Festivus Ale Review

Happy Holidays!

Appearance: Tan head that doesn't quite persist long enough, moderately hazy deep amber body. Moderate opacity when held up to the light.

Aroma: Clearly holiday spice. Nutmeg / cinammon come through the strongest (I find their taste fairly similar) with ginger hiding in the background. Hop aroma is none. Malt aroma is present - hard to describe but to me a bit Belgiany- dry and spicy. Smells a little like apple pie or gingerbread.

Taste: Again dominated by the flavor of the spices, which not only have the characteristic Christmasy taste but also seem to have a dry, tannic quality in the mouth.  Hop bitterness low, or covered by the taste of the spices The beer tastes fairly dry to me. Malt characteristic present but again hard to describe since it is dominated by the spices. Probably has a brown-ale like maltiness.

Mouthfeel: Moderate carbonation. A little prickly on the tounge and dry in the aftertaste.

Overall: Pleasant but not something I would drink a lot of. Probably I mashed too low. The spices could use more balancing sweetness and maybe some mellowing out. This beer really shows how cinnamon, nutmeg and ginger are spices, and although associated with sweet food such as apple pie, they really don't have much sweetness on their own. That's why the deserts with them often have ton of sugar and why this beer could probably use a little more sweetness. It's probably my mistake that I didn't quite get the mash right. When brewed properly according to the directions and allowed to age more it's probably better.

Holiday Ale Brewday

A buddy of mine and I have each brewed a spiced beer. We plan to split the batches so that we each get half of each batch. I brewed a Happy Holiday Ale, which was a kit from Midwest Supplies. This was my first use of a pre-packaged kit. The whole process is pretty easy since you are spared having to go to the shop, measure the ingredients, crush the grain etc. But of course you probably pay a slightly higher price for the ingredients and you have to pay the potentially large ($15+) shipping charge. In this case however I had a discount code that essentially reduced the price of the items I bought by a greater amount than the shipping charge.

In any case, the recipe and directions are available in .PDF from Midwest. The instructions were a bit vague and did not specify the exact strike water volume or temp to use. I ended up at an initial mash temp of 142F and had to add some boiling water to bring the mash to 152F, still a little under. Ug. I don't like the extra stress that causes on brew day and I hope the beer finishes with the appropriate sweetness.

Brewed 10/16/15
Got OG of 1.062. On the low end but OK. Volume into carboy was 5.3 gallons or so.

It was smelling really nice after the addition of cinnamon, nutmeg and ginger to the boil.

For this one I pitched S-04 slurry left over from my previous brown porter. I didn't make a starter but just pitched the slurry directly from the Mason jar to the wort. The beer fermented at around 68F ambient air, and fermentation seemed to pick up very fast after pitching - like within a few hours.

11/17/15 - Racked to secondary. Beer tasted OK but not great. Gravity was 1.010. Plan to bottle in early December.