Brewing a CRUSHABLE HOLIDAY BEER 🎄 [Orange Cran Belgian Blonde]

The holidays are filled with rich foods and sweet desserts, which I absolutely love. But when many of the seasonal beers can also be thick and flavorful, it can be tough to put a few back on a full tummy. So I'm attempting to solve this issue by making a crisp and easy to drink blonde ale that will cut through it all while still giving the feeling of the holiday spirit. I'm Trent Mucho and this is The Brew Show. Let's brew an orange cranberry blonde. If you're a Big Stop fan around this time, I hear you. And stick with the channel because I do have a winter warmer or two on the way. But around this time of year, you rarely see anything light and easy to drink. Everything is beefed up with a high ABV and full character. I wanted to create a beer that compliments the feast without being overwhelming, so you can finish that plate of seconds and keep on sipping well into family game time. I was inspired by a beer I had at Lawless Brewing Co. It was a cranberry orange golden ale. Crisp, refreshing with a malty backbone and a twist of citrus and slight cranberry sweetness. Bringing those mulled wine characteristics into a beer, much like I did on a cider last year. I took some creative liberties to make this my own, dialing back the ABV slightly and focusing on a lighter body to really make this beer easy to crush. Let me show you how I made it. First, a big thank you to the partners that support this channel. Northern Brewer, who supplied all the ingredients for this brew, and Clawhammer Supply, which I'll be brewing on their electric 120 volt system. I have links in the description if you're interested to know more. Today I'm changing things up a bit and brewing a smaller batch, aiming for 2.5 gallons of finished brew. So I started with 4.5 gallons of distilled water and heated it up. I also added in some water salts to improve the flavor, looking for a water profile similar to this. Then I added the grains, which consisted of 57% pilsner for a lighter maltiness, 14% flaked wheat for a touch of body, and I just added a little bit extra laying around. And the remaining 29% will be cranberry juice. Looking back, I probably should have dialed this back a bit, but we'll talk about improvements later. I mashed at 148 Fahrenheit for 45 minutes, ensuring we get as much fermentable sugars out of this as we can to have a dry finish. After the 45 minutes, I removed the grains and proceeded to bring the wort to a boil for 30 minutes, at which point I added 0.25 ounces of Warrior for our main bittering charge. While the boil rolled, I prepped the oranges. I have two navel oranges, which I peeled, trying my best to not get as much of that white bitter pith, and then cut them into manageable sizes to fit into the hop spider. Then I waited until the 5 minute mark to add the last hop addition, a half ounce of sods, for an overall total of 20 IBUs. I followed that up with the orange peels, trying to get every little last pesky one into that hop spider, and then I decided not to let that juice go to waste, so I squeezed it right into the kettle. Nice and fruity. Finally, the last step was to add the cranberry juice. So right at the end of the boil, while the wort was still hot, I added in the whole bottle, and man, did it really change the color. No longer a regular blonde, now a cranberry blonde. The original gravity came in at 1.047, and from there, I chilled it down and transferred it into a fermenter. In the past, I would add some spices to the boil that play into that mulled wine character, and you could totally try adding in some cinnamon or clove in the last few minutes of the boil, but instead, I decided to use belgian to add that slight phenol and spice character without using actual spices. I've done this before with other seasonal saisons, and it worked great, so I'm using the Abbey Belgian Ale by Lollomon. Then added a cool and cold to regulate the temps, and fermented this one at one week, around 67 degrees Fahrenheit. After a week, I took a sample, and I noticed that a lot of the red cranberry color had kind of faded away during the fermentation. I took the final gravity reading, and it was 1.009, which means this comes in right at 5% ABV, the perfect amount for this beer in my opinion. So I kegged it up, and got to tasting ASAP, so I could share with friends and family for the holidays. Out the bat, the color is pretty damn festive. A nice orangey blush with a fluffy snow head. The aroma is light, with just a touch of fruitiness coming through. In taking a sip, the crushability is immediately noticeable, but the added cranberry sugars and that lower mash temp really dried this out, making it extremely easy to drink. It's malty enough to let you know that this is a beer, and I also get that zippy citrus that's more apparent with the dryness, but the cranberry is pretty strong here. If you're not a big cranberry fan, or you want something a little less dry, I would say you could dial this back. And despite not adding any spices, the belgian yeast added that very light clove flavor on the back end, that rounds this out and brings us back to that mulled wine, just without oozy kick. Honestly this reminds me a lot of that blood orange radler I made, and I'm definitely not mad about it, but if you want it you can always up the spices by adding more in the boil. Overall I'm pretty happy with this, but I can see some areas to improve in the future. But for now, this will go fantastic with the holiday feast to come. Thanks for watching, liking, commenting, subscribing this year. I appreciate every one of you that continues to support me and this channel. And stay tuned for even more epic new year, with even more recipes, and more experimental brews. Cheers and happy holidays everyone! Looking for another holiday beer that's filled with sugar and spice? Then check out this gingerbread saison I made, perfect cookie substitute for Santa this year.