Beers of Ice and Fire: Chapter 2 - Baratheon Imperial Vanilla Porter

Baratheon Imperial Vanilla Porter

Okay, I'm going to admit something here. I feel like I might have cheated with this beer, so maybe I'll remake it at a later date (actually, I most likely will). I brewed this beer on St. Patrick's day - before I had even thought of the BIF series. It also became an Imperial Porter on accident. I'm not sure how or why, but my OG was way high (I'll get to that). 

Here's the recipe* (after the Jump):

3.3 lb Liquid light malt extract

4.0 lb Briess light dry malt extract

12.0 oz 60°L Crystal, crushed

4.0 oz Castle De-bitterized black malt, crushed

1.0 lb Muntons chocolate malt, crushed

1.0 oz Cluster hops @ 60 minutes

2 gutted and chopped Tongan vanilla beans added to the secondary (sit 3 months)

3 Tbsp home-made vanilla extract added before bottling

Wyeast 1098 British Ale yeast

Target OG: 1.054, Actual OG: 1.070

Target FG: 1.012-1.018, Actual FG: 1.022

ABV: 6.08%

* This recipe is based on the "Porter, Call Me a Taxi" recipe by Great Fermentations (Indianapolis). Unfortunately I don't have space for AG brewing in my apartment, so many of these beers will be extract based. For a few of the more specialty types I will be doing AG using my friend's setup.

As I mentioned, my OG was much higher than what it should have been, especially considering this is a tried-and-true recipe. We'll see what happens next time I make it.

All in all, this is a tasty beer. The vanilla flavor isn't totally consistent from bottle to bottle. The ones with more of the vanilla flavor usually have a bit more of an alcohol taste as well, so I'm chalking this up to the home-made extract not getting evenly distributed in the batch. 

Next beer on the list: Iron Islands Belgian Trippel.

Valar Morghulis