I’ve waited a week out to post about this beer. Back in February my Smoked Habanero Imperial Stout won the beer challenge of the Upstate Brewtopians “Local Ingredients” competition and so I was charged at declaring the next challenge, for the May meeting. I declared it “Belgian Beers!”
I took some time to get around to actually brewing my contribution to the challenge, but last weekend I finally did it. I settled on a pretty straight forward Belgian Dubbel style beer. On Saturday the 13th Eliza and I went to Thomas Creek to pick up some ingredients and on Sunday the 14th I spent much of the day brewing in Eliza’s kitchen. It all seems to have worked out well. Here is the run down of the ingredients (note: this was a partial mash brew):
- 2 lbs Weyermann CaraHells
- 2 lbs Belgian Pils
- 3 lbs English 2-Row
- 3.3 lbs Light Liquid Extract
- 1 lb Amber dry extract
- 1 lb of dark candied sugar
- 11 oz of Bee Well organic honey
- 1 oz Cluster hops @ 60min
- 0.5 oz Golding hops @ 15 min
- 0.5 oz Golding hops @ 2 min
- Belgian Abbey yeast (WYeast 1214)
The brew smelt delightful and the gravity weighed in at 1.090 initial which suggests that this beer is going to be pretty killer at the end. I hope to move it into a carboy later on this week and then will probably bottle it up in the next two or three weeks. Then it is going to be close to the time to crack it open. Hope it comes out all tasty!
Eliza was kind enough to take some pictures of the process and allow me to post them here:
A look at the ingredients
Go Yeast Activation!
It is like awesome barley oatmeal that is going to eventually be delicious beer
A lovely color with a lovely aroma, I think this is going to be a good one.
I added a little honey to impart an additional flavor. I also intend to bottle condition this beer with honey
Hops are wonderful
Well Now it is the waiting game to see how this stuff turns out. Should be a fun beer. Peacerinos for now y’all!
