WLP665 – Flemish Ale Blend impressions?

Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

sockmerchant

Well-Known Member
Joined
Dec 25, 2010
Messages
225
Reaction score
20
Location
Auckland
Hi guys

I have an oud bruin going with this blend at the moment (still very early on) and am getting ready to do a flanders red in the near future.

This blend has been kicking around for long enough that there should be some finished beers around. What do you guys think of it? How does it compare to the roeselare blend? From what i have read, thats pretty much what whitelabs were going for. To get their own version of roeselare

Basically, its much easier for me to get the whitelabs blend, but if the roeselare blend is substantially better, I can get hold of some.

Thoughts?

On a related note, the article on flanders red by raj apte... does anyone know where i can access it? The original link no longer works.

Cheers
:mug:
 
I did the same thing, an Oud Bruin. Mine doesn't seem to be finished yet. It still has quite a bit of yeast floating on top (I suppose it could be part yeast and part pellicle). I pulled a small sample a couple weeks ago and it had some mild tartness but it's still young (brewed in Sept). I've brewed a couple Flanders Reds with Roeselare and they seemed more tart at the same point, but not by much. But even between the Reds the tartness level varies so I don't think I can necessarily attribute the difference to WLP665 versus Roeselare.
 
Cool thanks.

I brewed my browns a couple of weeks ago. So they are still babies. They still have full krausen which is new to me.

I imagine they are still very clean. Will take a wee sample once a month to educate myself.

This weekend I will be brewing a fladers red. I grabbed some Roeselare for it. Will be interesting to see how they differ. The recipes I used are not drastically different, a bit lower og for the red and bit less specialty malts in the brown.

It would be interesting to know how much the roeselare and flemish blend differs on a percentage of bugs level. Not that I suppose anyone will share this information.
 
So I was pulling samples of two of my Flanders Reds today (both used Roeselare) and decided to pull a sample of my Oud Bruin brewed with WLP665. As I mentioned above the Oud Bruin was brewed in Sept 2012. The most recent Red was brewed in November 2012, so two months younger than the Oud Bruin.

The Oud Bruin still only has mild tartness but has developed some great Brett character. It taste great but I'm a little disappointed that it's significantly less tart than the Red from November. One factor that could account for the difference in tartness is the Red was pitched with three month old pack of Roeselare along with the yeast cake from an earlier Flanders Red batch. Others have reported the same, so it's probably safe to assume it had a much higher lacto and pedio count than my Oud Bruin with WLP665. Still, the Oud Bruin is less tart at the same age than the first two Reds I made (they weren't pitched on a yeast cake from earlier batches). Another potential factor is all the Reds were brewed with aged hops while the Oud Bruin was brewed with 1.2 ounces of fresh EK Goldings, so the IBU's were higher and may have slowed down the bugs.
 
Just pulled a sample of my Flanders red that I brewed with wlp665. It is still young, 6 months, but there really wasn't any detectable tartness to it. The Brett comes through, but I was hoping for it to be tart. Hopefully it will sour more because at this point I am a little disappointed.
 
Hmmm.... Might end up having to blend it. If it doesnt sour enough, I'll do a mega sour wort, ferment it out and blend it in

Thanks for the input guys
 
I have done 2 flemish red using 2nd gen roselare. Both were great, the second one I just pulled off a keg and will let the other 40 gallons age for another year. Even young (8 mo old) its pretty good. I like its flavor better than the 655, it just takes time. I also add more crystal and other malts than traditional recipes.
We did a comparison yesterday, and it is almost identical to Panil.
 
Back
Top