoying one right now for my Christmas Eve Brew! Switched to Fuggles and EKG to make it more "English".

 

[jp27300]

For the Orange peel, are you buying it as orange peel ingredient or are you grating 1 oz from actual orange? THAT would seem to take a long time.

 

[tiguerhawk]

Actually I use zest of 1-2 oranges. Would go an ounce if you buy dry. The 1-2 fresh should do it, though.

 

[jp27300]

Seems like a fair amount of carapils, is all of that needed?