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pitch generously and be patient. In fact, patience is required in hearty doses for now it is time to wait. As Allen and Cantwell put it in their excellent Brewers Association book, Barley Wine, “time is the fth ingredient”. ese big beers are often aged for at least 90 days and sometimes for many months, allowing the hop character to mellow and the booziness to integrate. Some brewers opt to age in wood, as the beers would traditionally have been centuries ago, others stick to cellaring their barley wines post-bottling. But it’s not just the ageing time that requires great patience. From the extended brewday to the lengthy diacetyl rest during fermentation and the minimum three- months cellaring time, this is a beer destined to be savoured. So when it comes to nally sipping, do it right. Remove it from the fridge long before you plan to pour, with optimal drinking temperature roughly the same as for a robust red wine. Pour into a short-stemmed snifter and serve with a post-dessert cheese platter next to the re, raising a glass to the brewer who put patience over pro t to produce the biggest beer you can brew. BREW-IT-YOURSELF SOUL BARREL OLD CELLAR BARLEYWINE Recipe courtesy of Nick Smith Nuts & bolts Batch size: 20 litres Method: All-grain Target OG: 1.096 Target FG: 1.009 Target ABV: 12.4% Target IBUs: 42 Water 39L soft mountain water, free from contaminates.  6.5g gypsum 13g calcium chloride 3g Epsom salts Mash ingredients 14kg Simpsons Golden Promise 750g Simpsons Premium English Caramalt 150g Weyermann Acidulated Whirlpool ingredients 50g Centennial 50g Cascade Ferment ingredients 2 large pitches of Lager yeast. Make a starter twice. Brewer tips There are a few key principles to brewing a successful barley wine:  Lots of high quality malt, strong and healthy fermentation, good water, balanced flavour from hops and adequate and proper ageing.  At heart it is a strong, malt forward beer, so high quality, flavourful malts are essential.  How dark or light is up to you but above 8% ABV you will have significant malt flavour regardless.  Old Cellar Barleywine is an intensely malty, rich beer.  Golden Promise is a wonderful, full flavoured English pale ale malt, that delivers a lot of toasty, bready, pure malt flavour.  English Premium Caramalt is a delicious, light caramel that will give you lots of nutty, fruity, sticky malt flavours.  We use acid malt to hit our target mash ph of 5.35 but you can use whatever method works for you.  Mill the grain then mash in at 64°C with 2.6/1 water to grist ratio.  We have soft mountain water at the brewery and add salts for yeast health, mash pH and flavour.  Target ~ 100ppm calcium, ~200ppm chloride and ~1.5/1 chloride to sulphate ratio.  Hold at 64°C for 45 min, then slowly raise up over 30 min to 72°C for 10 min to mash out.  Recirculate until the wort is clear then begin lautering.  For such a strong, special brew only the first runnings are used which is why you’ll only get around 40% brewhouse efficiency.  On our big system we got 51%, but we normally get close to 90%. Most homebrew kits seem to get around 70% which is what this grain bill is based on.  If you’re up for it you can parti-gyle and brew a second or even third brew from the second or third runnings.  It depends on how many kettles and how much time you have.  For our second runnings we brewed a strong raw, kveik ale that is now ageing in a bourbon barrel.  Run off until the wort becomes cloudy, stop before you start sucking in grain.  Heat up to boil, then conduct a minimal, simmering boil for 120 minutes.  This recipe is based on 7% evaporation.  Whirlpool for 20 minutes and add the hops.  On our system we retain a lot of heat in the whirlpool and hopback so get around 11% alpha acid utilisation for these additions.  If you can get whole cone hops even better.  If you lose a lot of heat in the whirlpool then you can add the hops with a couple minutes left in the boil to estimate the same utilisation. Cool down to 16°C and pitch a strong, health pitch of lager yeast and oxygenate well.  One of our all- time favourite beers and inspirations for this beer is an aged English beer called Thomas Hardy’s Ale, which uses a lager yeast.  Fermenting a beer this strong and slightly warm creates a ton of complex, fruity esters, and the lager yeast aids in ageing and long term flavour maturation.  On the second day, if possible add another dose of oxygen.  Hold around 14-16°C, the beer should take around 10-14 days or less to ferment.  When the beer gets to around 1.057, add another full pitch of yeast but don’t oxygenate again.  The beer should finish around 1.009, then do a diacetyl rest and slowly cool down to 0°C over 7 days.  If you can’t get to zero at least go to 4-5°C.  Initially this beer will taste super boozy and not pleasant.  Be patient.  After you have aged the beer at cold temps for a week or so, transfer it off the yeast to a secondary ageing vessel.  Be careful not to oxidise the beer: purge the lines and the secondary vessel.  Our version took at least three months before it was worth drinking, and only peaked at five.  The boozy, malty flavours will shine like the heavens if you give them time. Carbonate medium to medium low, and serve slightly chilled.  This is a beer that will mature for up to 20 years if packaged and aged properly.  This is a rich, opulent brew. Enjoy! You deserve it.  ontapmag.co.za | Winter 2021 | 57