We’ve pulled out a couple of our favorite recipes from Project Extreme Brewing: An Enthusiast's Guide to Extreme Brewing at Home, including Bulky Oxen from Post Brewing and Puddin’ Wine from Sam and the Alström Brothers. And if you’re more of a visual learner, check out the videos page to see the beers in action!
Bulky Oxen
English-style Barleywine
Post Brewing Company
A LITTLE BIT ABOUT THE BEER
The Post Brewing Company loves it friends. Even more, it loves making stuff with its friends. So, for its inaugural “Brewing With Friends” beer, brewmaster Bryan Selders asked his old friend Sam Calagione, founder and president of Dogfish Head in Delaware, to brew with him. During a top-secret mandate over a few cocktails, the two hatched the idea for Bulky Oxen.
The name Bulky Oxen was inspired by Babe the Big Blue Ox from the Paul Bunyan fable, a characted woven into the Dogfish Head ethos from the beginning. It seemed fitting as Babe was always the trusty companion to Paul Bunyan, as Calagione and Selders have had a similar relationship, helping each other along, hauling logs and clearing paths.
Bulkey Oxen is a beer inspired by food and one dish in particular: the Post’s wood-fired pork shoulder with caramelized onion marmalade. It’s a dish Selders describes as life changing. Using it as a launching point, the two brewers needed to decide which aspects of the food would be translate into a great beer and focused on caramelization, smoke, and luscious flavors. Bulky Oxen ended up as a deep mahogany, English-style barleywine with a modest ABV. It features rich, lush malt flavors balanced by tropical American hops and citrus peel.
A housemade marmalade made with caramelized, Sucanat sugar-crusted citrus and sweet onion is added during the boil to offer sweet and savory aromas of orange, spice, and smoke. This Strong Ale is the perfect partner for a hearty meal of pork or beef and is equally well suited as a nightcap on a cool evening near a fire.
HOW TO MAKE IT
Start by making some killer onion marmalade. Chop a pound of sweet onions and a half pound of assorted citrus, mix together, and toss with a pound of Sucanat. Smoke or roast all of this on a tray until it’s caramelized, soft, and delicious. Puree the whole mixture and hold onto it for a little bit.
Boil your wort. After 5 minutes, add the Columbus hops. Fifty minute later, stir in the marmalade. Five minutes later, add the Azacca hops and boil for an additional 5 minutes. Turn off the flame, add the Centennial hops, and gently stir to create a nice whirlpool. Cover the kettle and allow the wort to rest for about 20 minutes.
Ferment the beer between 68°F and 72°F. Once the final gravity has been reached, allow the beer to rest at fermentation temperature for 3 to 4 days. Transfer to secondary for 1 to 2 weeks conditioning.
PUDDIN’ WINE
English Barleywine
2017 Extreme Beer Fest Collaboration
A LITTLE BIT ABOUT THE BEER
Based on Jason Altröm’s recipe for a traditional Christmas pudding, this English-style Barleywine was brewed with Maris Otter malt and a boatload of dark and dried fruits—black currants, sultanas, plums, cherries, and raisins—plus golden treacle and brown sugar to goose the ABV to 11.8%. Fermented with a traditional English ale yeast, our version then spent four months in freshly dumped Terra d’Oro Zinfandel Port wine barrels. It might be a Puddin’ Wine, but this is not a beer to be trifled with.
HOW TO MAKE IT
Start with a preboil volume of 5.8 gallons. Prior to brewing, rehydrate the dried fruit in warm water, drain off most of the water, and macerate in a blender or food processor to make a paste that can be added at flameout. Collect about 5 gallons of cooled wort in your fermenter or carboy. Ferment until gravity has stopped moving, approximately one week, then transfer to a secondary vessel for another 4-6 months of warm aging before bottling. For the last 2 weeks of secondary, consider adding 1 ounce of red wine-soaked medium toast French Oak cubes to compliment the dark fruits in this beer.
For All Grain: Heat your strike water up several degrees above the desired mash rest temperature. Single infusion mash with approximately 4.5 gallons of strike water. Vorlauf for about 10 minutes until your runoff clears. Sparge with approximately 2.5 gallons of 170° F water and collect enough runoff to hit the target preboil volume. Recipe based on 70% lautering efficiency. Full recipe details, including ingredients and measurements, are available in the book.