Beer Style: American Strong Ale
Includes American-style barleywines, wheatwines as well as several barrel-aged beer.
Home Golden Age Ale (1910)
Digital and Plus Members OnlyHome Golden Age Ale (1910) (5 gallons/19 L, all grain)OG = 1.082 FG = 1.015IBU = 80 SRM = 5 ABV = 8.8% This is by far the Home Brewing Co.’s biggest and hoppiest beer and is one that we have brewed on a 20-barrel scale at Brewport. The hops were added in portions at
Prairie Artisan Ales’ Okie clone
Digital and Plus Members OnlyIn a space between a brown ale and a barleywine, Okie packs a punch delivering flavors of sweet caramel and dark toast led by the nuanced character used in the barrel-aging process.
Bell’s Brewery’s Song Of The Open Road clone
FREESong of the Open Road will pour a nice shade of brown with garnet notes. The hearty ale is best served in a snifter glass and will pair well with rich desserts, a fine cigar or, of course, the literary works of Walt Whitman.
Jamil’s American Barleywine
Digital and Plus Members OnlyThe balance of bittering versus malt sweetness should always be toward the bitter, but expect the beer to become more and more balanced as the beer ages and the bittering drops out.
Great Lakes Brewing Co.’s Christmas Ale clone
Digital and Plus Members OnlyGreat Lakes Brewing Co.’s Christmas Ale clone (5 gallons/19 L, all-grain)OG = 1.070 FG = 1.012IBU = 30 SRM = 19 ABV = 7.5% By Cleveland tradition, the annual release of Christmas Ale effectively marks the official start of the holiday season in The Forest City. Ingredients10.5 lbs. (4.76 kg) American Pilsner malt1 lb. (0.45 kg)
Two Roads Brewing Company’s Route of All Evil clone
Digital and Plus Members Only(5 gallons/19 L, all-grain) OG = 1.072 FG = 1.012 IBU = 30 SRM = 37 ABV = 7.9% Ingredients11 lbs. (5 kg) 2-row pale ale malt0.75 lb. (0.34 kg) dark Munich malt0.75 lb. (0.34 kg) crystal malt (65 °L)0.75 lb. (0.34 kg) black malt0.38 lb. (0.17 kg) crystal malt (25 °L)0.38 lb. (0.17 kg)
Wheatwine
Digital and Plus Members OnlyGordon Strong provides readers with a recipe for a wheatwine. “Stan Hieronymus writes in Brewing with Wheat that wheatwine has its origins in modern American craft brewing, but that it was not intentional. A happy accident produced a higher gravity American wheat ale. The first modern commercial version is credited to Rubicon Brewing Company (Sacramento, California) in 1988, but many breweries now produce it as a limited edition winter release. Some examples are vintage-dated and oak-aged, suggesting they likely will continue to improve with age.”
The Driveway Barley Wine
Digital and Plus Members OnlyMitch Steele, former Head Brewer and Production Manager at Stone Brewing Co., and now Brewmaster and Co-Founder of New Realm Brewing in Atlanta, Georgia, provides BYO with a recipe. “I brewed this beer with the Manchester Area Society of Homebrewers (MASH) homebrew club at my home in Bedford, New Hampshire when I was an Assistant Brewer at Anheuser-Busch in Merrimack, New Hampshire.”
Oceanside Ale Works’ American Strong Ale clone
Digital and Plus Members OnlyHead Brewer Mark Purciel considers his beer a hybrid of all three styles. “It has the malt richness of the English without the high alpha acids from the hops in an American variety,” Purciel says. “It has the neutral yeast as an American, but candi sugar as an adjunct with a Belgian.”
Perennial Artisan Ales’ Devil’s Heart of Gold clone
Digital and Plus Members OnlyThis is a recipe for Devil’s Heart of Gold, a whiskey barrel–aged wheat wine. The base beer, Heart of Gold, won a silver medal at the Great American Beer Festival in 2012.
Midnight Sun Brewing Company: Arctic Devil Barley Wine clone
Digital and Plus Members OnlyThis is an English-style barleywine brewed once each year and then aged in oak barrels several months before being released each fall.
Jack and Ken’s Ale — Sierra Nevada 30th Anniversary Ale Collaboration clone
FREESierra Nevada put together this recipe in collaboration with Jack McAuliffe from New Albion Brewing (1976–1982) in Sonoma, California using raw materials available in the late 1970s. This was one of four Sierra Nevada 30th Anniversary Collaboration Ales.