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I've made several Belgian Dark Strong Ale recipes over the 8 or so years I've been home brewing. That's because the style is by far one of my favorites.  I enjoy its malt-forward, complex, and dark fruit flavors and the warming note from the high alcohol content. However, I've been disappointed with most of my brews to date (despite some competition-winning versions) because the dark fruit flavor just doesn't "pop" to the front of my palate.  This, for me, is one of the most enjoyable flavor elements of both the Dark Strong Ale and the Dubbel. During a live chat with a far more knowledgeable and experienced brewer, he suggested that I try experimenting with increased amounts of Special B Malt (up to 15% of the grist) and Dark Candi Sugar.  Today, I've decided to brew a fairly traditional Dark Strong style recipe but to include an extremely generous proportion (around 10%) of Special B malt.  I'll also be using D-90 Candi Syrup and Wyeast 1762, whic...

Earlier this year, I won the 23rd Annual Homebrewing Competition at Barley's Ale House across from the Columbus Convention Center. The beer I won it with was a Belgian Dark Strong Ale, a favorite style of mine. There are only a few bottles left of the winning batch, and I have several friends and family who would love to try the beer. That means it's time to re-brew. I brewed the winning batch in November on The Grainfather. While I could fire up the device and brew a new batch following the old recipe, I'd rather work out how to brew it on the PicoBrew Zymatic, as that would be a much easier and more repeatable way to make it in the future. I used the Zymatic Recipe Crafter to scale the original recipe to the 2.5 gallon size and match the original beer's gravity. Then, because I've come to believe the Zymatic's recipe crafter drastically underestimates the bitterness of a beer relative to what I see in BeerSmith (where the original recipe was created), I us...

One of the beers I've brewed that I enjoyed the most was an extract-based Belgian Single from a recipe on the E.C. Kraus web site.  Having made the switch to all-grain brewing, I wanted to take a stab at brewing an all-grain version of the beer.  Using the Kraus recipe and the BJCP guidelines for the Trappist Single style, here's my all-grain recipe. The Recipe and Ingredients 8 pounds of Belgian Pilsner Malt 7 ounces of Biscuit Malt 4 ounces of Aromatic Malt 1 pound of Brewer's Crystals 1.25 ounces of Sweet Orange Peel 0.25 ounces of Indian Coriander, crushed in a mortar and pestle 0.8 ounces of Styrian Goldings hops pellets at 6.2% AA 1.25 ounces of Czech Saaz hops pellets at 3.2% AA 1 ounce of Czech Saaz hops pellets at 3.2% AA 1/2 teaspoon of Wyeast Yeast Nutrient 1 Whirlfloc tablet 1 tablespoon of pH 5.2 Stabilizer 1 package of Wyeast 1762 Belgian Abbey II Ale Yeast 90-minute mash at 152F followed by 167F mashout for 10 minutes 90-minute boil with h...

Like most craft beer fans, I've read for years about the amazing Westvleteren XII beer.  It's said to be one of the best beers in the world, and certainly one of the best of the Belgian monastery beers. Unfortunately, I've never seen a bottle of it for sale in Ohio.  Ordering it over the Internet would mean spending as much as $25 per bottle plus shipping, which seems a bit excessive.  What's a home brewer to do?  Brew his own, of course. A number of people have told me that the folks at the CandiSyrup.com site have done a great job figuring out how to clone and brew many of the world's best beers.  What follows here is their recipe for a Westvleteren XII clone beer, adjusted slightly because I discovered at the last minute I was missing one of the ingredients. The Recipe 10 pounds of Belgian Pilsen Malt 5.5 pounds of Belgian Pale Malt 2 pounds of D-180 Candi Syrup 10 ounces of D-90 Candi Syrup 0.8 ounces of Brewer's Gold hops pellets 10.5% AA 1 ounce...

I recently finished reading Brew Like a Monk by Stan Heironymus, which is a book I strongly recommend if you want to brew a great Belgian-style beer.  The author spoke with many experts in Belgium about their brewing practices, recipes, equipment, ingredients, and history.  As a fan of Belgian beers styles, I learned a lot from the book.  I'll share some of that here. The most important thing to learn is that Belgian brewers try things that brewers in other parts of the world would not.  They'll experiment with grains, adjuncts, yeast, fermentation chamber geometry, and more, in a quest to make a beer they enjoy.  Many breweries, in fact, create a number of beers that are popular and "pay the bills" while creating a few that are intended only to satisfy the curiosity or taste of the brewmaster. One interesting point in the book is that the Belgian brewmasters recommend that Americans not try to create a carbon copy of an existing Belgian beer, but instead...