Christmas Ale Hop Combo Advice

[AdyG]

Eh up! I'm just planning my christmas ale and wanted to do something hoppy like a Black IPA but with the christmas spices of cinnamon, nutmeg, orange zest and ginger.

I was going to do a pretty standard grain bill of mostly pale malt, with crystal, chocolate, oats & torrified wheat etc to get a dark 5.5% ABV ale.

For the hops though I was thinking Saaz and Styrian Golding early and mid boil, but Amarillo at the end to steep with the spices. I'm thinking the Amarillo will give a nice hoppy orange background to match the spices... thinking dark chocolate orange here with zesty spicy after taste.

Does anyone think this would work?

[barry44]

Unsure if it would work but it sounds lovely mate. Going to subscribe to this one.

[Nofolkandchance]

If I was to use amarillo tho and in my opinion I'd dry hop with amarillo pellets rather than have them in the boil. I'm my experience these are brilliant for dry hopping .

Maybe I'd replace the chocolate with a malt with "less" roast. Maybe pale chocolate or carafa 3 so as not to over power the subtle spices of the cinnamon ginger and nutmeg .

Looking forward to see how it go's but make sure you post up the brewday with plenty pics and good luck

[AdyG]

Unsure if it would work but it sounds lovely mate. Going to subscribe to this one.

Might give it a go, you only live once... might actually stumble on something brilliant! I'm sure it will be drinkable at the very least.

If I was to use amarillo tho and in my opinion I'd dry hop with amarillo pellets rather than have them in the boil. I'm my experience these are brilliant for dry hopping .

Maybe I'd replace the chocolate with a malt with "less" roast. Maybe pale chocolate or carafa 3 so as not to over power the subtle spices of the cinnamon ginger and nutmeg .

Looking forward to see how it go's but make sure you post up the brewday with plenty pics and good luck

Cheers for the advice about the pale choc and carafa 3, that's quite handy to know as I don't want it too chocolatey as a little bit of chocolate malt seems to go a long way. I wasn't planning on dry hopping this one, but not fully decided yet... was going for a 5 minute or flame out Amarillo addition for steeping maybe.

Think I will do a bit more research for a couple of days before committing to anything, but I will definitely post my results!

[Nigel1969]

I was thinking of brewing something similar. Just wondering how much spices would you use, and at what step in the brewing process would you use them?

[seymour]

...I was thinking Saaz and Styrian Golding early and mid boil, but Amarillo at the end to steep with the spices...Does anyone think this would work?

Yeah, I'm sure it will be great. Peppery Saaz and earthy, Fuggle-y Styrian Goldings...well played.

Chinook early and mid, First Gold mid, and Ahtanum late produces a delicious dark citrusy brew too.

[AdyG]

Cheers Seymour! I finally got hold of some Ahtanum recently and have a nice IPA planned for them.

I brewed this last Saturday and it's fermenting away as we speak. I put in about 40g of Amarillo at flame out and left it to steep with orange zest, ginger, cinnamon and nutmeg. I was going to post a Brew Day with photos when I get round to it this weekend, as a couple of others were interested too.

From my quick taste from the trail jar my only worry was it wasn't chocolatey-orangey enough. I will have another look at it when fermentation has died down and see if it needs a dry hop with a few more ingredients for a few days before bottling.

[Rookie]

[/quote]Cheers for the advice about the pale choc and carafa 3, that's quite handy to know as I don't want it too chocolatey as a little bit of chocolate malt seems to go a long way.[/quote]

There are ways to get color without getting much chocolatey or roasty notes. Early this year I took part of a blonde ale and blackened it. I cold steeped four ounces of roast barley over night in a pint of water and added the resulting "tea" to one gallon of blonde ale. I ended up with a very dark brown beer that had only a teeny amount of roastiness. It came out pretty good, but if I do it again I'll use more roast barley.
I also did this with an IPA using eight ounces of midight wheat in two pints of water. That came out REALY black and smooth. I entered both versions of the IPA into a compitition with the IPA getting 34.3 points and the black IPA getting 40.3 points.

[AdyG]

Cheers for the advice about the pale choc and carafa 3, that's quite handy to know as I don't want it too chocolatey as a little bit of chocolate malt seems to go a long way.[/quote]

There are ways to get color without getting much chocolatey or roasty notes. Early this year I took part of a blonde ale and blackened it. I cold steeped four ounces of roast barley over night in a pint of water and added the resulting "tea" to one gallon of blonde ale. I ended up with a very dark brown beer that had only a teeny amount of roastiness. It came out pretty good, but if I do it again I'll use more roast barley.
I also did this with an IPA using eight ounces of midight wheat in two pints of water. That came out REALY black and smooth. I entered both versions of the IPA into a compitition with the IPA getting 34.3 points and the black IPA getting 40.3 points.[/quote]

Cheers for the information Rookie, I didn't know you could do that! Sounds like a good way of making a black IPA!

[AdyG]

Anyone watching this thread or interested, I put the full recipe and brew in the Brew Days section here:

viewtopic.php?f=24&t=62404

Cheers!

[Deebee]

I recently brewed a 30 lire batch of this.

7300 g pale
540g wheat
360 carapils
360 dark crystal

22.8 IBU og Northdown @60 and 7.5 ibu of Challenger @15

added 4 ehole but crushed cinnamon sticks at 15 minutes along with 25 g corriander seed
another 4 sticks with 5 minutes left.
nottingham yeast.

Was ok during the taster before fermenting but the slight spiced taste vanished during the ferment-

I made a tea of 20 g mulled wine spice in 500ml water ( boiled it up and let it stand til it was cold) then had this in the fermenter. tasted after 3 days before bottling and the taste was there nicely subtle but in the mouth without being overpowering. Am looking forwards to how it turns out. It may well vanish or maybe will develop into something else... who knows.

[AdyG]

I recently brewed a 30 lire batch of this.

7300 g pale
540g wheat
360 carapils
360 dark crystal

22.8 IBU og Northdown @60 and 7.5 ibu of Challenger @15

added 4 ehole but crushed cinnamon sticks at 15 minutes along with 25 g corriander seed
another 4 sticks with 5 minutes left.
nottingham yeast.

Was ok during the taster before fermenting but the slight spiced taste vanished during the ferment-

I made a tea of 20 g mulled wine spice in 500ml water ( boiled it up and let it stand til it was cold) then had this in the fermenter. tasted after 3 days before bottling and the taste was there nicely subtle but in the mouth without being overpowering. Am looking forwards to how it turns out. It may well vanish or maybe will develop into something else... who knows.

From my experience last year with similar spices you do get a bit of spice in the final product, but not too much.... but then how many pub bought Christmas Ales are that spicy? I've not have any that are that intense.

I've heard of a few people recently (after I bottled my xmas brew!) who put their seasonal brew on cinnamon roasted figs, or dried fruit to steep for a week after fermentation! They were commenting about having a 9% beer that smelled like mince pies!