Ersatz Harpoon 1991 Winter Warmer

Classification: spiced ale, holiday beer, extract, Harpoon Winter Warmer

Source: David Van Iderstine (orgasm!davevi@uunet.UU.NET) Issue #844, 3/16/92

This is a composite recipe, designed to mimick Harpoon's latest Winter Warmer offering. I started with the spice list for Harpoon's Winter Warmer, as published in the Beer News (or whatever that fine newsprint rag found in various lobbies is called). Armed with the spice list, I searched all my HBD back-issues for each spice. Whenever I found one of the spices being used, I looked for its relative weight as compared to all other ingredients in that particular recipe. By doing this for all the spices listed below, I arrived at a statistical "average" for the relative concentrations of all of them together. So maybe I should call this "Statistician's Delight"?

Ingredients:

6 pounds, Laaglander amber dry malt extract
1/2 ounce, black patent malt
12 ounces, crystal malt
1--1/2 ounces, chocolate malt
1 pound, honey (added with extract)
1 ounce, Clusters pellets (6.5--7.5% alpha) (boil)
1 ounce, Willamette pellets (aroma)
Wyeast British ale yeast (#1098)
1/2 teaspoon, nutmeg (8 minute boil)
1--1/2 teaspoons, ground cinnamon (8 minute boil)
1/2 teaspoon, ground cloves (8 minutes boil)
1 teaspoon, vanilla (5 minute boil)
1 tablespoon, gypsum
1 tablespoon, Irish moss (10 minute boil)
3/4 cup, corn sugar (prime)

Procedure:

Put water on to boil. Add gypsum. Add grains in boiling bag. Remove grains when boil begins. Add extract. After 15 minutes, add bittering hops. Boil 1 hour. Chill. Add aromatic hops. Sparge, add yeast, fill carboy. After 1 week, rack to secondary. Bottle 2 weeks later.