Naked Victory Earl Grey Porter

Naked Victory EGP is a beer recipe by Jack Byrne (so don't go opening a brewery and selling it without permission, eh?). It's a light, easy drinking porter with a clean finish that's almost a session beer, yet has enough body and hop complexity to satisfy. This is an extract version of the recipe, easy for beginners. If you want the all grain version, ask Jack.

Ingredients and Numbers
Stats:
 * 3.3 lbs Dark Liquid Malt Extract
 * 2 lbs Dark Dry Malt Extract
 * 8 oz Maltodextrin
 * 6 oz Chocolate Malt
 * 1 oz Cascade pellets (if less than 7% AA, use more)
 * 1 oz Willamette pellets
 * 6 bags good Earl Grey tea
 * 1 tbsp orange peel
 * Irish moss and yeast nutrient, if you prefer
 * Safale US-05 or comparable ale yeast (I go Irish, but a Nottingham would do well, too)
 * If it's cold out, add a pound of honey to up the alcohol. This isn't included in the stats below.
 * OG:1.043-1.045
 * FG: 1.012-1.014
 * IBU: ~43 (inexact; the tea complicates matters)
 * SRM: 38 (Black)
 * ABV: ~4%

The Brew
This recipe works best as a five gallon boil, but you can brew it smaller if you must and add water to top off when done. Steep Chcolate malt at 160 F for 30 minutes. Pull out, drain back into brew pot, and maybe consider making some spent grain bread out of it--it's dark, not sweet, and makes a good ham sanwich.

Bring the kettle back to a boil, and then move off the flame to add malt extracts and maltodextrin, stirring heavily. If you're going to add honey, wait until after the boil. Once well stirred, add back to the flame and bring back to a boil. Once it's at a good, solid boil (you want a good bubbling roil, not a few bubbles), add your Cascade pellets and start the boil clock at an hour.

At ten minutes left, add your Willamette pellets and your tea bags, then your orange peel (and honey, if you want) at flame out. Cool your wort down to 70 F and pitch yeast as normal. I generally do a quick starter of the US-05, 20 minutes on a teaspoon of priming sugar and pinch of Fermax.

Primary fermentation is about five days, secondary about a week. Naked Victory bottles well, and will bottle age wonderfully to three months, after which the brighter spice flavors fade beneath the brown notes of malt and tea. It clears well with Irish moss alone, and yeast nutrient will eke a hair more alcohol by volume out very nicely. For more tea flavor, more bags of Earl Grey can be added in secondary, as can a bit of orange peel. If you have access to whole leaf tea and bergamot, by all means, class it up.

You'll note that Naked Victory does not fall neatly within the guidelines of the Porter style, as the spicy aroma of the Willamette hops ups the IBU over standard. That being said, the current American craft brewing tradition does tend to go hop-heavier, and the hops ride along with the tea flavors and body nicely enough that few hop-averse drinkers complain.