Wine strength beer?

[Molineux]

Has anyone ever tried this?

I'm considering making one to take-out unsuspecting in-laws this Christmas.

Has anyone got any recipes/wisdom? I'm considering using my own Ale recipe that's bittered with pine needles and Heather from Cannock Chase but amping up the sugar and running a champagne yeast whilst my ipa yeast is slowing down.

 

[MickDundee]

I prefer my beers around the 5% mark, but I'm sure there are a few in here that have had a go at making Barleywine.

 

[chewie]

There are a few Barleywine recipes about, most will use sugar or honey to get the ABV up.

 

[dad_of_jon]

Has anyone ever tried this?

I'm considering making one to take-out unsuspecting in-laws this Christmas.

Has anyone got any recipes/wisdom? I'm considering using my own Ale recipe that's bittered with pine needles and Heather from Cannock Chase but amping up the sugar and running a champagne yeast whilst my ipa yeast is slowing down.

Mangrove jack's m29 with a good dose of candi sugar will get you there. :thumb:

just rehydrate the yeast first :smile: and you can get away with a single packet for 22 litres worth.

12.86% for my imperial belgian quad/stout :whistle:

However its getting a bit late in the year to have such a big beer ready for xmas. I did mine in march.

 

[Ken L]

I did some insane barley wines as a kid - upto about 18% alcohol. They were always sweet and cloying but I'm thinking of having another go with a view to getting around 12% and brewing dry.
I recently received a kit as the base but was astonished to see that it only brews out to 5.5% if the instructions are followed - I'm sure they were 8+ when I used to brew them.

 

[ericmark]

I have considered it, but in real terms it would need making like the high alcohol wines, basic idea is loads of sugar let it ferment then add charcoal to remove all taste then add the flavour you want, so you do a fermenter full and make alcohol at 20% ABV then do your beer and add the alcohol to beer, any other way you get the bitter after taste. Well to be frank may as well pour in a few bottles of vodka. My idea was scale up on quantities used with prohibition kits i.e. multiply by 5 and do a fomenter full, then put into 5 demijohns and add 5 different flavours then bottle so should get around 30 bottles.

However two things put a stop to it, one not living at home, and two the home brew shop which stocked the flavours has gone. Likely when I return home I will give it a go. As to doing it with beer, well to be frank lower the ABV the more I can drink, so not into high ABV beers for home brew. Because of tax laws high ABV for beers in the pub great, but not at home.

 

[Simonh82]

I have considered it, but in real terms it would need making like the high alcohol wines, basic idea is loads of sugar let it ferment then add charcoal to remove all taste then add the flavour you want, so you do a fermenter full and make alcohol at 20% ABV then do your beer and add the alcohol to beer, any other way you get the bitter after taste. Well to be frank may as well pour in a few bottles of vodka. My idea was scale up on quantities used with prohibition kits i.e. multiply by 5 and do a fomenter full, then put into 5 demijohns and add 5 different flavours then bottle so should get around 30 bottles.

However two things put a stop to it, one not living at home, and two the home brew shop which stocked the flavours has gone. Likely when I return home I will give it a go. As to doing it with beer, well to be frank lower the ABV the more I can drink, so not into high ABV beers for home brew. Because of tax laws high ABV for beers in the pub great, but not at home.

With all due respect, I'm not sure what you are on about here. There are plenty of examples of beers brewed to high strength without using charcoal to strip out the flavour and adding it back in artificially. I've never heard of that technique being used for beer.

I'm with Dad of John. The Belgians know how to make a good strong beer. Search the recipes databases on Brewers Friend or Beersmith to find one that suits your tastes. Get a good Belgian yeast and make a massive starter with it or uses 2-3 packets if dried (you might get away with 1 but why risk an important brew). Use a significant amount of simple sugars, either Belgian candi sugar or table sugar to increase alcohol and dry the beer out.

I've got a bottle of Rochford 10 in the fridge that I bought for my birthday. It's 11.5%. I'm planning on drinking it at Christmas. Then I'll probably fall asleep happy.

 

[Zephyr259]

I've got a bottle of Rochford 10 in the fridge that I bought for my birthday. It's 11.5%. I'm planning on drinking it at Christmas. Then I'll probably fall asleep happy.

Brilliant beer, I might have preferred the 8 but they were a while apart, tbh I think my preference would be for whichever one was in my glass at the time. :-)

I did some insane barley wines as a kid - upto about 18% alcohol. They were always sweet and cloying.

How did you brew these? I got a taste of a barley wine at a festival once and it was more wine than beer. Sweet and a bit syrupy but would make a nice nip, I can't find any information on anything like this online.

Molineux: I'm with the others here a big Belgian is a good way to go. I have a 9.3% on brewed for Christmas, 3kg lager malt, 1 kg wheat malt, 0.5 kg sugar (cooked into a homemade candi syrup), bittered to 32 IBUs with Styrian Goldings and fermented with Wyeast 3522 Belgian Ardennes.

Other option is a barleywine, essentially just scale up a pale ale recipe until it hits 9%+ but this will be a much bigger bodied beer than the Belgian as there isn't sugar to dry it out. Here's my first attempt it was pretty tasty last year, looking forward to trying some more bottles this year.

 

[Ken L]

They were a Youngs kit simply brewed with extra sugar added in stages with a high alcohol tolerant wine yeast intended for making desert wines.

 

[ericmark]

There are methods to increase the alcohol, but not permitted in this country. The limit with standard freezer is around 20% and you can brew to 20% so really can't see the point in breaking the law. I tried adding extra sugar to Young kits, and could get it to around the 6% ABV but over that there was a very bitter after taste, reducing water was better, but still 7% was about the limit before it got the bitter after taste, what I found was temperature was critical one has to stop it going over temperature which in real terms means a brew fridge. Both high alcohol and high brew temperature give that bitter after taste so have to ensure you don't get both together.

Brewing the sugar and the tin of extract separately then removing flavour from the sugar brew does allow one to increase the ABV without that after taste, however may as well just pour in a bottle of vodka to bring the ABV up. I know you can buy beer was 40% ABV but to do that they use a method which is not permitted for the home brewer.

 

[MarkBowie]

Some of the Brewferm kits are 8% brewing to instructions, could you not double up a kit swap the yeast and brew it slightly short? Might not be the cheapest but surely one of easier ways.

 

[strange-steve]

I have a recipe saved that I really want to try someday, it's a clone of Three Floyd's Dark Lord which is a 15% ABV imperial stout. It has an OG of 1.169, an FG of 1.054 and uses over 15kg of malt in a 19L batch!
If I get it brewed now it might be ready for Christmas 2025 :-?

 

[Slid]

Randy Mosher outlines a procedure for brewing a high strength beer.

It is one he researched, as opposed to invented.

Basically you use the wort from one mash to form the "water" for a second mash with another batch of grain.

It is said to be "wasteful of both grain and men" in the sense that:

You will likely get poor efficiencies from both batches of grain, and;
Drinking the resulting beer may result in poor performances from the drinkers.