Ommegang B.P.A. clone

I was looking for a clone of this all over and could not find one. I really enjoy this beer, so I decided to give it a shot. It may not be as accurate as I was hoping because I misread the hop schedule on the brewery website, but I am still hopeful that it will taste divine.

Mash (152F for 60 mins):

7 lbs 9 oz Belgian Pils
12 oz Aromatic
9 oz Biscuit
8 oz Caravienne
5 oz Caramunich

Hops:
1 oz Columbus 13% AA 60 min
1 oz Styrian Goldings 5.5% AA 30 min (substitute for Celeia, which is what they use)
1 oz Cascade 5.4% AA 5 mins
1.5 oz Cascade Dry Hop

Wyeast Belgian Abbey II 1762 (Didn't want the more estery profile of Abbey I)

I will update this thread once I dry hop and bottle to report back with tasting notes and overall reaction to the recipe.

Only thing I remember from being at the brewery is that they use Chelan hops and their proprietary yeast.

Their website says they use Celeia, not Chelan. But that could also be old or a misprint.

I only spoke to a cellar rat, so maybe he was wrong.

I recipe looks tasty. Personally I say pick up a 4 pack of anything but their hennepin. drink the beer and culture the dregs and you have yourself your own ommegang yeast. (I keep some on hand at all times. Makes the most delicious tripel).

(This is how I did it, and I can vouch that this is indeed their yeast and it isn't swapped out with anything)

I just took a hydrometer reading and its at about 1.017 after 9 days. I don't think it will get much lower as I mashed higher than expected. However, the hydrometer sample tasted pretty incredible. The most dominant flavor is tangy, zesty orange. It's got a great mouthfeel right now, not too much to style for a belgian though. In other words, if anyone was thinking about recreating this recipe, I highly recommend it from what I have tasted so far.

Yeah, Kyle, I think I will do that next time I brew this beer. I have been wanting to culture some yeast. Thanks for the tip.

When I went on their brewery tour, they recommend culturing from their WIT as it is the lowest ABV so the yeast will have been stressed the least in this beer; additionally, they confirm that they use only one yeast for all their brews.

Thanks for the advice cyber. Funny thing, I am actually from Holland myself. Small world. I miss it quite a bit.

Too funny... (I just moved here myself about 10 weeks ago).

Good luck with this... I might have to try it too as I quite enjoyed the BPA last summer.

Thanks for posting this. I toured Ommegang the past two Aprils and last month was my first time trying the BPA. What a delicious beer. They were pretty open on the tour about how this is certainly not "to style" for any of the Belgian beers. It is, however, delicious.

Thanks for posting akuyper. With your help I threw this together and I will be brewing it soon. I found somewhere that the IBU's were 28 but there was no official number from Ommegang's site. Its based on 75% efficiency. If I lose a little efficiency I might come up with 6.2% which is what Ommegang's website has for the ABV. Just curious. What ABV did you get with 7.5 lbs belgian pils? I will post my comments when it is ready.

6.5% ABV
28 IBU's

11 lbs Belgian Pils
12 oz Aromatic
8 oz Biscuit
8 oz Caravienne
8 oz Caramunich

Hops:
1 oz Columbus 13% AA 60 min
1 oz Styrian Goldings 5.5% AA 10 min
1 oz Styrian Goldings 5.5% AA 5 min
1 oz Styrian Goldings 5.5% AA 0 min
2 oz Cascade Dry Hop

Wyeast Belgian Abbey II 1762

Cercueil, that looks like a much closer go at the hop schedule than mine. My OG was somewhere around 1.064 if I remember correctly. It was only a 4 gallon batch which is why I only used 7lb 9oz of Belgian Pils.
A little update on my almost finished product: It has been in the bottles for just over a week and it is very good. Since I introduced some Cascade in the boil it is a little close to a belgian IPA than a BPA. Nonetheless, it is quite good. The Belgian malts play well together and create a nice bready, toasty backbone for the hops. The yeast also isn't as present yet as I was expecting.

Let me know how yours turns out, Cercueil.

I just tasted their BPA again the other day and found that the grapefruit taste was way up front. Is that from the Cascade? It is a very tasty brew.

Mermaid said:

I just tasted their BPA again the other day and found that the grapefruit taste was way up front. Is that from the Cascade? It is a very tasty brew.

Click to expand...

Yes, that's them.

BPA clone is bubbling away right now. One thing I noticed was that the beer was kind of dark looking. I think I might have messed up the %'s of the specialty grains. I think it should be fairly light in color from what I remember about it. I'll be dry hopping in about 3 days for about 10 days and then off to the keg. I usually put them on tap in about 6 weeks. I'll probably buy some BPA so I can do a side by side. I'll post the results when I'm done.

Any updates on how these clones turned out?

Northern Brewer has Styrian Celeja hops right now, so I was thinking of giving a BPA clone a try.