Homebrew Recipe: Pecan Strong Ale

Last month I shared my homebrewed coffee vanilla porter recipe and mentioned sharing more recipes. Well, here’s another that I brewed for the holiday season. I dubbed this one the 2016 Christmas Ale, but it’s not really a spiced beer in the spirit of many Christmas ales.

This one actually has a history. In fact, I brewed a variation of this beer over four years ago as the first batch of beer that I kegged. Then for the 2015 Iron Brewer competition, our team was assigned pecans as an ingredient, and we brewed a version of this beer that won the people’s choice favorite. So, it’s definitely a beer that I have some experience with, and is a nice winter beer that incorporates the flavor of pecan pralines.

Here’s the recipe for the base beer:

• 12 pounds Maris Otter
• 1 pound Crystal 60L
• 1 pound Flaked wheat
• 8 ounces Crystal 120L
• 6 ounces Chocolate malt
• 1 pound dark brown sugar at 10 minutes
• 2 ounces Willamette hops at 60 minutes
• 1 ounce Willamette hops at 5 minutes
• Scottish Ale yeast (Wyeast 1

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