Day 24: Santa Berry by Allen H

[Scott H]

Santa Berry is a Cranberry Sage Brown Ale/Winter Warmer. I first brewed this beer last year to pair with Thanksgiving Dinner that featured Cranberry and Sage in about every dish. I decided to add it to my line up every year but I still wanted to nail down the recipe.

The first batch I thought was good but it was a very hectic brewday and I knew it would not be able to ever be replicated. So this year I took a different approach. I added a bit more cranberry and also bumped up the sage.

Santa Berry 2012 activebrewer.blogspot.com/2013/01/ls-ales-santa-berry.html I will blog about 2013 shortly.

I used a few of my favorite ingredients to put this one together.

OG 1.077 FG 1.022 Calculated at 5.5G

13lbs 2 Row
9oz C120
8oz Special B
4oz Wheat
3oz Black Patent
1.5oz Chinook 60 Minutes (46.2 IBUs)
.5oz Chinook 30 Minutes (11.8 IBUs)

30oz Cranberries
1oz Fresh Sage
1lb Honey
US05

After collecting the first runnings add the cranberries to the BK and do not remove. I mashed in at 153f and in the last 15 minutes of the boil add in the honey and sage. Nothing fancy from then on just brew as you normally would, chill, etc. Eat some post boil cranberries. I kept it in primary for a month and racked it directly into the keg this year to get it ready in time for drop off. I usually secondary most of my beers before kegging/bottling.

[Allen H]

I hope you all, or Santa, enjoy my beer. I left my bottle out for Mr Claus this year. I hope he brings me the good stuff...

[klinger]

Hey Allen,

This was my last beer before bed last night at 1:30ish after all the presents were finally wrapped. I thought it was nicely balanced -- the cranberry was there but not overwhelming, nice roast without being too much, firm bitterness but again balanced.

Nice beer. I slept well on it with proper visions sugarplum and santaberry fairies dancing in my head.

Thanks & Merry Christmas,

Mark

[Allen H]

Merry Christmas. Glad it was just right, for the last beer of the night.