Modern Homebrew Recipes (25 page)

Style:
American Barleywine (Classic BJCP Style)

Description:
A hybrid barleywine, uses mostly English ingredients but is balanced and bittered like an American barleywine.

Ingredients:

Water treatment:

RO water treated with ¼ tsp 10% phosphoric acid per 5 gallons

1 tsp CaSO
₄
in mash

Mash technique:

Infusion, mashout, dark grains added at
vorlauf

Mash rests:

152°F (67°C) 60 minutes

168°F (76°C) 15 minutes

Kettle volume:

6.5 gallons (25 L)

Boil length:

90 minutes

Final volume:

5 gallons (19 L)

Fermentation temp:

68°F (20°C)

Sensory description:
Lovely reddish-copper color, clear, yet with a certain impression of depth, as if looking through a gemstone. Layers of dark and dried fruit, plus earthy and floral hops with a slight orange
marmalade character. Quite bitter and malty when young, but the beer ages and balances well, with layered textures and flavors.

Formulation notes:
English flavors and American balance work well in this beer. The crystal malts provide some sweetness and body, which will mellow over time. Any minimally-processed brown sugar works; just avoid the fake stuff that is white sugar with molasses added. Look in the organic section of the supermarket for unusual sugars. I bottle-conditioned this beer repitching Wyeast 1028 at bottling, relying on its higher attenuation to help dry out the beer and carbonate it as it aged.

Variations:
I sometimes make an all-American hopped version of this beer, but I don’t like to use piney or resiny varieties. I like to use Cascade late, sometimes with some Centennial thrown in. I’ve yet to make it with my favorite New World hop varieties, but I think the ones with tropical fruit or stone fruit characteristics would work well with the malt.

WHEATWINE

Wheatwine is much more than just a barleywine made with wheat. Stan Hieronymus’s Brewing with Wheat provides good background on the style and recipe. I used some of this suggestions when formulating this recipe. I had an open sack of wheat malt that I wanted to use up, and this recipe takes a lot of it.

Style:
Wheatwine (New BJCP Style)

Description:
A full-bodied, dry, wine-like beer with a large fruity component and considerable wheat flavor. Strong and relatively bitter, this beer ages like a good wine.

Ingredients:

Water treatment:

RO water treated with ¼ tsp 10% phosphoric acid per 5 gallons

1 tsp CaCl
₂
in mash

Mash technique:

Step mash, mashout

Mash rests:

104°F (40°C) 10 minutes

131°F (55°C) 15 minutes

146°F (63°C) 40 minutes

158°F (70°C) 15 minutes

168°F (76°C) 15 minutes

Kettle volume:

8.5 gallons (32 L)

Boil length:

90 minutes

Final volume:

6.5 gallons (25 L)

Fermentation temp:

66°F (19°C)

Sensory description:
Deep amber color. Mild grainy, sweet honey aroma with apples, pears, and luscious ripe fruit like peaches and melons. The fruity component is huge; one of the highest ester levels of any beer I’ve done. Large grainy wheat flavor with medium to medium-high bitterness and noticeable alcohol. This beer needs to be aged to smooth out the alcohol. A clean fermentation profile, with a spicy, fruity, and herbal hoppy finish. Has a full body but is dry, and is chewy but not sweet. This is the kind of beer that should age well, as the grainy notes merge with the bitterness and dryness in the aftertaste and the alcohol and fruit smooth out over time.

Formulation notes:
The varied grist provides some additional character. Any continental Pilsner malt would work, like German, Belgian,
etc. Using additional forms of wheat to provide extra character seems more appropriate when you’re trying to emphasize the wheat qualities of the beer. An intensive step mash helps create more attenuative wort and improves clarity. I was looking for some unusual hop aromatics, with tropical, lush fruit, and white grape notes, so I chose some New Zealand hops to match the fruity Citra. The honey malt adds to the fruit aromatics from the hops. Any clean bittering hop and yeast strain would work; I wouldn’t want to bring any more fruit complexity to the mix since it’s almost a fruit salad as is. The bitterness estimation doesn’t include steeping hop contributions; the actual bitterness level might be higher.

Variations:
The hops can be changed to suit your preference, both in terms of finishing hops and the overall level of bitterness Many of these types of beers are oak-aged when produced commercially; I can see how a toasty vanilla flavor from the wood would play well with this beer.

OLD ALE

This is an unusual old ale (to Americans, at least), made with pale malt and invert sugar, and then aged in an oak cask. Compare this recipe with the Throwback Mild recipe (
Chapter 6
) to what you can do with one malt and one type of sugar. This recipe is based on the Burton Bridge Thomas Sykes Old Ale, a barleywine-like old ale that is a wonderful cask beer and a personal favorite.

Style:
Old Ale (Classic BJCP Style)

Description:
An old ale designed for an oak cask, with bready malt and toffee sugar flavors that benefit from the tannic oak character that combines with the malt flavors when aging. Proves that not all old ales need to be dark.

Ingredients:

Water treatment:

RO water treated with ¼ tsp 10% phosphoric acid per 5 gallons

1 tsp CaSO
₄
in mash

Mash technique:

Infusion

Mash rests:

156°F (69°C) 90 minutes

Kettle volume:

9 gallons (34 L)

Boil length:

120 minutes

Final volume:

6.5 gallons (25 L)

Fermentation temp:

64°F (18°C), allowing to rise

Sensory description:
Dark gold color, bright, thick and somewhat sweet, with flavors of toffee, vanilla, cream sherry, and honey. Would do well aged in a light to moderate toasted oak cask (Hungarian or French oak).

Formulation notes:
A very simple but fairly traditional recipe, showing how much flavor can be derived from few ingredients. If you can’t get this yeast, a good alternative is the Wyeast 1335 British II yeast. You want to use enough hops so that the beer doesn’t seem too sweet, but avoid too much late hopping as that can get in the way of the oak character. The toffee qualities of the sugar can be melded with the toasty vanilla flavors from the oak, and the tannins from the wood act provide balance and increase dryness in a somewhat malty beer. After the beer comes off the wood, it may need to continue to age to smooth out the tannins from the wood.

Variations:
According to the brewery, Thomas Sykes old ale uses only Target hops, so if you are trying to match that beer, stick with the single hop variety. This beer can be served unaged, aged, or aged in an oak cask (or with other suitable oak products, like chips). Playing with different types of wood (sources, forms, toast levels, durations) can be a fun split-batch experiment. I
would avoid adding too many other ingredients because you’ll miss the main point of seeing how the oak interacts with the base beer. Once you have a combination you like, you can start varying that base beer with additional ingredients. Since many British beers use pale malt and brewer’s sugar, this beer can be a template for experimentation with different sugars. You could brew a Burton-like beer by raising the mash temperature to 158°F (70°C), using invert #3 as the sugar, and increasing the bittering hops by 50% or more. Or use a completely different type of sugar (like honey) or flaked maize.