Winter Spiced 90/-

While I often brew bigger, richer beers at the end of the calendar year and have been known to gift a few bottles around Christmas, I’ve never done a “holiday beer”; the few commercial winter warmers I’ve had, often heavily spiced, have usually underwhelmed me.  Given the approaching season and my new attitude on using spices, though, I thought it might be time to give it a shot.

My aim was for something rich and malty without becoming as heavy as an old ale or barleywine, with spices reminiscent of the flavours of the season.  I planned a Scottish 80/-, but between good extraction and boiling down the first runnings, my efficiency jumped enough to put this in the 90/- range (in homebrew terms, of course).  To push the malt-forward nature of this beer, nearly a third of the grist was Vienna, with another fifteen percent being crystal malts.  The aroma in the kitchen on brewday was incredible; the wort smelled like milk chocolate.  After primary, the gravity sat at a respectably medium-bodied 1.016.

Additions to the secondary included ground nutmeg and a cinnamon stick, along with some small oak pieces from the stave I had sitting in my Flanders red that didn’t turn out.  Brought to about a medium toast in the oven, the pieces went with the spices into a container of Jim Beam for better than a month.  This should be a treat to quaff in a bad Christmas sweater this holiday.

Holiday 2011

Batch size: 5.25 gallons
Projected OG: 1.058
Projected SRM: 14.0
Projected IBU: 21.0
Boil time: 60 minutes
Brewhouse efficiency: 90%

Grains
52.6% - 5 lb 2-row
31.6% - 3 lb Vienna
10.5% - 1 lb C20
5.3% - 8 oz Special B

Hops
1 oz EKG (5.8%) (60 min)

Yeast
1 pkg WY1728 Scottish ale (no starter)

Extras
1 tsp Irish moss (10 min)
1 oz Oak cubes, medium-dark toast, bourbon soaked (secondary)
1 Cinnamon stick, bourbon soaked (secondary)
1/8 tsp Ground nutmeg, bourbon soaked (secondary)

Water additions (mash)
8 qts RO water
1 g Epsom salt
1 g CaCl

Brewday: 29 October 2011
Mash: 156F for 60 minutes
Pre-boil volume: 6 gallons
Pre-boil SG (w/o 1st runnings): 8P (1.032)

First runnings smell (and taste) really chocolatey!

Boiled down first runnings to a thick syrup; added back at end of boil

Fermented in the swamp cooler at 60F ambient

Secondary: 11 November 2011
FG: 1.016
ABV: 5.5%

Bottled: 8 December 2011
Pretty thin taste; cinnamon present as general spiciness
Bottled with 3.6 oz table sugar

Tasting: Unbalanced and underwhelming, unfortunately.  I've learned "empirically" that there's a good reason spiced beers are usually higher in alcohol: that extra ethanol (in addition to residual sugars, I'd imagine) balance the contributions of the spices.  In this beer, the bourbon character became cloying.  In addition, the bottles seemed to foam like nobody's business; no hint of infection, just foam for days.