Belgian Black IPA?

Anyone ever brewed a Belgian Black IPA? I have a black IPA recipe that I would like to ferment with a Belgian yeast, but I wanted to get some insight from someone who has done one before I delve in.

Funny you should mention that! I have been working on a BBIPA recipe myself.

I am using a Belgian yeast in what is a fairly typical American BIPA recipe. Also using some dark Belgian candi syrup.

This is the recipe i'm looking to use:


10 lbs 2-row
1 lb crystal 40
8 oz carafa 11
4oz chocolate malt

2oz columbus 15 min
1 oz nugget 15 min
1 oz columbus flameout
1 oz galena dry hop
1oz nugget dry hop

looks like a good BIPA recipe, but I wanted to take the exta step to pitch Belgian yeast. Thoughts?

isn't that recipe missing bittering hops? how you can have any type of IPA without 60-minute hops?

I made a Cascadian Dark Ale with Safbrew T-58. It tasted very weird, but in a good way.

Granted, I also made it with lots of rye, wet hops from my backyard, and also dry-hopped the hell out of it, so there was a lot going on, but it was still very good.

The peppery taste of the rye and the yeast were interesting together. There was some banana/bubble gum stuff that was weird. Lots of perplexed faces, but everyone I shared it with liked it.

sweetcell, the guy that I got the recipe from said that the amount of later hops brings the IBUs up to an appropriate level. I asked the same question, but he swore it worked. Am I getting duped?

irishplague said:

sweetcell, the guy that I got the recipe from said that the amount of later hops brings the IBUs up to an appropriate level. I asked the same question, but he swore it worked. Am I getting duped?

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Not being duped. It's called hop bursting. You get the bitterness IBUs along with hop flavor and aroma by using high alpha acid hops later in the boil. Just those two 15 minute additions will give you 64 IBU which is toward the higher end on an American IPA.

irishplague said:

sweetcell, the guy that I got the recipe from said that the amount of later hops brings the IBUs up to an appropriate level. I asked the same question, but he swore it worked. Am I getting duped?

Click to expand...

People number fudge around with IBUs in software, but it's like driving your car a 1 mile stretch 10 times, and doing a single 10 mile stretch. They have different effects on your tires, engine, and gas mileage. You're going to have more general hop flavor by doing late additions, but there is a bitterness that you only get from a decent boil. It all comes down to how you like your IPA's.

Teromous said:

there is a bitterness that you only get from a decent boil.

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this is in keeping with everything i've read - you can't extract and isomerize the alpha acids in 15 minutes.

i'm a relatively inexperienced brewer so take this opinion as "academic". don't have the experience to back it up... yet

Commercially, I'd say Grassroots/Stillwater/Mikkeller's Gypsy Juice is very close to what you're describing.

I made a Belgian Black IPA last year. It was an experiment with a lot of left over ingredients. I used a Trappist yeast. A lot of people liked it. I still have some bottles. They have lost some of their hoppyness.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that i tried Maui Brewing's Belgian Rye Cascadian Dark Ale and it was very good. They were one of the brewer's at the Eugene, OR Brewfest in 2010 for the festival collaboration ale. The idea came from Eugene's Ninkasi Brewing.

So several breweries like Maui, Ninkasi, Oakshire, Block 15 all made CDAs with rye and used Ardennes belgian yeast. Everyone who's posted about them said they were weird but good.