AG#3 Christmas Ale (Festive Fairy Light)

[OvenHiker]

Brewed this last Friday. A clone of kevthebootboy's Christmas brew, Festive Fist Fight.

The grist is exactly the same:
6000g Pale malt
200g Cyrystal malt
300g Choclate malt
110g Torrified wheat
300g Brewers sugar

Changed the hop additions to:
69g Northdown 7.5% at start of boil
54g Challenger 7.6% 15mins

Took onboard comments from Kev's thread and held back on cloves but upped the root ginger. All added at 15 mins:
3" cinnamon stick x3, splintered
300g fresh root ginger, diced and frozen.
rind of fresh orange x3
whole nutmeg, splintered
1/4tsp whole cloves, cracked

Danstar Nottingham yeast

Mashed a little on the high side. Aimed for 67C but ended up at 69C, but should be ok for this style. OG ended up at 1050 rather than 1065, but smells great.

Only took one picture. Cooling the wort. That's the root ginger cubes and orange rind on the top:


My thanks to Kev for posting his recipe and all those that contributed to the original thread.

[WishboneBrewery]

Looks really appetizing

[OvenHiker]

Not a fan of Christmas spiced ale then, pdtnc? "Bah, humbug!"

[WishboneBrewery]

I meant the Picture, looks like something died and fell apart in there
Though I do prefer beer to be beer, with a few exceptions

[OvenHiker]

I meant the Picture, looks like something died and fell apart in there

I assure you everything was thoroughly dead before it went in the brew.

Though I do prefer beer to be beer, with a few exceptions

Yep, me too. Wanted to make something Christmassy for family and friends.

[Naich]

I think that looks quite nice, once you get over the initial reaction to the sight of large chunks of things bobbing around in the wort I bet it smelt nice though. The missus always makes mulled wine at xmas, which is nice, so I reckon mulled beer will be just as good. Did you put the fruit and stuff in during the boil or afterward? If it was after, how did you steralise it?

[OvenHiker]

Did you put the fruit and stuff in during the boil or afterward?

All the fruit and spices went in 15 minutes from the end of the boil. Same as the method in Kev's original post.

Will be transferring this to secondary in the next few days. Bottle in a month or so.

[kevthebootboy]

Nice one mate!

Hope you enjoy it as much as I did,
I think with my brew the cinnomon and nutmeg really stuck out, very Christmassy, tasted great.

Let us know what you think of it!

All the best

Kev

[OvenHiker]

Let us know what you think of it!

Cheers Kev, will do!

It's maturing in the cask at the moment. Hidden away so I don't get tempted to sample it early.

[kevthebootboy]

Lets hope you have better will power then I have! I've already drank about 4 or 5 pints of this years Christmas brew , it's only been in the cellar for about 2 weeks

[OvenHiker]

Right, this has had about three and half weeks maturing in a pressure barrel, so I made a quick check on progress in preparation for bottling.

Aroma is definitely sweet smelling; reminds me of that fancy F******** Curiosity Cola. Initial flavours are also the spices, very pop like. Fades to nothing in the middle, then wallop! All the hop bitterness arrives at once. I'm pretty sure it's bitter rather than tannin-y.

As you might be able to tell, I'm a little disappointed at how this is turning out. I was intending to hand this around at Christmas, but I doubt friends and family are going to like the rather overwhelming bitterness in the finish.

So, a plea for suggestions to balance this up a bit. I tried varying amounts of maltodextrin in small samples to see if that made a difference. Only seemed to thicken it up too much without restoring enough balance.

Would lactose be worth trying, or is that going to make it too sweet?

Or will the hop bitterness mellow with more time. Perhaps by next Christmas?

Any help would be appreciated.

[kevthebootboy]

Bugger!

thats a shame mate, what do you thinks gone wrong? what was your IBU:OG ratio in the end? mine wasnt that bitter at all, id say mine was more on the sweet side if not well balenced.

maybe its worth just leaving it and seeing if it mellows out any buy xmas, im the mean time you could get an new xmas brew on.

if it makes you feel any better im not overly happy with this years 'Christmas Crow-bar' oh well you brew and learn eh

[OvenHiker]

Cheers Kev,

Not sure what the problem could be. I did end up with slightly bigger volume than expected, which would explain the lower than expected OG of 1.050 rather than 1.065. The recipe was for 45 IBUs, but would have been proportionally less with the larger volume, I would have thought?

FG stablised around 1.015, so it's only about 4.5% compared to the recipe's 6%. I bottled it last night anyway. Fingers crossed it improves before Christmas. Actually, the sample I tried with primings tasted much better, so perhaps some lactose would have been a good idea?

There's a meeting of Cambridge JBK members next week, so I'll take a bottle to get their opinions.

I think making another is good suggestion. Watch this space!

[Kegman]

Root ginger and orange rind, sounds great! Hope it all works out in the end.

[OvenHiker]

Took a bottle of this to the Cambridge JBK members meet last Friday. It appeared to get a thumbs up, which was a pleasant if unexpected surprise. Perhaps it has begun to mellow a bit, or perhaps it was towards the end of the evening and they'd had too much of ML's Dangermouse.

@kevthebootboy PM me and I'll send you a bottle. I'd be grateful to see how you think it compares to your original.