Rogue's Hazelnut Brown Nectar:
We recently went to The Bayou for dinner and I tried one there. The flavor was great...very rich with definite hazlenut flavor. I'm not sure if it was the hazelnut or just my imagination, but it seemed to have a very slight sweetness to it. So I decided it would be a great holiday brew to give to friends.
8.25 lbs pale malt
9 oz Hugh Baird brown malt
1.5 lbs Munich malt (10L)
6 oz crystal malt (15L)
4 oz chocolate malt (187L)
7.8 AAU's Perle hops (60 minutes)
1.75 AAU's Saaz hops (30 minutes)
White Labs WLP001 yeast
Cellar Pro Hazelnut extract to taste
3/4 cup honey for priming
Procedure: Mash grains with 15 quarts of water for a single infusion mash at 153 F for 45 minutes. This is a "bigger beer" than I usually brew and my 5 gallon mashtun was barely big enough to hold all the mash. Sparge with 170 F water to collect 6.5 gallons of wort. Boil for 90 minutes using the above hopping schedule. For this batch, I made a yeast started the day before. This was in the primary and actively fermenting for 9 days and transferred to the secondary on day 10 (and it's still in the secondary). I'll add the hazelnut flavoring when I transfer it to the bottling bucket. My local brew shop said to use the hazelnut flavoring sparingly. The bottle says 2 oz per 5 gallons of beer, but the brew shop recommended adding a capful at a time until the desired taste is achieved.
Hazelnut Clone - I tried the first one about a week ago, and it's pretty darn good. It's pretty rich...probably not something you'd want to drink all night long. Also very fragrant with the hazelnut extract. I'd probably only brew this around the holidays. I'd rate this one as a C+