Hi, everyone! This is the long overdue second part of our two-part series using the Conan Ale yeast strain. Just a quick refresher, we brewed a mid-gravity base ESB to build up the yeast for this English Barleywine back in the first week of November. Honestly, brew day notes are quite lacking for this batch, but I do have the important pieces listed below. Oh! one important fun fact I would like to point out is that Juli never baked that loaf of spent grain bread she was so adamant about from the previous batch!
Conan the Barleybarian Part II: English Barleywine
Lead Brewer: Dave
Date: 11/23/2013
BJCP Style: 19B English Barleywine
- Mash: 154°F for 90 minutes (1 qt/lb)
- Final volume: 11 gallons
- OG: 1.100
- FG: 1.012
- ABV: 11.5%
- IBU: 42
Grain Bill:
- 35.5 lb Maris Otter (81.1%)
- 2 lb Munich (4.6%)
- 1.5 lb CaraPils (3.4%)
- 1.5 lb Crystal 120L (3.4%)
- 1.5 lb Victory 25L (3.4%)
- 1 lb Crystal 80L (2.3%)
Hop Schedule:
- FWH – 2oz East Kent Golding (7.2% AA)
- @60 minutes: 2 oz East Kent Golding (7.2% AA)
- @45 minutes: 1.5 oz Fuggles (4.4% AA)
- @15 minutes: 1.5 oz Fuggles (4.4% AA)
Fermentation:
- Yeast: Conan Ale, yeast cake from ESB
- Fermented at 64° for about two weeks then slowly let rise to 75° once primary fermentation was finished (about 5 weeks total)
- *Fermentation Notes: As of 12/21/13 the fermentation was stuck at 1.050. I pulled off some yeast and restarted it with fresh wort, added it back after 2 days and the beer ended up finishing at 1.012 which was way too low! We are going to let this age and hopefully with time things will start to meld.
Bottle/Keg:
- 1/12/14 – Racked 5 gal. to a keg and set it at 12psi which will likely be the serving pressure too.
- 1/19/14 – Racked the other 5 gal. to bottling keg. I boiled a pint of water and 100g (just under 3/4 cup) corn sugar and bottled with the beer gun.
- Tasting Notes from bottling:
Visibly, the beer is medium to dark brown and slightly hazy but much less than it was prior to cold crashing. Smells great, lot’s of floral and tropical notes up front with a nice malty background. I kind of wished I’d barrel aged this in one of the bourbon barrels as that would have really took this beer to another level. Tastes almost ready to drink, the residual carbonation in this beer seems a bit high. Hopefully 100g of corn sugar won’t lead to over carbonation or worse, bottle bombs. It has a somewhat creamy mouth feel and is warming but no fusel notes from the high ABV, very drinkable and dangerous. - 4/9/14 – Added 2 oz French Oak chips to the kegged batch.
Miscellaneous:
- @20 minutes: Whirfloc Tablet
- @20 minutes: Servomyces
- @20 minutes: Yeast Nutrient
- @ flameout: 12oz Brown Sugar
- Aerated cooled wort for 90 seconds with pure oxygen prior to pitching yeast
Bitter Barley 
I’m curious how this turned out, and how satisfied you are with conan in an english barleywine.
I actually had the idea to use conan with this style a couple weekends ago and have been farting around with a recipe. I happened to do a google search for “conan english barleywine” this morning and came across your post.
Anything about the beer you’d do differently?
Hi Chuck, thanks for the comment. This beer turned out just okay in my opinion. It attenuated down to 1.012 which left it bone dry for a barleywine, so I added some french oak cubes to it to steer it in a different direction. While I do get that fruity ester from the yeast, the fact that the body is so dry really detracts me from this beer. At this point I think the only thing that will help this beer is time. If I were to re-brew this I would shoot for a higher final gravity by targeting a mash temp of around 158º, boil longer (or more vigorous) and ferment this strain in the low 60’s. A side note about the yeast I used; I got a vial from a friend in Florida that he grew from Heady Topper dregs. Keep that in mind if you’re using one of the other ‘Vermont’ strains from WhiteLabs, Yeast Bay or Omega yeast type shops. Let me know if you’d like to try it, I’d happily ship you a bottle for your feedback. Cheers! Dave
Thanks for the reply! I can’t help but wonder why your beer attenuated so much. 1.100 to 1.012 is HUGE. The fruity esters were my main concern – I was trying to gauge how well the peachy characteristics played with the conventional english barleywine flavors.
I’m using a pound of flaked wheat in my grist and will be mashing at 156, so I’m not terribly concerned about the body. As an aside, I’ve been reading that in lieu of an extended boil, some people like to simmer a portion of their first runnings down into almost a syrup-like form and add that to the boil. That’d definitely give you some non-fermentables and would probably contribute a lot of carmel/burnt sugar flavors that are hallmark of the style.
I appreciate the offer to ship me a bottle, but I know how much of a pain in the ass it can be to package and ship beer, so I don’t want you to have to go out of your way!
Cheers and happy holidays!
-Chuck
Yeah, I think it attenuated since I did the mid-fermentation starter and re-pitched at 1.050. I should have just let it go as-is. The fruit is definitely there, it’s just weirdly dry.
I’ve reduced my first runnings on my strong scotch ales in the past and if I were to do this beer again would probably do that as well – good call! Anyhow, good luck with your brew!
Cheers,
Dave