By Greg B. So, I was in the mood to try and make a winter ale.  I’ve had some great ones this year, and I really wanted to try to follow suit.  So, after checking with some homebrewers, sampling enough beers, looking around the internet and consulting my local homebrew suppliers at Maryland Homebrew, I bought a bunch of supplies.  This one is going to be one heck of a beer.

It is possible to do too much with a beer, and I kind of fear that I did that this time, but we will know in due time how this turns out!  I wanted a ‘winter warmer’, something with high alcohol, nice seasonal spices and just an overall good brew.  So, here are the ingredients:

• 6.6 lbs Dark malt extract
• 3 lbs dry dark malt extract
• 2 lbs wildflower honey
• 1/2 lb choc malt
• 1/2 lb black malt
• 1/2 lb Munich malt
• 1/2 lb flaked barley
• 1/2 lb malto dextrin
• 7 cloves
• 3 oranges
• 3 sticks of cinnamon
• 2 whole nutmegs
• 2 oz grated ginger
• 1/3 cup molasses
• 2oz cascade hops (whole leaf)
• 1oz Galena hops

I know that’s a heck of a list, but we’ll see how it turns out! I mashed all the grains for 30 min, then boiled the malt extract, honey, molasses and the galena hops for 30 minutes, then added 1oz cascade hops along with all the herbs and oranges (i sliced the oranges) to the boil for another 25 minutes, adding the remaining 1oz cascade hops during the last 10 minutes of the boil, for aromatics.

Wow.  I cooled the wort down, strained the oranges and hops and everything before dumping into the primary fermenter.  With the temperature reading 69 degrees F, I measured the original gravity.  1.104.  With the Irish ale yeast, I know this will come down to around a final gravity of about 1.020, which leaves me in the 11-12% abv range.  I’ll keep you all posted as this beer moves to the secondary and gets bottled over the coming months.  Right now (12-9-08) it has been 4 solid days since entering the primary, and it is still bubbling away, though at a slower pace (1 ‘blurp’ every 60-120 seconds or so).  I will post updates below as I go through the rest of the process.  Happy brewing!

**update, June 7th, 2009** This beer has aged incredibly.  For the first few months, the spices took center stage, but I squirreled away a few bottles.  Now, in June, we had a chocolate souffle with vanilla ice cream for dessert, I pulled a bottle of this beer.  It was perfect.  The spices have toned down to be present, yet they meld beautifully with the dark roasted malts in the beer.  The 12% abv is not noticeable in the slightest.  This is a beer that, if you’re going to want to enjoy it in the wintertime, I’d recommend brewing now.  Or even, brew it this winter, then ignore it for at least a year before you sample it again.  It’s fantastic!