X-Mas Ale-egations Brew Day

Well, I'm trying to keep up with this blog thing again, but I have had some other things on my mind.  The good news is that I was asked to brew a beer for the firm I work at.  And lets be serious, I don't have a chance on making it with my legal skill or intelligence, so I have to find something else to trick people into liking me.

I personally have never been a huge fan of spiced beer, but I need to both find a style that was not offensive to a large number of people, and one that would fit the season.  That being said, a spiced beer around this time can still be enjoyable.  More importantly, I got to to make incredibly terrible puns!  In the short time I had, I could only come up with two that were so bad as to put them on a bottle and embarrass myself: X-Mas Ale-egations and the Yule Against Perpetuities (yeaaaaaaaaah law jokes!).  The second didn't fit so I went with X-Mas Ale-egations and we were off.

X-Mas Ale-egations

Recipe

Batch size: 6.0 gallons
Original Gravity: 1.074
Final Gravity: 1.022
Boil Time: 60 minutes

Grain

18.5 lbs. English Maris Otter
0.75 lb. Crystal 80L
0.25 lb. Black Patent Malt

Hops

1.0 oz Horizon @ 60 minutes

Spices

1/2 broken up cinnamon stick @ 1 minute
1/3 tsp Ginger @ 1 minute
1/8 tsp Nutmeg @ 1 minute
1/8 tsp Allspice @ 1 minute

Yeast
Made yeast starter two days in advance from Wyeast 1028 London Ale

Unfortunately, I was a bit rusty since I haven't brewed a while.  During the process, I forgot it was supposed to be a 90 minute boil and stopped at 60 resulting in more beer than I had expected, and a less strong one than originally planned.  The good news is that since it was for people other than me, it was nice to have the alcohol percentage a little lower as to not get me in trouble.  That and I got more beer to hand out to friends.  Unfortunately, I cannot find the rest of my notes for this one, so this will have to do!