The Darkest-er Beer Ever!
Every year my homebrewing club runs an advent exchange. If you’re wondering what this is, I wrote a post for the Canadian Homebrewers Association on running these exchanges a few years ago – check it out! This year I have two entries in this year’s exchange, and since the first beer was featured last night, today is a good day to post the details. This beer is a riff on Clawhammer Supplies Darkest Beer Ever, although in true homebrewer style, I tweaked the recipe to make it even darker. In fact, it is so dark that my photospectrometer was unable to get a reading off of it – I had to dilute it nearly 100-fold to get a reading!
Wild stuff!
Anyway’s, the beer is actually quite good, although it took a few months of aging for the sharper edges to round off.
Recipe – Darth XMas/The Darkest (er) Beer Ever
Stats:
- OG: 1.069 (nice!)
- FG: 1.011
- ABV: 7.6%
- IBU: 36
- SRM: Estimated: 80, Measured: 89-100 (suck it, Clawhammer!)
Ingredients:
- 3 kg Vienna Malt
- 600 g Caramunich I
- 600 g Victory Malt
- 500 g Black Patent Malt
- 500 g Chocolate Malt
- 500 g Chocolate Rye Malt
- 500 g Maris Otter
- 250 g Roasted Barley
- 200 g Carafa Special III
- 100 g Cacao Nibs, added last 5 min of boil
- 15 g Magnum (60 min, 20 IBU)
- 50 g Saaz (20 min hopstand @80C, 16.2 IBU)
- W-34/70 Yeast
Mashing & Brewing:
- Mash 66C for 60 min, then mashout 78C for 10 min
- Boil for 1 hr, adding cacao nibs and hops as per the ingredients list
- Ferment 21 days at 16C, then secondary in keg for another 60 days at 3C.
- Bottle directly from the keg, 2.4 volumes CO2
Tasting Notes:
Appearance: This beer lives up to its name – it is by far the darkest beer I’ve ever seen. It pours with a jet-black body that sucks in the light. Even the head is an intense dark brown, boarding on black. The head persists for a few minutes, before collapsing into the inky lack beer.
Aroma: Chocolate, coffee, a touch of Saaz spiciness, with lager-like fermentation note.
Flavour: Deep, dark and intense roast note, with a distinct chocolate flavour. Intensity is similar to that of an espresso. Malt backbone is sweet, balancing out the intense roast notes, with the bittering hops balancing out some of the sweetness. The flavour of the beer fades into a slightly sweet dark chocolate note. While a saaz aroma is present, the flavour of the hops is absent.
Mouthfeel: The beer is thick and louchous, and coats the palate. The body is heavy and rich, matching the intense flavour well.
Overall: A wonderful beer that is a real sipper. In its early days it was rather harsh, with some very “sharp” roast notes that made it challenging to drink. A few months of aging rounded out those edges, giving the beer a dominant, intense, but smooth roast character. A great beer for sipping by the fire, but not a beer that you’re going to drink pints of at a time.
