This was my first Barleywine. The BJCP describes a Barleywine as:

“A well-hopped American interpretation of the richest and strongest of the English ales. The hop character should be evident throughout, but does not have to be unbalanced. The alcohol strength and hop bitterness often combine to leave a very long finish.

Here was my attempt at this one.

Kicked in the Nuts Barleywine 5gallons
OG: 1.110
FG: (anticipated) 1.020
ABV : 14%
IBUs: 145

10lbs Marris Otter
6lbs American 2 Row
5lbs Munich Malt
8oz Aromatic Malt
1lb Crystal 120L

.5oz Columbus at FWH
1.5oz Columbus at 60min
1oz Centennial at 45min
1oz Amarillo at 20min
1oz Cascade at 2min

I did a single infusion mash schedule at 152deg for 90minutes. I batch sparged to get 7 gallons. I boiled down to 5.5 gallons and pitched a big yeast slurry from an IPA made last week. This took off right away. White Labs 001 Chico yeast is great and clean for the malt and hops to pop through.

This is for a 10 gallon batch of a brew I made last Saturday. I found the recipe on the BrewBoard. Cheers TexanBrew!

Ingredients
Grain
16lbs Pale Malt American 2L
2lbs Flaked Barley
2lbs Flaked Maize
2lbs CaraVienne Belgium

Hops
1.5oz Perle 60min
1oz Northern Brewer 30min
.5oz Perle 15min
1oz Northern Brewer 0min

I used 2 yeasts here. Safale-US56 and Nottingham Dry

I recently wanted to make something other than beer and Mead was the next best choice. Traditionally a Mead contains approximately 15 lbs of un processed honey. Local grown honey is best. A Melomel is a berry and honey wine. Usually 13-16% ABV (alcohol by volume)

I was blessed with my good pal Dan P’s blackberry bush. He dropped about 3 lbs of Ohio grown blackberries. I plan on infusing this Mead with them. Here is the recipe.

Blackberry Melomel
10lbs Clover Honey (yes from Costco)
3lbs Wildflower Dark Honey (local)
2lbs of Mixed berry fruit salad (left overs)
4 gallons clean water
3tbsp DAP (yeast energizer)
1pk Danstar Wine Yeast D-74 White wine

Heat water to 140deg. Add honey and pureed fruit salad. Make sure you remove the pot from the stove as you add honey, as it may scorch. Keep warm for 10min. Remove from heat. Let cool overnight in fermenter and add energizer. Take your gravity reading, mine was a bit low as I used too much water. (I adjusted in the recipe here.) Pitch yeast when it is at least 80deg or less. Wait. Wait for 2 weeks or until gravity reads 1.020. Then rack this onto fresh blackberries or any type of berry. I simply took the berries, froze them to break down the cell structure. Heated them and some more honey, about 2# at 150deg for 15min. Let cool and then pour into the fermenter for another week. Then I “rack” it to another fermenter for the second stage of fermentation. This needs to be repeated for at least 3 more times. Mead takes 1 year to make.

After at least 4 rackings, and 6-8 months of time, you are ready to bottle. I am using ice wine bottles for gifts.

We decided to try another crack at an overnight mash schedule. Well, everything would have been great, however my chest freezer died the very minute as I lowered in the fermenters. Temperatures for making lagers are in the 50’s and not the 80’s. $70 later and a Saturday of sweat and frustration, I had to dump the batch. I kegged it and thought that even with these high temps it would still would mellow out after a few weeks, but not the case. It tasted awful. Here are some images.