![]() ![]() "It was awesome Kal, thanks for bringing it." "It was a great tasting barleywine and probably one of the best we tried last night." Hoppily assertive up front, but balanced out by the malt, and a lingering, balanced malt/bitter finish." "Hands down the hoppiest presence of all the BWs - but in a good way. We're always curious to get feedback on our beers from other brewers so here are some of their comments on this Barleywine after being aged for 17 months: The malt flavours took on more of a plum/raisin taste as it aged and the 'hot' taste due to the high alcohol content subsided.Ī bunch of local brewers who were studying for their Beer Judge Certification Program (BJCP) exam recently got together to discuss the Barleywine / Old Ale style so we provided some of ours for them to compare against the commercial styles available. The hoppiness mellowed a bit as expected and aiming high on IBU worked well. It was interesting to taste how it changed over the first year and a half. This beer was kegged in July 2010 and kept at serving temperature. The recipe is a combination of the American Barleywine recipe found in Jamil Zainasheff's excellent recipe book Brewing Classic Styles and his Brewing Network podcast on Barleywine from January 15, 2007. Another test of the limits of the system. That was pretty close to the top of our 20 gallon boil kettle so we'd have to watch carefully for boil overs. Since we wanted to end up with 12 gallons post boil this mean we needed a full 15.8 gallons pre-boil. We increased the boil time to a full two hours to allow for more caramelization. You want to aim high on the IBUs with a Barleywine. 6-12 months later it had mellowed substantially. ![]() When we first tried this beer after kegging it, it was fairly bitter, almost harsh. The other aspect to keep in mind is that unlike an American IPA or IIPA that is meant to be consumed young and fresh when the hop flavour and aroma are at their peak, a Barleywine is best when aged so the apparent bitterness will subside over time. In fact, if you were to put a 70 IBU American IPA and this 100 IBU American Barleywine in front of someone and ask them which is more bitter, they'd probably choose the IPA. The extra maltiness and booze offsets the increased hoppiness so that it doesn't taste as hoppy as you'd think. While this may seem crazy high (higher than an American IPA), you have to remember that an American Barleywine is considerably more malty and has a higher alcohol content than an American IPA. An English style Barleywine will be hopped usually in the 35-70 IBU range while American will be around 50-120 IBU. This is an American style Barleywine as opposed to English which means using American style hops and hopping to a higher level than the English counterpart. Sierra Nevada Bigfoot Barleywine Style Ale balances fruity flavors with a good dose of bitterness. ![]() We now know however how mash efficiency is affected when making a very strong beer so we can compensate in the future (if preferred). We like the resultant beer so the recipe below is exactly what we brewed. The end result was a 12% ABV beer instead of the original target of 12.5% since we had assumed our typical 95% mash efficiency when formulating the recipe. With this Barleywine the mash efficiency dropped to 86% which is still very high. Our 8.5% ABV Pliny the Elder (Double IPA) still achieved our regular 95% mash efficiency which was nice to see. How much would the mash efficiency drop when brewing such a high gravity beer? With really high gravity beers mash efficiency drops because you're using less sparge water than usual to rinse more grain than usual and end up leaving more sugars behind. ![]() Would the Blichmann false bottom in the Mash/Lauter Tun be able to handle the weight of nearly 40 lbs of grain and 106 lbs of water? (We had no doubts it would, and it did).We wanted to answer the following questions: It would fill our 20 gallon Mash / Lauter Tun up to the 16.5 gallon mark. This Barleywine would push that up to a whopping 39.5 lbs. Up until then the strongest beer we had made was an 8.5% ABV Pliny the Elder (Double IPA) that used 25.9 lbs of grain. We figured it was time to brew something that would really push the limits as to how much grain this 20 gallon system could handle so brewing a strong 12-13% ABV Barleywine seemed like the logical choice. By May 2010 we had put 14 batches of various styles and strengths through our new Electric Brewery without any problems. ![]()
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