Yukon Cornelius's Bourbon Vanilla Porter

As I sit here sipping a Rochefort 8, I'm reminded of another strong style of beer that I love. This time from the opposite side of the English Channel, Robust Porter.

I started thinking about winter beers back in September knowing that in Iowa things can get a bit nippy come winter, and that these strong beers can take a while to hit their peak.

Remember the redheaded prospector from the Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer stop action movie that gets played every yuletide season? That's Yukon Cornelius, photo below the break.

Pardon the profanity

I can totally envision a half-frozen prospector coming in from a fruitless search for the motherlode to knock back a warming liquor-laced libation, hence...Yukon Cornelius's Bourbon Vanilla Porter. 

The recipe is based off of quite a few versions of Vanilla Porter I found online. I was lucky to get a few fresh vanilla beans (not Madagascar bourbon vanilla beans ironically) from the first homebrew meeting I attended and decided to put them to good use. 

The recipe is below. I ordered from Brewmasters Warehouse. You may find the recipe here.

Brew Date 9/19

5.5 Gallon batch

Mashed at 154 @60 min

OG 1.064

FG 1.016

74% measured attenuation

Grains

Briess 2-Row Brewer's Malt	10 lbs, 0 oz
Weyermann Munich Type II	1 lbs, 0 oz
Briess 2 Row Caramel 120	1 lbs, 0 oz
Crisp Chocolate Malt	0 lbs, 8 oz
Crisp Brown	0 lbs, 8 oz

Hops 

Magnum Pellets, GR	1 oz @ 60 mins
Kent Goldings, UK Pellets	1 oz @ 10 mins

2 Vanilla Beans split and scraped. Soaked in 12 oz of Jim Beam for 2 weeks. Added to secondary, including the bourbon.

Pitched 1 packet of Nottingham at 67F. This was a violent fermentation. I blew off about a half gallon easy. Actually I blew off my blowoff tube, twice. What a sticky mess that was.

Primary finished in 7 days and spent secondary with the beans and bourbon for 14 days. Bottled and carbed to 2.5 volumes. 

Final ABV with the bourbon is about 7% ABV. Next time I'll use a less aggressive bittering hop. That's about the only thing I'd change. 47 IBU seemed like a good idea, but next time I'll shoot for about 10 fewer.

Now that the Rochefort is gone. Here's a bit of tasting notes. This beer has been bottled since October 9th.

Appearance

SRM is calculates to be about 27. Bit of light brown around the edges. No lacing but it has some whiskey legs in the glass. Pours with a light tan head that dissipates quickly. 

Aroma

Coffee as soon as you pour. You can smell it standing above the glass. It's not coffee in a bad way though, more like a strong espresso. Once that dissipates I get notes of caramel and say, Werther's Originals and dark chocolate. The bourbon is not noticeable in the nose. Lovely Sara says it smells like bananas. It has some of that English fruitiness too. 

Taste

Moderately strong hop bitterness that matches up with the grains bitterness reminiscent of roasted barley despite the lack thereof. Even with the higher mash temp there is only minor residual sweetness in the beer. There's a good bit of the bourbon on the tongue and throat. 

Mouthfeel

Lingering bitterness and decent carbonation. As the co2 dissipates I get a thicker mouth feel. It's very satisfying as the glass warms.

Edit: Here's a pic 

Anyway, I expect this one to develop in the bottle for a good while yet. I'm hoping for it to peak some Saturday afternoon in early February when I'm just done shoveling out a snowdrift. 

I may let you know how this develops come that snowy day. Perhaps I'll strike gold, cheers!