Homebrew Recipe: Red Ryder Christmas Ale

Red Ryder Christmas Ale

I got this crazy urge last year to brew a beer that tasted like Christmas. I was bringing kegs to my in-laws for Christmas vacation and I wanted something that was seasonally appropriate. This was my first attempt in what I expect to be an ongoing Christmas ale tradition. Many breweries make a Christmas time spiced winter warmer of some sort and they change up the spices a little each year. I envisioned this as being something similar.

Recipe

Grain

9 lb 2 row

1.5 lb Crystal 60L

1 lb Vienna

¼ Chocolate

1 lb Special B

Hop Schedule

(60) 1 oz Magnum

(15) 1 oz Willamette

(10) 1 oz Cinnamon Sticks

(10) ½ tsp Ground Nutmeg

Yeast - SafeAleUS-05

Boil Volume – 6.5 Gallons

Fermentor Volume – 5.25 gallons

OG – 1.051

Efficiency – 65%

Procedure: Mashed in @152 with about 3 gallons strike water. Sparged out with 175 degree water and tried to get up to 169 but fell a little short. Added hops as per the schedule and also added the spices as indicated in the hops schedule portion of the plan with 10 minutes in the boil.

Fermentation/ Packaging – Before kegging this beer add 2 tablespoons of vanilla extract. Other than this it was a pretty standard 2 week fermentation and then transfer to the keg for carbonation. If bottling then add to bottling bucket before transferring to achieve the same result.

Tasting Notes – The cinnamon really dominated the spice impression but overall it was similar to an amber ale in terms of malt base with nice complexity of the spices. I wouldn’t go quite so far as to say it was a amazing Christmas beer, but it was highly accessible and enjoyed by a wide range of people.

Improvement/Tweak Ideas – I have so many spice ideas in mind to mix and match and make up endless iterations of this beer. I would certainly brew it again without the cinnamon and replace it with allspice or pumpkin spice or old spice (well you get the point). Throwing in some cloves or cacao nibs might bring some Christmasy taste to this beer as well. As you can see the possibilities here are quite endless. I believe a slight bump in the base malt couldn’t hurt and making this a little darker and more of a porter could prove interesting as well.

With my 2014 Christmas brew coming up just around the corner I’m open to hearing what spices you would put in a Christmas beer!

--Ben