Below is a repost from an interview I had with head brewer, Otto at Schlafy’s Brewing Co. in Saint Louis MO. It’s a good read and if you are a home brewer he gave us the recipe to their Christmas Ale. So Happy 4th of July and Merry Christmas too. Enjoy.
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Just about anyone who hears the words beer and St. Louis uttered together usually conjures up images of Clydesdales pulling beer flavored water. But if you have ever been to St. Louis you might have a different picture of great beer.

Schlafly Beer is a wonderful brewery located in the heart of St. Louis offering over 50 styles of beer to please even the pickiest craft beer drinker. Established in 1989, Schlafy is an excellent example of a local brewery. It has a great calendar of events that include all areas of the St. Louis community to come and celebrate the diversity of the Gateway to the West.

I was fortunate to get James “Otto” Ottolini, Head of Brewing Operations for the Schlafly Bottleworks to take some time to answer a few questions and share with us the Schlafly Christmas Ale recipe. The interview follows below. After the interview I took a bit of time and hair pulling to break some of the measurements that Otto has kindly supplied into a recipe that might be easier to follow for us homebrewers.

A: Schlafly is the first brewpub to open in Missouri. We opened in 1991 and were incorporated in 1989. We started out as a pub downtown and still have that location. In 18 years of operations we have gone from 800 barrels to 32000 barrels annual production. It is a great company with a very strong sense of community both within the company and in the market. The Saint Louis Brewery is ranked 50th in terms of size among microbreweries in the United States. We have a very steady approach to growth and business and we can be counted upon to deliver quality well-crafted beers. We follow many true to style examples and feature over 50 beer styles at our locations throughout the year, 25 of which are packaged and available in 12 ounce or 750 ml bottles from our two breweries.

Q: Tell us about your experience as a brewer. How long, brief resume of your experience, did you start home brewing and move into the profession?

A: I have been at The Saint Louis Brewery for 17 plus years now. Back then as now, we all wore a lot of hats. I started out as a bus boy in the restaurant fostering a passion for a cool brewery. I just moved back from Europe and it seemed much more engaging than graduate school. I moved into the brewery after a year or so doing anything I could to be involved in the process. I did start out home brewing and had the benefit of Dave Miller who wrote the books I read nearby to ask questions. He was the brew master at the time.

Q: We are discussing the seasonal brew Schlafly Christmas Ale today but in general, when approaching a seasonal brew (like the Raspberry Hefeweizen or the Pumpkin Ale) what do you as a brewer take into consideration before putting a recipe together?

A: You have to start with what you want or what others want. Ultimately it is not important if I like a beer and the customer does not. I do try to take into consideration as much as possible what the customer may want as well as what I think will be a great combination of process and ingredients to make a great beer. There are many things to consider outside of the realm of the brewing science aspect. I also feel strongly about creativity being a collaborative experience and that is something that both requires and fosters a tight community inside the company. With respect to the Christmas Ale, the idea for spicing came from Mulled Drinks commonly consumed during the winter solstice and holidays associated with that time of year.

Q: Where do you look for inspiration when coming up with a recipe?

A: It is interesting. I find that nothing produces inspiration more than simply being in action. Do this, do that figure out what you are doing as you do it, and then start to address the fundamental reasons why. Essentially inspiration comes from being in action, and I think we tend to have it backwards sometimes. We can all relate to some situation where we are waiting for inspiration which will drive us into action. I think the muses don’t show up until they see a bit of movement if you follow me.

Q: I used to live in South Saint Louis and one of the things that I loved about that area (besides the bottle works) was the farmers market, unfortunately at the time I was not home brewing myself. Do you consider local ingredients in any Schlafly beers, especially when it comes to a seasonal beer like the Christmas Ale?

A: Locally is a big theme. In many senses beer is a very local ingredient. There are not many industry where most of the raw materials and equipment used in manufacturing are grown or fabricated in the country of production as well as sold in that country. Beer and especially Craft Brewing can make that claim in most cases. That is local on a national scale. We do use local vendors for some things, but malt and hops are not exactly Missouri crops.

Q: What type of water do you use and are there any specific changes involved?

A: We use water from our municipal supplier and treat it. Specifically it goes through sediment filtration and chlorine removal. At the brew house we will adjust pH and salt content (CaCL2 or CaSO4) to achieve the desired water chemistry in our mash depending on the recipe.

Q: Let’s discuss the Christmas Ale in a bit more detail and get to a home brewer recipe version. How long has Schlafly been producing this version of the Christmas Ale?

A: We started brewing Christmas Ale in 2006.

Q: Over time has the recipe seen many tweaks or changes? if so why?

A: The recipe has remained mostly the same with the exception of two parts of its process. They are adding spices and dry hopping. The spices used to be made up separately as an infusion and the resultant extract was put into the beer. They are now added at the tail end of the hot side in our Whirlpool as opposed to during conditioning as an in house extract. We have seen a better spice profile and balanced flavor that way. Our dry hopping process has been changing and gets complex. The mechanics have been being developed and so we have changed how we do that, but ultimately the process is still soak dry hops in beer and get the lupulin glands to give up the magic dust.

Q: So what goes into a partial and All Grain 5 gallon batch of the Schlafly Christmas Ale?

75% Pale Malt
10% Munich Malt
10% 60 L Kilned caramel (not roasted)
5% Dark Brown Sugar

We use Marynka hops for bittering and flavor at full kettle and end of boil. 10 IBU’s are at the beginning of the boil and 20 are at the end.The we use the orange peel in the whirlpool and ground cloves in the filter. We dry hop using Chinook hops (whole) for a bit of their piney character. I like Briess malt extract, but I am sure there are great other extracts out there and I am not even sure if Briess packages theirs for home brewing.

Q: What kind of gravity are we looking for in this ale?

A: Original Gravity is 18.2 Plato and the Final Gravity is 3.8 Plato.

Q: How about the yeast?

A:We use Cal 5. An attenuative, clean fermenting ale yeast will do.

Q: Boil time?

A: We are looking for 5-6% evaporation which usually is around a 60-70 minute boil.

Q: How long of a Fermentation period do you usually look for before you start dry hopping withe the Chinook?

A: About 5 days or until you reach your finish gravity.

Q: One last thing, are there any tips you would give my readers when attempting this recipe?
A: Play around with mulling spices and the different types. Take some beer and infuse it with the spices individually so you have some extra strong small bottle of beer (flip tops work great for this resealing). Then you use this beer as a concentrate to doctor up another beer to see what sorts of ratios of spice flavorings you want to see and in what balance. It can be pretty fun and involve others, who are not necessarily into the brewing portion, in the creative process.

60 minute Boil
OG: 1.074
FG: 1.015

Pale Malt: 8.5 lbs (Extract)
Munich: 1.75 lbs
60L Caramel Malt: 1.75 lbs
Dark Brown Sugar: .5 lbs

Marynka Hops:
2.4 ounces at 60 minutes
1.2 ounces at 10 minutes

Chinook Hops:
1 ounce dry hopping after primary fermentation

1 Comment

1. 

   Wreath
   12 Apr 2011, 1:36 pm

   This is the first time I comment on your site, but I’ve been keeping up with your work for a while now. I admire the passion with which you write the articles and hope someday I can do the same. Love