Category Archives: Belgian pale ale

Winter in Antwerp 2024

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I like to make a holiday beer every once in awhile, for drinking during the Christmas and New Year’s stretch. It’s an opportunity to do a smaller batch of something unusual, which might not warrant a full 5 gallons. This year, I chose a version of a recipe from Gordon Strong’s Modern Homebrew Recipes, called “Winter in Antwerp.” It’s a spiced Belgian ale, roughly in the realm of a dark pale ale (yes, that’s an oxymoron). I made some malt substitutions and also used the Abbaye dry yeast, although the overall “feel” is pretty close.

Winter in Antwerp 2024

  • 4 lb. 2-row brewer’s malt (Great Western)
  • 2 lb. Vienna malt (Weyermann)
  • 0.5 lb. aromatic malt 20L (Briess)
  • 0.5 lb. caramel malt 60L (Briess)
  • 0.5 lb. Caramunich II (Weyermann)
  • 0.5 lb. Munich dark malt (Viking)
  • 0.25 lb. biscuit malt (Dingemans)
  • 2 oz. chocolate malt (Bairds)
  • 2 oz. Special B malt (Dingemans)
  • 0.5 oz. Liberty hop pellets (5.0% alpha), 60 minute boil
  • 1 oz. Liberty hop pellets (5.0% alpha), 10 minute boil
  • 0.5 oz. Liberty hop pellets (5.0% alpha), 5 minute boil
  • 1 vanilla bean, split, scraped, and steeped for 5 minutes after the boil
  • 1 cinnamon stick, steeped for 5 minutes after the boil
  • 1 pkg. Abbaye Belgian ale yeast (Lallemand)

Target Parameters

  • 1.068 s.g., 1.021 f.g., 6.2% abv, 30 IBU, 24 SRM
  • Full volume infusion mash, held at 156° for 60 minutes and 168° for 10 minutes
  • Claremont tap water with Campden tablet, with approximate ppm of 110 Cl, 50 SO4, 40 Ca, 156 HCO3, 12 Mg, 87 Na

Procedure

  • I heated 5 gallons of water (with Campden tablet) to 163°, and then mashed in the grains. I held the mash temperature, with recirculation, at 156° for 60 minutes before raising the temperature to 168° for a 10 minute mashout.
  • Once I pulled the grains, I collected 4.5 gallons of runnings at a gravity of 1.049, for 71% mash efficiency.
  • I brought the runnings to a boil, adding hops and finings per the recipe. After 60 minutes, I turned off the heat and added the spices in a mesh bag. Because the cinnamon was a bit old, I added two sticks (broken up). After a 5 minute steep, I removed the spices and continued the chilling process.
  • I chilled the wort to 78° before transferring to the fermenter. I chilled the rest of the way, down to 68°, in the fermentation chamber. I pitched the yeast at 68°, holding at this temperature for fermentation. Expecting a vigorous fermentation, I used a blow-off tube.
  • Starting gravity was 1.065. I brewed this beer on 17 November 2024.
  • I kegged the beer on 30 November 2024. Final gravity was 1.024, for 5.4% abv.

Tasting

  • Appearance
    • Deep reddish amber beer, very clear; pours with a creamy and persistent ivory head. It’s very pretty!
  • Aroma
    • Some dried dark fruit character as the beer warms and a hint of very ripe banana. Rich maltiness, but just a hint. Very faint cinnamon as it warms.
  • Flavor
    • Bread crust malt character, dried dark fruit in the yeast, medium level of bitterness. Less complex than I expected!
  • Mouthfeel
    • Medium body, medium high carbonation, very slightly dry finish.
  • Would I Brew This Again?
    • This is a good beer but nothing special. I was hoping for a bit more spice character, but there isn’t really any. I would probably increase the spicing rate a touch. For a similar beer next time, I would condition longer. It needs more body and malt “oomph”! Given all of the crystal malts, I’m surprised it doesn’t give the impression of more body. Perhaps for this kind of beer, it would benefit from a higher starting gravity or swapping in Munich for the 2-row malt. I would also age it for awhile longer. Another challenge is that I have this beer in my conditioning chamber, at around 35°, so it takes awhile to warm up after pouring. It’s definitely better at warmer temperatures!
  • Overall
    • 6/10

Odds ‘n’ Ends Belgian Ale

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Last year, I had fantastic results with a Belgian pale ale, even if it’s not a style I typically make. They can be interesting beers, so it seemed worth another attempt. This time, though, I’m not worried as much about brewing to style as I am wanting to use up ingredients on-hand. The result is a kitchen sink recipe that tastes pretty good, even if it isn’t precisely any style. We’ll just call it a Belgian ale.

amber beer with ivory head in tulip glass, sitting on wood windowsill

Odds ‘n’ Ends Belgian Ale

  • 9 lb. 15 oz. 2-row malt (Rahr)
  • 8 oz. Carared (Weyermann)
  • 6 oz. honey malt (Gambrinus)
  • 2 oz. Carafa Special II malt
  • 2 oz. coffee malt (Simpsons)
  • 2 oz. Special B malt (Dingemans)
  • 1 oz. Hallertauer Mittelfrueh hop pellets (5.2% alpha), 60 minute boil
  • 1 oz. Hallertauer Mittelfrueh hop pellets (5.2% alpha), 10 minute boil
  • 1 oz. Saaz hop pellets (3.5% alpha), 5 minute boil
  • 1 pkg. Abbaye Belgian ale yeast (Lallemand)

Target Parameters

  • 1.050 s.g., 1.013 f.g., 4.9% abv, 29 IBU, 13 SRM
  • Full volume mash, 152° for 60 minutes, 168° mash-out for 10 minutes
  • Claremont tap water adjusted with lactic acid and mineral additions, to achieve calculated water profile of 60 Ca, 6 Mg, 84 Na, 30 SO4, 137 Cl, 156 HCO3, RA=82 ppm.

Procedure

  • I mashed in with 7.5 gallons of water at 158°, to hit a mash temperature of 152°. I added 4.3 mL of 88% lactic acid to adjust the mash pH.
  • I held the mash at 152° for 60 minutes, while recirculating, before raising the temperature to 168° for a 10 minute mash out.
  • After the mash, I removed the grains. In total, I collected 6.6 gallons of runnings with a gravity of 1.041, for 66% mash efficiency.
  • As I brought the runnings to a boil, I added 1 g of CaCl to adjust the water.
  • I boiled for 60 minutes, adding hops per the recipe. After 60 minutes, I turned off the heat and chilled the wort to 64° before transferring to the fermenter.
  • I started with 5.5 gallons total and a gravity of 1.048. I brewed this beer on 7 April 2023, and fermented at 64°.
  • On 15 April 2023, I pulled the beer to ambient.
  • I kegged the beer on 30 April 2023. It had a final gravity of 1.010, for 5.1% abv. A thin white pellicle was forming on top of the beer, but overall it tasted just fine. Either way, I’ll need to do a deep sanitize/sterilize of my equipment.
  • The beer was a bit hazy to start, but had dropped fairly clear by 23 May 2023, and had dropped brilliantly clear by 1 June 2023.
A pellicle! How did that get there?

Tasting

  • Appearance
    • The beer pours with a fluffy, ivory head that subsides to a persistent blanket across the entire top of the beer. The beer itself is a deep amber color and brilliantly clear.
  • Aroma
    • This beer has plenty of clove yeast character at the front, with some black pepper. There is caramel and dark bread crust maltiness behind that.
  • Flavor
    • Yeast is at the front, with clove and sweet apple fruitiness, with a bit of pepper. Malt character is smooth, with some caramel and bread. Moderate level of bitterness, but not much hop character otherwise.
  • Mouthfeel
    • Medium body, medium carbonation, smooth finish with an off-dry quality.
  • Would I Brew This Again?
    • This is overall a good beer, with interesting qualities but not too interesting. Is it a Belgian pale ale? Sure, we can call it that. I’m grateful that I caught the pellicle before it went too far down the sour or funky road….as it is, I don’t really pick up anything. Phew! It’s squarely in the category of “decent, but probably won’t be brewed again.”
  • Overall
    • 7/10

Winner, Winner: Big Surprise Belgian Pale Ale

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The Southern California Homebrewers Festival was held recently, and per tradition they had a style-focused competition. Each participating club could submit an entry for a bragging rights “best of show” beer…this year’s style of choice was Belgian Pale Ale. My beer was selected as the entry for our brew club (Horse Thief Brewer’s Association)…and I was blown away to learn that it was the top beer of the competition, among approximately 30 other entries! Due to a work conflict, I wasn’t able to be there in person, but enjoyed hearing about the results via text message (I was in the field when I received the news). The ?downside is that I received an empty keg back, so wasn’t able to enjoy the beer after my first few samples! I guess that means I’ll be brewing it again sometime soon.

Photo by Nataliya Vaitkevich on Pexels.com

These high ratings surprised me because I had never brewed the style before, was using an untested recipe, and didn’t actually expect to win. But hey, I won’t complain. Even though I didn’t think the beer was anything particularly special, other people obviously did, and I’m kinda proud of that.

The recipe I brewed here was a modification of Ben’s Belgian Pale Ale, which received a silver medal at the 2019 National Homebrew Competition. The recipe is posted on the AHA website; I figured that it would be a good starting point for my own version. This is not a style I’ve sampled a ton of, so I was working a bit in the dark. The original recipe called for flaked oats and red wheat malt, but I elected to pull those out to ensure a clearer result. After a bit of research, I settled on Omega Labs’ Belgian Ale A yeast, because it is supposed to be on the cleaner side for Belgian yeasts–a desirable quality in a Belgian pale ale. I suppose there are enough changes that the original recipe was an inspirational starting point, rather than anything I explicitly followed. I did choose to make Saaz the centerpiece of the hopping, in a nod to tradition.

Andy’s Belgian Pale Ale, in a “farewell tasting” before it headed off to the brewing festival

Big Surprise Belgian Pale Ale

  • 7 lb. Barke pilsner malt (Weyermann)
  • 2 lb. Munich I malt (Weyermann)
  • 12 oz. Cara 20 malt (Dingemans)
  • 8 oz. aromatic Munich malt 20L (Briess)
  • 8 oz. caramel Munich 60L malt (Briess)
  • 4 oz. dextrin malt (Viking)
  • 0.75 oz. Saaz hop pellets (4.0% alpha), 60 minute boil
  • 0.35 oz. Magnum hop pellets (10.1% alpha), 60 minute boil
  • 0.5 oz. Saaz hop pellets (4.0% alpha), 20 minute boil
  • 1 Whirlfloc tablet, 5 minute boil
  • 1 oz. Saaz hop pellets, 5 minute boil
  • 1 pkg. Belgian Ale A yeast (Omega OYL-024)

Target Parameters

  • 1.051 s.g., 1.010 f.g., 5.4% abv, 29 IBU, 10 SRM
  • Claremont tap water, adjusted to hit 45 Ca, 6 Mg, 91 Na, 50 SO4, 115 Cl, 144 HCO3
  • Full volume mash, 60 minutes at 152° and 10 minute mash-out at 168°.

Procedure

  • I mashed in with 7 gallons of water at 158°, to hit a mash temperature of 152°. I added 1 g CaCl to adjust water chemistry, as well as 2.5 mL 88% lactic acid to adjust pH. I held at 152° for 60 minutes, before raising the mash to 168° for a 10 minute mash-out.
  • I removed the grains and heated the runnings to a boil. In total, I collected 6.1 gallons of runnings with a gravity of 1.047, for 71% mash efficiency.
  • I brought the kettle to a boil, adding hops and finings per the recipe. After 60 minutes, I turned off the heat and chilled to ~66°.
  • On the morning of brew day, I made a 1L vitality starter to wake up the yeast.
  • I brewed this beer on 13 March 2022. Starting gravity was 1.052. I fermented the beer at ambient temperature in my garage, around 60°.
  • After vigorous fermentation slowed down, I moved the fermenter inside on 18 March 2022, where the temperature was slightly warmer (~66°). Very vigorous fermentation took off again (filling the airlock with yeast), so I cleaned the airlock, sanitized it, and let it go from there.
  • I kegged the beer on 8 April 2022, using 3.5 oz. of corn sugar dissolved in 1 cup of water. Final gravity was 1.011, for 5.4% abv.
  • I let the keg sit at ambient for ~2 weeks, and topped up the carbonation with forced CO2. The flavor was pretty good, but it was not terribly clear. So, I added 1 tsp. of gelatin dissolved in water on 24 April 2022. Within two days, the clarity was gorgeous!

Tasting

  • Appearance
    • Very clear, light amber color. The beer pours with a creamy and persistent white head.
  • Aroma
    • Bready and light caramel aroma, with a light pear-like fruitiness to the yeast aroma.
  • Flavor
    • Light fruity yeast character at the front, with a bready/grainy malt character. Bitterness is moderate, with a smooth extended finish.
  • Mouthfeel
    • Medium body, medium carbonation, slightly dry finish.
  • Would I brew this again?
    • Gelatin improved the clarity on this beer a TON! I really like the restrained yeast character here; it is interesting without being cloying or overpowering. I would highly recommend the Omega Labs’ Belgian Ale A for anyone else looking to make this style–the pear quality is particularly enjoyable. The few samples I had were good enough, although not mind-blowing to me. I guess that’s the slightly understated nature of this style. I’m going to have to give it another try, because I’m now intrigued, especially given the fact that other people liked it so much.
  • Overall
    • 7/10