homebrewandbeer.com

Hi All,

I've been lurking for a while now and very much enjoying all that goes by.

10 years ago, I was in Portland, Oregon for a conference in December and all the brewpubs were serving spice winter ales. I figure now is the time to be putting one on for winter in Melbourne. Do people have tested, kit based recipes? I'm a novice brewer, so I'm reluctant to take on anything to complex just yet.

TIA,
Tom

Tom,

I haven't come across such a beer, but I'm sure a Google search would turn up something.

Please let us know how you get on and post a recipe if you decide to make one.

Cheers,

Oliver

Oliver, your timing is excellent: I've just put on a batch!

Being a novice, I've gone kit-based. I picked up 2 MSB Oatmeal Stout kits at 1/2 price 2 months past their best-before date, so I've used one of them:

1 can MSB Oatmeal Stout
a "thumb" of ginger, peeled and sliced
2 cinnamon sticks
4 cardamom pods

Boiled the spices in 2L of water for 20mins. Removed spices and boiled for a further 10mins. Toss into fermenter with contents of can, made up to 11.5L with cold water as per instructions on the can. Threw away packet of yeast (actually, kept it for a bread making experiment[*]), and pitched a packet of Safale S-04. OG 1057.

Tasting the OG sample, I can't taste the spices much above the bitter-malt of the wort. Will keep you posted.

I'd already done a fair bit of googling, and the most common nomenclature for this kind of thing seems to be a "winter warmer", which is usually more of a dark ale with spices, rather than a stout with spices. I did consider pitching a Safbrew T-58 I have in the fridge for its high attenuation and clove esters, but decided the stoutiness would probably drown them out. I've no idea really, just speculating.

I was a bit surprised that the OG was only 1057. I thought it might be a bit higher.

Tom