Happy New Year! I'm a bit late tasting the results of my Christmas Ale experiment (you can find the recipe and more details about the brew day here), but better late than never.

For those of you just tuning in, I took a run at cloning the Great Lakes Christmas Ale, with a bit of a PNW twist by substituting blackberry honey for the clover honey used in the original. I also split the batch and pitched Fermentis S-04 yeast in one half, and Fermentis T-58 in the other half.

How'd my versions fare compared to the original, and how did the different yeasts impact things? Let's find out!

The Lineup

From left to right: My version with S-04 yeast, my version with T-58 yeast, and the Great Lakes original.

Great Lakes Christmas Ale

Starting with the original, other than winter warmer-style beers the Great Lakes Christmas Ale is one of my favorite holiday beers. It's crisp and has a nice ginger burn to it, and avoids the mulling spice fiasco that plagues so many Christmas beers.

Starting with the color, I love the red hues here. As we'll see shortly my homebrew version had none of that, so I'm going to need to do some research to see how best to get that in the mix next time. I didn't snap the picture quite quickly enough, but it has a nice light tan head.

The aroma is mostly malty with some ginger, and as we'll see is a theme in all these incarnations, even though there's cinnamon in the recipe, not a lot of it comes out in the aroma or the flavor. And that's perfectly fine by me -- I think it adds a bit of depth to the mix without screaming "CINNAMON!", which I personally find rather off-putting.

Taking a taste, the flavor is full-bodied but dry due to the large honey addition at the end of the boil, and there's a notable and very nice (if you like this sort of thing) ginger burn in the aftertaste. As mentioned a moment ago, not much if any detectable cinnamon.

This is a very drinkable beer and while the holidays are in the rear-view at this point, I'm glad I have a couple of cans left.

Homebrew: S-04 Yeast

The first thing that's noticeable here is the color difference. The picture is a bit darker than reality, but the homebrew version came out more of a medium golden color and didn't have any of the ruby red of the original. I'll shoot for that next time. Also, the head is white as opposed to the light tan of the Great Lakes beer.

Aroma: this is pretty bready/yeasty and has some dark fruit undertones, definitely some ginger, but again no detectable cinnamon. The boiling of the cinnamon must really tamp that down, which again is fine by me.

Flavor: full-bodied, more malty and less dry than the Great Lakes beer, a little fruity, and that nice ginger burn in the aftertaste. I think the big difference between this version and the original is mine isn't quite as crisp. The one big known variable that could contribute to this is the use of blackberry honey as opposed to the clover honey of the original, since blackberry honey is more fruity and floral and tends to be sweeter than clover honey.

This version isn't bad, but I prefer the crispness of the Great Lakes original. This version was definitely in the ballpark though which I was pretty happy about!

Homebrew: T-58 Yeast

Where S-04 is more or less the standard dry yeast for English ales (Stouts, Porters), T-58 is primarily intended for use in Belgian ales, and is designed to produce more fruity esters and banana and clove phenols, which I thought would be an interesting thing to have in the mix in this beer.

Visually it's pretty much identical to the S-04 version, with the same medium-golden color and a very slightly darker white head. When I held both homebrew versions up to some light it was very difficult to tell the difference. It's not a bad color but wow with those red tones in the Great Lakes beer.

Aroma: immediately the yeast differences are apparent, with pronounced but not overpowering banana and clove notes, along with some maltiness and ginger. Here again, zero cinnamon.

Flavor: very similar in body to the S-04 version, but much more fruity, with the banana and clove notes mixing very nicely with the other fruit notes and ginger. This version seems a bit drier than the S-04 version (kicking myself for not taking gravity readings!) which I prefer. In terms of mouthfeel this one is closer to the Great Lakes original, but the fruity notes set it apart and make for an interesting, pretty darn enjoyable holiday beer.

Conclusions

I loved doing this experiment. In general I'm pleased with the outcomes, but I really want to get that red color going the next time I do this beer. I'll have to test some things in the coming months so I can really nail it for Christmas this year.

In the end I preferred the Great Lakes Christmas Ale to either of my versions, mostly because of the crispness compared to the more full-bodied mouthfeel of the homebrew versions. I'll have to do a batch with clover honey and another with blackberry honey to see if that was the major factor in this department.

Flavor-wise, I think the recipe (largely borrowed from Northern Brewer) nails is pretty darn well. There wasn't a huge difference between the original and my two batches which to me says that in general, particularly for a first attempt, we're in the ballpark.

Of my two homebrew batches I liked them both, but I find myself leaning toward the T-58 version. The added interest in both the aroma and flavor with the banana and cloves -- neither of which were at all overpowering -- was quite nice. It also probably helped that the T-58 version came out a bit drier and had that crisp finish and ginger burn I love in the Great Lakes beer.

Happy New Year, and cheers all! I'm excited to do a lot more experimenting in 2024 so stay tuned for more fun.