I was toying with the idea of making a Christmas beer in the style of a mulled wine with orange peel and ginger and that sort of thing, so had a look around at few ideas and came up with a recipe. Then, chatting with my brother in law one evening, he suggested just doing a winter ale with none of the Christmas nonsense, and, as he will probably end up being my guinea pig for it, I thought it was a good idea, but then I thought, why not do both? Make a winter ale and mull half of it up! It was obvious that I would have to make more beer than usual, so out came the 23 litre boiler and a full batch for the first time in ages.
I went a bit Heston with the design for the beer, trying to throw in wintery and Christmassy notes in the grain to make a strong, dark, complex beer with not too much hop but a little bit of pine in the finish:
- 72% Maris Otter
- 11% Munich Malt
- 11% Rauchmalt
- 3% Roasted barley
- 3% Pale chocolate malt
- A 6/1 mix of Challenger and Brewer's Gold at 60 minutes
- Fuggles at 30 minutes
- Teaspoon of Cascade for aroma
- Nottingham yeast
Using an Old Ale profile this should come in at around 6% in a 60 minute boil. It started at 1050 and finished at 1055 using my Brewfractometer, which suddenly makes the whole gravity measuring thing a lot easier to do and, rightly or wrongly, uses a lot less wort. Yield was about 16l. It's sitting in primary now and I'll split it into secondary on about Friday, adding a little lucky bag of ginger and orange and cinnamon and cloves to half where it will steep for another week or so and then be bottled for Christmas. Not that I'll that drinking much this year as I will be on duty with my beloved waiting to give birth...