Belgium yeast

If you were to take a belgium yeast and add it to say "pliny the elder" clone instead of american, how much different would the flavor be?

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Depends on what yeast, but in general, very different. Obviously, pliny is very bitter and hoppy, so that part would be the same, but Belgian funk is pretty distinctive.

This isn't going to be terribly helpful, but, it depends on the yeast. Typically, a beer like Pliny would be fermented with a clean yeast so that the hop character comes through. Yeast provide a good bit of flavor contribution to the typical Belgian style. If you fermented with a Belgian strain, you'd likely get a very different beer, essentially a very hoppy Belgian-like beer.

I'm not much of a hop head personally, so I'll let others speculate as to whether this combination would be worth trying or not...

Just FYI, there are lots and lots of commercial "Belgian IPA's". Try a couple and see if you like the combination. Personally, I love hops and I love Belgians, but I don't usually love the 2 together. Of course, everyone has their own tastes, so the only way to know is to try it yourself.

I brew alot of Belgians and big IPAs. While i have tried a few Belgian IPAs and only had one i like i will say this.
Why waste the money on all the hops. Belgian tripple flavor comes from the yeast as its mostly base malt.
You can still do a belgian IPA but i wouldnt add a ton of hops like in pliny. They will battle each other on your pallate and may not taste too good at all.
You can also take table sugar and convert it over to candy sugar to bump up ABV and keep the body on the lighter side.
I always use a noble hop in my Belgian beers and if i were to try a IPA/Belgian mix i think i would make a standard belgian and dry hop it to get the hop character im looking for.

billl said:

Just FYI, there are lots and lots of commercial "Belgian IPA's". Try a couple and see if you like the combination. Personally, I love hops and I love Belgians, but I don't usually love the 2 together. Of course, everyone has their own tastes, so the only way to know is to try it yourself.

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I agree! Sam Adams has a White Water IPA which is a combination of a belgian wit with american hops. Sounded interesting but did not taste good to me.

I feel it is hard to combine the two. When you drink a good hoppy beer the first thing I do is take a big whiff to get the hop aroma. I actually do the same with belgian beers. You can smell the yeast aroma in a belgian beer.

Still, it is your beer and that is the fun of brewing.

I regularly brew a Belgian IPA. The yeast and the hops certainly do clash. Some hops work better than others. I also back off a bit on the hops. I use half the amount as normal to dry hop, and back off on the bittering a little too.

I'm finally reading Mitch Steele's IPA book, and that what he says as well - avoid piney and strong citrussy hops (grapefruit), and go more for tropical and floral, and use less.

Thanks for all the good information. I tried this beer at a brewery called knee deep and they have this beer called hoptologist. The brewer said that if you like "pliny" I would love this version. Then be had me try the Belgo hoptologist and said they were the same recipe but with different yeasts. But niw I am wondering if he meant the grains were the same but used different hop additions. Just made a pliny with another batch in the mail. I ordered the Belgo yeast hoping to get the same results. Now i wonder if it's going to bomb

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