Butte Creek Brewing’s Winter Ale clone
This beer is now retired. The Butte Creek Brewing Co.’s annual winter ale was technically an American Brown Ale with Fuggle hops providing a balance to the malty backbone.
Butte Creek Winter Ale clone
(Butte Creek Brewing Co., California)
(5 gallons/19 L, extract with grains)
OG = 1.059 FG = 1.014
IBU = 42 SRM = 18 ABV = 5.9%
Ingredients
6.6 lbs. (3.0 kg) Briess Light liquid malt extract
1 lb. (0.45 kg) Briess Light dried malt extract
7 oz. (2.0 kg) chocolate malt
3 oz. (85 g) Munich malt
1 tsp. Irish moss (15 mins)
11.25 AAU Perle hops (60 min.) (1.5 oz./43 g of 7.5% alpha acid)
4.5 AAU Fuggle hops (3 min.) (1 oz./28 g of 4.5% alpha acid)
White Labs WLP051 (California V Ale) or Wyeast 1272 (American Ale II) yeast
0.75 cup corn sugar (for priming)
Step by Step
Steep the two crushed grains in 3 gallons (11 L) of water at 150 ºF (65 ºC) for 30 minutes. Remove grains from wort, add malt syrup, dry malt extract and bring to a boil. Add Perle (bittering) hops, Irish moss and boil for 60 minutes. Add Fuggle aroma hops for the last 3 minutes of the boil.
When done boiling, add wort to 2 gallons (7.6 L) cool water in a sanitary fermenter, and top off with cool water to 5 gallons (19 L). Cool wort to 80 ºF (27 ºC), aerate the beer and pitch your yeast. Allow the beer to cool over the next few hours to 65–67 ºF (18–19 ºC), and hold at these temperatures until the yeast has fermented completely. Bottle your beer, age for 2–3 weeks and enjoy!
All-grain option:
This is a single infusion mash. Replace the light syrup and dry malt extract with 12 lbs. (5.4 kg) US pale 2-row malt. This will give an OG of 1.062, assuming an extract efficiency of 65%. Mash your grains at 155 ºF (68 ºC) for 60 minutes. Collect enough wort to boil for 90 minutes and have a 5.25-gallon (20-L) yield. The rest of the recipe follows the extract instructions given above
