I ended up brewing an eight gallon batch. I also added a quarter tsp of crushed Juniper berries. I wanted to add some spruce character to the beer and spruce essence wasn't available. I also added 12oz of blackstrap molasses.
The beer turned out pretty well. The spice flavor is there, but the aroma is lacking. I mashed fairly low and the beer seems to be missing some malt character. But, boy is it alcoholic. It needs some time to mellow.
I looked on the maltose falcons' web site and found a recipe for a holiday ale. They bottle conditioned their beer with a brown sugar syrup with spices. Check out
http://www.maltosefalcons.com/recipes/20061004.php. I think I will add this to my 5 gallon keg and let it naturally carbonate. I will bottle condition the remaining 3 gallons with the spiced syrup.
I was thinking about fining the beer myself. I will probably just cold condition the beer at near freezing for a couple of months. This should allow the beer to clear on its own.
