It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas… at least I’m in the mood to brew an English barleywine that will be decently drinkable by Thanksgiving.
I’ve been looking at recipes on the web and in books. Some of the web recipes sound sketchy (brew 6 hours…?). “Brewing Classic Styles” has a recipe, “Hard and Hardy,” that looks tenable (they recommend a 2-hour boil, which seems reasonable). Basic Brewing video does a small-batch barleywine every year (barley wine? barleywine?) that seems good enough. But even a half-batch of barleywine is a pretty big grain bill, so I’m trying to make sure I pick well.
Suggestions or recommendations? Anyone tried “Hard and Hardy”? (I had a Thomas Hardy a year ago and really loved it.) My rationalization for brewing English vs. American is that I like them both, but English barleywine is more accessible to craft-beer newbies (actually I think it’s a gateway beer…).