Beer Forum

I'm getting ready to brew an english barley wine, and I was wondering what all of you thought about possibly putting honey in it. I'm only making a limited (12 bombers) brew, so it's a two gallons batch with less than 10% honey. Would this ruin the style? Would it enhance the flavor?

This is basically a personal project that's going to age semi-indefinitely, and I'd hate to open it up in two or three years (or five or six, depending on the "open wine now" event) and find that it's watery or too sweet.

And if anyone's curious, it's Jamil's english barely wine recipe from BCS, scaled down for 2.06 gallons, with a pound of honey added. I'm planning on going with wild-flower honey, though I'm interested in opinions on which honey I might use instead, if anyone has suggestions.

I don't know how it would turn out. Wildflower is generally pretty tame honey flavor wise.

I'd try doing 1 gallon regular, 1 gallon with the honey and comparing them.

Brewing TV did an episode where Dawson added honey 24 hours into fermentation and hit it with some oxygen.
Big Beer Brewing episode 26.
On the website, it is listed as " Ames Farm Minnesota farms honey" so I'm guessing it is also wildflower.
Why not do a whole batch?
You could even parti-gyle and get a smaller beer out of the deal.
Plus more material to experiment with.
Just sayin.
HTH

I say go for it. Just make sure to let us know how it turns out.

I often add some simple sugar to big barley wines to dry them out just a touch. I've added maple syrup to the last few and at three years it's still tasting good. not thin and certainly not sweet. Adding honey to beer will never make it taste sweet. even if the beer is under attenuated it won't be the honey that doesn't ferment out.

morticaixavier wrote:I often add some simple sugar to big barley wines to dry them out just a touch. I've added maple syrup to the last few and at three years it's still tasting good. not thin and certainly not sweet. Adding honey to beer will never make it taste sweet. even if the beer is under attenuated it won't be the honey that doesn't ferment out.

I sometimes add flaked rice to reduce the body in big beers. (Don't judge me!)

I wonder if adding honey will add a bit of honey flavor (which could be described as sweet) to the final product?

Sounds like I have a lot to consider, still . I'll let you know what I come up with, and in a few years (if I remember), I'll let you know how it turns out .

GilesTH wrote:Sounds like I have a lot to consider, still . I'll let you know what I come up with, and in a few years (if I remember), I'll let you know how it turns out .

do it right up front and you don't have to wait years. my last BW was spot on after two months (1.5 primary, .5 in a keg)