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As Seen In |
Big, Bad and Beautiful BY Bruce L Brode "Grand Hydro" (Published in the Febrewary 1997 Brews and News)
Brew Style of the Month: Barleywine
How else can you describe Barleywine, but as Big, Bad and Beautiful? Big, as in enormous amounts of malt, hops, body, alcohol, flavor, aroma, aftertaste. Bad, as in being the most serious, impossible-to-ignore beer you will ever encounter. Beautiful, as in the most memorable, mouth-filling experience a beer fan can have. Lots of everything, that's Barleywine! Here is the Falcons Competition Style Description for it: Barleywine: The strongest and richest of British ales. Many feature fruity aromas and flavors from esters produced from the heat of fermentation, and may possess a residual flavor of unfermented sugar. High hopping rates are used to balance the intense maltiness and/or sweetness of these powerful beers. Pale and dark styles are known, and color may range from rich gold to very dark amber into brown. Flavor notable for great intensity of maltiness and prominent hop bitter for balance; well-aged examples may also show oxidative flavors as in Old Ale. Full bodied, generally low carbonation. O.G. 1.072-1.127, I.B.U. 50-100, alcohol 7.5-12.5% v/v. Commercial examples: Young's Old Nick (U.K.), Anchor Old Foghorn (U.S.), Sierra Nevada Bigfoot (U.S.), Rogue Old Crustacean (U.S.).
Brewing such a beer as this calls for some special techniques. For one thing, your yield will be way down since there is such a concentration of the malt (unless your recipe is based on malt extract). In the all-grain technique, the traditional way to achieve this concentration is to use a very thick mash, and collect just the first runnings of the lauter tun, undiluted by any sparge water! Use of just the first runnings might give you only a third the volume yield that you would ordinarily get out of the same amount of grain for a 1.050 gravity beer, for example. Frugality also calls for relautering the grains that are left in the tun after the initial runnings by infusing more warm water, and collecting the second runoff separately for a much lower gravity beer, a "twopenny ale" (essentially a Bitter or Mild Ale), which will mature much faster. You'll need something to drink while the big stuff is setting up. Getting a sufficient bittering level to avoid winding up with a cloyingly sweet Barleywine takes some doing, too, in your hop calculations. Very viscous worts such as a Barleywine wort have a negative effect on hop utilization efficiency. The general rule of thumb is to use 5% more hops by weight for each 10 degrees of specific gravity above 1.050. For a gravity of 1.100, you would need an additional 25% bittering hops to get an equivalent bittering level, which at a range of 50 to 100 IBU's is very highto begin with! One of the biggest challenges in brewing Barleywine is getting sufficient fermentation. You'll be pushing that ale yeast to the very limit of its ability to attenuate in the face of ever-increasing alcohol levels. This calls for massive quantities of yeast: at least 1 1/2 quarts of active starter per 5 gallons, and consider pitching additional active yeast upon racking to secondary. You want an ale yeast that ferments well in the presence of alcohol, which generally means a 'powdery' yeast that doesn't settle out very quickly but stays in suspension looking for maltose to ferment. As a final touch for the secondary ferment and aging, dry hop the beer with some nice hop flowers to insure a thoroughly hoppy profile to stand up to all that malt. You may have to age the beer for a couple years or more (painful, I know), but the result will be sheer nirvana! Boy, it's really time to brew some truly gruesome Barleywine. Here's Michael Bowe's First Place recipe from the 1993 Mayfaire Competition: Barleywine, by Michael Bowe. For 5 gallons: Grains: 20 lbs. Klages (American 2-row pale malt). 1 lb. 40 L. caramel malt. 1 lb. CaraPils malt. Hops: 3.5 oz. Willamette leaf, 5.0% A.A., boiled for 60 min. 2 oz. Willamette leaf, boiled for 30 min. 1 oz. Willamette leaf, boiled for 5 min. 2 oz. Goldings pellets for dry hopping in secondary. Yeast: Wyeast London Ale for primary ferment. Champagne yeast for secondary ferment. Water: Activated charcoal filtered, amended with 1 teaspoon gypsum. Procedure: Mash schedule: 8 gallons (mash liquor?). Rest 132 F. for 30 min., 151 F. for 90 min., 168 F. for 5 min. Sparge water at 170 F. Total boil time 90 min., with hop additions as above. 30 min. post-boil rest. Ferment primary 65 F. for 8 days, secondary 65 F. for 33 days. Prime with 5 oz. corn sugar at bottling. O.G. 1.096, F.G. 1.030. Here's a malt extract-based recipe that took Second Place in the A.H.A. National Competition in 1993, reprinted from Victory Beer Recipes (Brewers Publications, 1994): "Boobs Barley Wine," by Chuck Boyce, Cincinnati, OH: For 5 gallons: Grains: 3 lbs. Klages (American 2-row pale malt). 1/2 lb. dextrin malt. 1/2 lb. crystal malt. Extracts: 12 pounds light (dry?) malt extract. Hops: 9 oz. Bullions, boiled 90 min. 1.5 oz. Fuggles, boiled 15 min. 1.5 oz. Cascade, boiled 1 to 2 min. Yeast: Wyeast #1056 (American Ale Yeast). Specifics: Mash grains for 1 hour at 152 F. Total boil time 90 min. Primary ferment 4 weeks at 75 F., secondary 2 weeks at 65 F. O.G. 1.110, F.G. 1.034. That's all for now, folks. Until next time, no whining, just some Barleywining, so keep floatin' and go brew some! |
