Belgian-Style Table Beer

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STEVENJAN

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Does anyone have a recipe for Table Beer? Evidently it used to be served to school children at their school meals in Belgium. They discontinued serving the beer and now have soft drinks. They are having problems with obesity and some are thinking of going back to beer. Low alcohol around 1%.
 
I have no idea, and had never even heard of this until your post. But I would like to comment that this is yet another reason Belgium is awesome.
 
I have no idea, and had never even heard of this until your post. But I would like to comment that this is yet another reason Belgium is awesome.

If I'm not mistaken there used to be a great show on Mojo channel, (which unfortunately has gone off air), called Three Sheets hosted by Zane Lamprey, awesome show. Anyhow, I beleive he touched on the subject of table beer whilst in Belgium. FWIW you can find the show on HULU, maybe that will give you some more insight into Table Beer
 
I really like the taste of beer but I don't like to get inebriated anymore. I do drink non-alcohol beers but it's not quite the same is it? With my homebrew I drink one glass (frozen mug) an evening and call it a night. I thought with a lower alcohol beverage I could enjoy more if I desired.
I just made an Apple juice/amber DME/honey mix with Nottingham yeast and I don't think it will be low alc. I hope it's drinkable.
I don't think if I just put in a small amount of DME in a large volume of water it would be tasty enough....rather thin I would think. If I put in other sugars it would just up, the ABV. Someone will have a recipe from somewhere. It's just a matter of time.
 
Stevenjan,

Consider a Mild, as it has both low ABV and flavor in spades. The recipe in my pull-down is constantly on tap here at the house.
 
If I'm not mistaken there used to be a great show on Mojo channel, (which unfortunately has gone off air), called Three Sheets hosted by Zane Lamprey, awesome show. Anyhow, I beleive he touched on the subject of table beer whilst in Belgium. FWIW you can find the show on HULU, maybe that will give you some more insight into Table Beer

I don't think Three Sheets ever touched on table beer. You may be thinking of the weaker fruit beers they tried. But it may please you to know that Three Sheets is coming back on the Fine Living Network sometime this summer.
 
I don't think Three Sheets ever touched on table beer. You may be thinking of the weaker fruit beers they tried. But it may please you to know that Three Sheets is coming back on the Fine Living Network sometime this summer.

Yes I saw it was listed on FLN, but they had it screwed up there was some other program on in its place. I hope they sign it for a 4th season it was a great show!
 
I don't know how it was done in Belgium, but I assume that they made their table beer the same way as was done for "small" or kid's beers throughout history, by fermenting the third runnings from a partigyle mash session.

This was big, iirc in medieval times up through colonial times, in places where the water was undrinkable, and the boiling, hopping and fermentation killed everything off (that's why we say no pathogens can grow in beer, btw) so the lowest ABV beers were reserved for the kids, and also as a common drink with meals and such.

They didn't sparge back then, just did three separate run offs of the wort from one mash tun.

It would be very difficult to do something like this with extract, I guess it could be done, but you'd be using very little....

You would best do it as an all grain...

Partigyle's are fun to do...Takes a little number crunching to figure...but you really don't have to..You could do a mid or low grav AG beer, and then run a second run through the tun to get your small beer.

Here's my thread on partyguiling which show how to "crunch the numbers" in figuring out a high grav and mid grav partigyle. I could have run a third "table beer" off of it as well.

This is a good thread, I think, because it show's how I went from not understanding the math of figuring it out, to finding getting it and calculating my recipe. Hope it helps.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f36/lets-partyyyy-gyle-pumpkin-porter-ale-one-mash-74927/

:mug:
 
1# Wheat
1 Cup Corn Sugar
1 package hot apple cider
Coopers yeast
1 oz. Kent Golding
1.022 O.G.

I made this in my 2 gallon Mr. Beer keg.

When I tested the O.G. I of course tried it instead of pouring it down the drain. It had a real nice taste and I think it will end up around 2% ABV.
Just right.
 
Pierre Rajotte's "Belgian Ale" (Classic Beer Style Series) gives a recipe for belgian small or table beer. I don't have it with me but if you'd like to drop me a message I'll look it up for you later.
 
1# Wheat
1 Cup Corn Sugar
1 package hot apple cider
Coopers yeast
1 oz. Kent Golding
1.022 O.G.

I made this in my 2 gallon Mr. Beer keg.

When I tested the O.G. I of course tried it instead of pouring it down the drain. It had a real nice taste and I think it will end up around 2% ABV.
Just right.

F.G. 1.005 .0017x129= 2.193% 2.2ABV not bad.
Wait 2 weeks and see how it tastes.
 
i'm going to bump this old thread since it relates to the topic.

i am ready to bottle a belgian table beer. i was curious how carbonated this thing should be. 3 volumes? less? more? my OG was 1020; my FG is 1002. so you can see, it's a small beer. my gut says carbonate it on the high side so it doesn't come off watery. what say you?
 
Pierre Rajotte, in "Belgian Ale", suggests 2-2.5 volumes for his low alcohol biere du table. FYI, his recipe is 1.016 OG, 1.006 FG. He also suggests that it not sit around long because of the low ABV.
 
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