Ingredients:

1/2 tsp. gypsum
1/4 tsp. kosher salt
1/3 lb. black patent malt
1/3 lb. cara-pils malt
1/3 lb. dark crystal malt, 90° to 120° Lovibond
6 lbs. dark plain malt extract syrup
8 oz. blackstrap molasses
1 oz. Mt. Hood hop pellets
(3 to 4% alpha acid), for 45 min.
1 5-in. brewers’ licorice stick, chopped or shaved
1 cup loosely packed fresh spruce needles
10 to 14 g. fruity dry ale yeast or 1 qt. liquid ale yeast culture
2/3 cup corn sugar for priming


Step by Step:

To 2.5 gals. of cold water, add gypsum and salt. Steep malts in a muslin grain bag. Gradually raise temperature to 170° F, remove grains, and sparge into kettle with about 2 qts. of hot water. Bring liquor to boiling, remove from heat, and stir in malt extract and
blackstrap molasses.

Return to heat and bring up to boiling again. Add hops. Boil 45 minutes. Remove from heat, set kettle in a sink full of ice water. Steep for about 30 minutes in the cooling wort the licorice stick and the spruce
needles (it’s easiest if these are in some sort of a bag). Remove spruce and licorice, add to fermenter, and top up to 5.25 gals. Cool to 75° F and pitch yeast (Wyeast 1028 or 1275 work well with this brew). Seal up and ferment cool (65° F or less) for about 10 days. Rack to secondary and age cooler (55° to 60° F) for about two weeks. Prime with corn sugar, bottle, and age three weeks.

OG = 1.046

Notes:
Obviously, to use fresh spruce needles this would need to be brewed in early spring when the spruce trees begin to sprout new growth. If you wish to brew it “out of season,” however, you can do a couple of things: in season, gather the spruce growth that you will need and freeze it in an airtight, Ziplock bag until needed, or soak them then and there in enough vodka or grain alcohol to cover them completely until you want to use them and then add this potion at bottling instead of as a finish hop. Out of season, you’ll have to use commercial spruce essence that you will probably find at your homebrew-supply store. It’s not perfect. In fact I find it a bit strong, but it will impart a spruce flavor to anything (including your kitchen, if you spill it). Easy does it, add a few drops (to taste)
at bottling.

Molasses:
Blackstrap is ideal, the richest and heaviest of all molasses (except for treacle, of course, but then that’s just too British for this recipe, don’t you think?) but other dark molasses will do. Try, though, or find “unsulphured” brands, because the sulphur (a preservative) may inhibit fermentation and leave you with a cloyingly sweet beer.

Licorice:
You really should use “brewer’s licorice,” or raw licorice root. Licorice candy is not the same thing. Most homebrew shops stock or can get real licorice root, so ask. If it’s unavailable, you can get a licorice-like flavor by adding sambuca or Galliano liqueur, or by using some anise instead. But the founding fathers would not have used these, surely.

All-grain brewers:
Mash 7 lbs. pale malt plus 1 lb. dark Munich malt (20° Lovibond) and the specialty grains above in 11 qts. of liquor at 150° F for 90 minutes. Sparge at 168° F to get 6.5 gals., add 8 oz. molasses, and boil to reduce to 5.25 gals. Add hops and spices as above.

Source: BYO

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5 gallons, partial mash

Ingredients:

2 lbs. crushed mild ale malt
1 lb. dark crystal malt, 120° Lovibond
0.25 lb. black malt
0.25 lb. chocolate malt
3 lbs. unhopped dark dry malt extract
0.5 lb. dark unsulphured molasses
4 oz. maltodextrin powder
1 oz. Cluster hop pellets (7% alpha acid), for 60 min.
0.5 oz. sassafras bark
0.5 oz. sarsaparilla bark
1 oz. dried wintergreen leaves
0.5 oz. shredded licorice root
pinch sweet gale (optional)
pinch star anise (optional)
pinch mace (optional)
pinch coriander (optional)
dash black cherry juice (optional)
10 to 14 g. dry ale yeast
2 oz. lactose powder
7/8 cup corn sugar
0.5 cup spice tea (pinch wintergreen, sarsaparilla, licorice root)
corn sugar for priming

Step by Step:

In 1 gal. water mash crystal, black, chocolate, and mild ale malts at 155° F for 60 minutes. Sparge with 1.5 gals. at 170° F. Add 1 gal. water to kettle and bring to a boil. Add dark dry malt, maltodextrin, and molasses. Stir well to avoid scorching. Add Cluster hops and boil 60 minutes. At kettle knockout steep your spice combination (in a mesh bag) as wort cools. Pour into fermenter and top up to 5.25 gals. Cool to 75° F and pitch ale yeast. Ferment seven to 10 days at about 70° F, rack to secondary, and condition at 60° F for two weeks. Prime with corn sugar, add strained spice tea (1/2 cup boiling water over spices for at least a half hour), and bottle. Age two to three weeks cool (55° F).
Alternatives and Options:

Non-alcoholic creamy version: Instead of fermenting the wort, cool to 75° F, substitute 5 to 7 g. dry champagne yeast for the ale yeast, and bottle immediately. Store at 70° F for two or three days, then refrigerate. Follow these instructions exactly, otherwise you risk exploding bottles. You may also use ale yeast, which is somewhat safer because it will not continue to ferment in cold temperatures. However, the bubbles will not have that fine champagne quality. A safer way to carbonate: Get a CO2 system and either put your root beer in 5-gal. soda kegs (force carbonated) or get Carbonater-brand couplings and bottle in 2-liter PET bottles (force carbonated at 25 to 28 psi, chilled and shaken well).

Source: BYO

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Photo by: Jeffk

5 gallons, extract with grains

OG = 1.054 IBU = 34

The grains are mashed prior to the addition of the dry malt extract. The oats have a negligible enzyme content. Hence the American six-row barley with its high enzyme content is used to saccharify the oats.

Ingredients:

6 lbs. amber, dry malt extract
1 lb. crystal malt, 60° Lovibond
1.5 lb. American six-row pale ale malt
18 oz. oatmeal (quick)
0.5 lb. chocolate malt
0.5 lb. roasted barley
1/2 tsp. Irish moss, for 15 min.
2 oz. Fuggles hop pellets (4.2% alpha acid), for 45 min.
Wyeast 1084, Irish ale yeast

Step by Step:

Prepare a yeast starter a day or two before brew day. Crush the specialty grains and malt, and mix them with the oats in a coarse, nylon bag. Tie up the nylon bag to seal it. Heat 3 gals. of water to 155° F in a pot with a lid and add the bag of grains. Keep this pot covered, maintaining a temperature between 150° and 158° F for one hour to convert the starch. This can be done, for example, by placing the entire pot in an oven preheated to 150° F. Remove the grain bag, and pour 1 qt. of rinse water over it and into the pot. This rinses some of the residual sugars from the grains. In a separate pot bring 3 gals. of water to a boil for at least 15 min. Add 2 of these gallons to a clean, sanitized fermenter. Keep the other gallon of water covered, in reserve. Bring the wort to a boil, and slowly but vigorously mix in the dry malt extract. Boil the wort vigorously for 15 min. and add the hops. Boil for 30 more min. Add Irish moss and boil 15 more minutes. Total boil is 60 min. Cool the wort to room temperature within 30 min. of the end of the boil. Siphon the wort off of the trub, into the fermenter, adding the reserved water as necessary to bring the final wort volume to 5.5 gals. Aerate the wort for 15 minutes. Mix the yeast starter into the wort. Seal the fermenter with an air lock, and ferment until completion.

All Grain Option:

 
5 gallons

OG = 1.052 IBU = 35

The recipe specifies about 10 percent oats, for which a single-step infusion mash will suffice.

Ingredients:

8 lbs. pale two-row English ale malt
1 lb. crystal malt, 60° Lovibond
18 oz. oatmeal (quick)
0.5 lb. chocolate malt
0.5 lb. roasted barley
1/2 tsp. Irish moss
2 oz. Fuggles hops for boiling (4.2% alpha acid), for 45 min.
1 pack Wyeast 1084, Irish ale yeast

Step by Step:

Prepare a yeast starter a day or two before you start your brewing. Mix the crushed grains well in a clean, dry bucket. Heat 11 qts. of water to 174° F. Mash in slowly in stages, as described below. The temperature of the mash should be between 150° and 158° F. Within this range, higher levels give a less fermentable wort and a more full-bodied beer. Lower temperatures give a more fermentable wort. Acidify 5 gals. of sparge water to a pH of 5.7 using lactic acid. Homebrewing shops sell solutions of 88 percent lactic acid concentration. A stock solution of the acid may be prepared by mixing 2 tsp. into 3 cups of water. This stock solution can be stored, and using about 1/2 cup will reduce the pH of 5 gals. of tap water to nearly 5.7. Be sure to verify this using pH papers or some other means. Acidification prevents excessive extraction of husk tannins. Heat the acidified sparge water to a temperature at or just below 170° F. Maintain the mash vessel at temperature for at least 1 hour. Mash out, raising the temperature of the mash to 168° F. To begin the sparge, slowly drain and collect 1/2 gal. wort from the lauter tun, then gently pour this back on top of the grain bed. Repeat twice more; this establishes the grain bed and produces relatively clear initial runnings of wort by filtering out any fine grain particles within the bed. Begin the sparge, maintaining the sparge water at or just below 170° F. Typically sparging for this recipes takes 45 min. to 1 hour. More time is needed if the oat content is increased. Collect 6.5 gals. of wort.

Boil the wort vigorously for 15 min. Add hops and boil 30 more min. Add Irish moss and boil 15 more minutes. Total boil is 60 min. Cool the wort to room temperature within 30 min. of the end of the boil. Siphon the wort off the trub into a sanitized fermenter. Aerate the wort for 15 min. Pitch the yeast starter. Seal the fermenter with an air lock, and let the fermentation proceed until complete.

Source: BYO

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