#109 Homebrew - Holiday Spice Ale.

This was my first beer to be made from a recipe and not a kit, and the first to use a yeast cake from another batch of beer. I used the yeast cake from an IPA that had some remaining hops. The recipe was a basic ale that I had originally planed to use to make a pumpkin beer, but after all the bad pumpkin beers I had I didn’t want to make one. After a few weeks I added 1 star Anise, 1 whole nutmeg, a few cloves and 2 slices of fresh ginger all ground to a plump and left in the secondary for a few weeks. It was less than 1 ounce of spices for 5 gallons of beer, it looked like way too little.

The smell is nothing but spice, strong star anise licerious aromas, and not much other spice can be detected. The color is a hazy brown with a huge head of foam. The foam is massive, lots of large light brown bubbles. The head has tons of retention, it has been a few minutes and it is still thick in the glass. The beer was primed with boiled white sugar not corn sugar.

The taste is nothing but spice star anise, and maybe a touch of ginger. The finish makes my mouth water with some remaining sweetness and a little bitterness. The mouthfeel is thin, but since there isn’t a big malt profile it is ok.

As long as you like star Anise or licorice this beer will be good, and it is a good match with some spice cake. If you don’t like those flavors, then this beer is way too strong. In the future I will use less star anise or add it to the boil instead of the secondary.