Barley wine.

The Homebrew Forum

Help Support The Homebrew Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

NIGHTSKY BREWING

Regular.
Joined
Apr 1, 2018
Messages
215
Reaction score
38
In 2008 a had a beer from Sierra Nevada called Big foot barley wine ... now for me this blew me away and is still the best beer in my book has any one bettered this complex beer .
Any good recipes young or old I could try.
 
You specifically looking for American barleywines or British also? I brewed a lower strength one based on the recipe from Greg Hughes' book last year, going to be bottling it next week. The 5 bottles that didn't fit in the carboy took about 6 months to come good but it's a very smooth beer now so the rest is getting bottled for winter.

88% pale malt, 8% carapils, 4% Crystal (Crisp Dark), mashed at 65c, 40 IBU of challenger at 90 mins then 10g each EKG, fuggles and challenger at 20 mins which brought the IBUs up to 52. Fermented with Wyeast 1099 Whibread Ale at 20c. Knowing what I know now, I'd pitch at 18c at most and keep it there for a couple of days before slowly ramping. OG was 1.082, FG 1.020 for 8.1% abv. Was meant to be about 9% but as my first big beer on the grainfather my efficiency was pretty poor (66%) so just took what I got.

Some english versions are simply a Maris Otter + EKG smash, albeit one brewed to give anything from 8 - 12% abv. American ones tend to have IBU:OG ratio closer to 1:1 and a tonne of late hops. That's not to my taste so I don't have any experience with them.

Brilliant style and one I'm going to be experimenting with for years to come, just have to watch stocks as they take a bit of time to drink through. :beer1:
 
Sounds a great UK recipe...please save me a bottle so we can we can do a swap later on .... maybe for xmas day or the 1st of 2019...........
Big foot was just WOW malt Big hops with a smell from heaven.
Early bottles were better 2008/ 11.
 
Sounds a great UK recipe...please save me a bottle so we can we can do a swap later on .... maybe for xmas day or the 1st of 2019...........
Big foot was just WOW malt Big hops with a smell from heaven.
Early bottles were better 2008/ 11.
Will do, I should get 30+ 330ml bottles of this so there will be plenty to spare and a swap would be great.

Oh, meant to say that if you Google Bigfoot clone you get a heap of results. Good luck.
 
Done deal .. have just done a swap with Leon.... what a great idea ... at my age it's the only excitement I get.LOL. Cost is only is 2.90 small parcel.
Cheers Matt.
 
Done deal .. have just done a swap with Leon.... what a great idea ... at my age it's the only excitement I get.LOL. Cost is only is 2.90 small parcel.
Cheers Matt.
Haha, yeah swaps are great, so nice being able to see what other brewers are doing and then getting feedback on your own beers. Should generally be able to get 2 bottles in the parcel for £2.90 also, although I'm not sure what happened for the last comp I entered, charged me more but I'm not sure exactly what I was getting charged for as I can't match the price to any of the options on their site... Very strange.
 
Will keep you posted will order the mountain of Malt ... hops .... and yeast...next week need to be de stressed and focused for the most hardest form of brewing... numbers out the window.
 

Latest posts

Back
Top