Cranberry Wheat Ale

I haven't done a holiday ale in a couple years, but this year my wife wanted to give out beer for a gift to some friends. I was trying to think of a recipe that would appeal to everyone, and be ready by early December when the Holiday party season begins. Seeing that most "holiday" beers contain a lot of spices that sometimes take time to meld, I thought I needed to go with something accessible, but that is also ready pretty quickly. I decided to brew a wheat ale, and add cranberries. I've brewed a lot with cranberries in the past, and have had a lot of success. I had two pounds of frozen whole cranberries that I needed to use up, because they are about a year old. I decided to add some orange zest, because orange and cranberry always goes well together in food, and I thought it would add a little complexity. My recipe was pretty straightforward and I'm going to add the cranberries to the secondary, which should give the beer a nice coloring and not an overpowering, but present cranberry flavor. In the past I've brewed a Belgian Ale with cranberries, using a Belgian wit yeast, and also brewed with the Weistephen yeast, which is heavier on the clove-like characteristics you find in German Wheat beers. I thought the clove would go nicely with the "Holiday" aspect of the beer, and in the past this yeast has helped bring out some tanginess in the beer and keeping down some fruitiness.
Here's the recipe:
.75 lbs Organic Wheat
.25 lbs White Organic Wheat (ran out of organic wheat).
6 lbs Wheat LME
1 oz Organic American Pallisades @ 60
1 tsp orange zest
Wyeast 3068 Weistephen Yeast

On another note, I transferred the Norseman the other day and was surprised how light in color it was. Despite using .5 lbs of Black Roasted Barley and .75 lbs Chocolate Malt, it is more of a chestnut brown... I used light LME (only organic available) and so that probably contributed. I think I need to throw in some black patent or debittered black next time. It tasted good though, just didn't have the ominous black look I wanted. I'm debating throwing in some coffee since it's changed a bit in what I wanted, so why not experiment at the this point? More to come on that.
Salud!
Bearded Brewer