December 2013 Club Shop Brew Session - Old Smokey Barleywine

The final Club Shop Brew Session of 2013, on Dec. 29, continued the 40th Anniversary theme of brewing historic and award winning Falcons' recipes during the Club Shop Brew Sessions and stockpiling plenty of mind-blowing beers to be poured at the big 40th Anniversary Banquet. December's brew session brought back a recipe that has become a club legend -  Old Smokey Barleywine. Brew crew leader Richard "Beanie" Webster led the team to brew this famously delicious barleywine using Falcon Tom Wolf's original recipe, which has won too many awards to list name here. Suffice it to say that when the Board started compiling the list of classic Falcons recipes to brew for the 40th Anniversary, it was the first one named.      Richard, a 14-year homebrewer, was joined by Jason Byl, Tom Sisolak, Donovan Nebreklievski, Michael Stavrakis, Rick Burnside, and Israel "Izzy" Arrieta, with technical support from Board Members Steve Cook and Kent Fletcher in brewing Old Smokey, a big, rich, deep, complex American barleywine that needs love and a long fermentation time. It had to brewed well in advance to have it ready to pour at the Maltose Falcons 40th Anniversary Banquet in October. At the Dec. 8 club meeting, many of us were lucky enough to taste samples of Old Smokey, aged for many years, generously shared by the man himself, Tom Wolf, and it did not disappoint.    Richard shared some great tidbits about an exciting brew day with the kind of unexpected twists and improvisations that all homebrewers are familiar with.    "We had an exciting day. We followed Tom's recipe to the letter and everything was going great. We had a 3 hour mash, with 142F, 154F and 168F steps, and a 2.5 hour boil, and we ended up with 1.111 gravity. We used a new "Mondo Screen," a 5 ft. coil of 1 in. braided stainless steel hose that allows you to put as much hops in as you want, without using hop sacks, and at the end of the boil, the wort comes out perfectly clear with no hop sediment. Izzy brought yeast slurry for everyone from Craftsman Brewing Co."   "All of a sudden, one of the guys came running inside shouting that the boil kettle was overflowing with wort. The immersion chiller had a leak, and it was putting water into the wort. We pulled off about 10 gallons and put it in another kettle on a separate burner. It brought our gravity down to 1.086 and the water was regular tap water, so we had to re-boil everything and add 15 lbs. of dried malt extract to get back up to our target gravity. We ended up with 55 gallons of wort. That added 3 hours to the brew day, but we rescued it in the end. I was really impressed with the way everyone on the team worked together, and jumped in and adapted immediately to the unexpected snafoo. It shows just how versatile and inventive homebrewers are. Murphy's law is really the homebrewer's law."    As always, friends and fellow Falcons stopped by to chat and share beers and snacks. Be sure to sign up for an upcoming Club Shop Brew Session this year! They are tons of fun, educational, a great way to get to know some fellow Falcons, and you get a batch of excellent beer out of it.    Thanks to Richard and the rest of the crew for a terrific day. Below is the original recipe for Old Smokey. However, the December Brew Crew's adventure has created a new twist on it that may be hard to replicate, and the Falcons look forward to sampling the result at an upcoming club meeting. Who knows, maybe it will also go down in Falcon's history.     Check out the photos from the brew session here.    Old Smokey Barleywine. First Brewed By: Tom Wolf. Brew Date: 03/01/2000. Brew Type: All-Grain. Beer Styles: American Barleywine Recipe Category: Award Winning Brew. Classic Falcon Recipe.    Batch Size:  5.0 gallons Boil Time: 120 minutes Original Gravity: 1.101 O.G. IBUs: 73.3 IBUs SRM: 22.0 SRM   Malt/Grain/Sugar/Extract:  22.0 lbs Belgian Pilsner

1.0 lbs Weyermann Crystal 90L
1.0 lbs Bairds Crystal 35L
0.25 lbs Dingemans Special B
2 oz Chocolate Malt
1.4 lbs Light Malt Extract
1.0 lbs Corn Sugar

Hops: 

1.0 oz Northern Brewer Whole 90
1.0 oz Centennial Whole 90
1.0 oz Chinook Whole 90
2.0 oz Centennial Whole 0
1.0 oz Cascade Whole 0
1.0 oz E. Kent Golding Whole 0

Extra Ingredients: 

Irish Moss

Yeast: 

Wyeast 1056