Belgian golden ale around 6.5%?

Anyone have a recipe or ideas for a recipe for a lighter Belgian golden strong ale?

I really want to make a Belgian golden strong that is closer to a session beer than an ass-kicker.

You may try taking a 8+% and scaling it back by a lb or 2 of malt and do similar things with the sugar. If you have a program on your computer (like BeerSmith), you can easily just take a recipe you find here and play around with it until you get something worth trying.

Are you looking at light in color, flavor, both? Golden Strongs run the gamut of different personalities...

I was thinking of doing something like this just to have a cake to pitch onto.

I guess a simple recipe would be something like:

5.5g batch / 75% eff

10lb Pilsner / 2-Row / Mix
0.5lb Aromatic
0.5lb 20L Crystal
1lb Sugar

1.25 oz Styrian Goldings @ 60min (~20 IBU)
0.75 oz Styrian Goldings @ 15min (~6 IBU)
1.00 oz Saaz @ 15 min (~6 IBU)

I'd be partial to using WL 570 or Wyeast 1388 but any Belgian yeast should do you well, especially with an OG this low.

That should give you an OG of about 1.063 and ~32 IBU. If you mash it low you can probably get it down to 1.012 or so FG. That should be pretty close to 6.5% ABV (you can adjust the base malt and sugar for your system). To get it even lighter, you can use 2-Row / Pilsner in place of the Crystal and Aromatic. Also, if you wanted it a bit drier, you could sub some of the base malt for a little more sugar or even some honey. And, if you do that, you can add a bit of Carapils or even wheat malt back to it for some added head retention if that's your fancy.

Don't know if that helps but there it is...

Barc said:

I guess a simple recipe would be something like:

5.5g batch / 75% eff

10lb Pilsner / 2-Row / Mix
0.5lb Aromatic
0.5lb 20L Crystal
1lb Sugar

1.25 oz Styrian Goldings @ 60min (~20 IBU)
0.75 oz Styrian Goldings @ 15min (~6 IBU)
1.00 oz Saaz @ 15 min (~6 IBU)

I'd be partial to using WL 570 or Wyeast 1388 but any Belgian yeast should do you well, especially with an OG this low.

That should give you an OG of about 1.063 and ~32 IBU. If you mash it low you can probably get it down to 1.012 or so FG. That should be pretty close to 6.5% ABV (you can adjust the base malt and sugar for your system). To get it even lighter, you can use 2-Row / Pilsner in place of the Crystal and Aromatic. Also, if you wanted it a bit drier, you could sub some of the base malt for a little more sugar or even some honey. And, if you do that, you can add a bit of Carapils or even wheat malt back to it for some added head retention if that's your fancy.

Don't know if that helps but there it is...

Click to expand...

Doesn't hurt...

Glad for it... You'll come up with and make a decent brew, no problem.

Just one quick thought on my "recipe" above; you can probably go 15% or more on your pure sugars. I wouldn't, personally, go over about 20% of my fermentables being sugar, were I you.

Caution: Rambling below!

I've considered doing something similar to your less-than-knock-you-out strength beer as a "daily" type of beer but not quite a "haus ale" type. My own thoughts were and leanings something like this:

40% Pilsner Malt
40% 2-Row Malt
15% Sugar
5% Light Crystal Malt

Some mix of American and Noble hops to about 30 - 35 IBU.

Wyeast 1388 & some fruitier profile Belgian yeast (split ferment then mix).

Long, low temp, step mash. Sparge with relatively low temp water. (This should allow for a fermentable wort without a lot of unfermentables).

Gradually raise the temp of fermentation from about 65 until it was about 75 then allow it to finish naturally. Primary a total of about 4 weeks then cold crash for 3 days. Bottle and carb a little higher than usual (probably 3.0 or so).

The lower OG should mean it is "finished" quicker and be ready for drinking. It should be pretty dang light and really dry. It shouldn't require a lot of "cellaring" and should be "good" quickly.

I've not finalized it yet, but that's my own leanings and thoughts on a Belgian Golden "Not-so-Strong."

Again, don't know if it is helpful but here ya go...

After reading "Brew Like a Monk" I figure they must use MASSIVE pitching rates if they are fermented in 5 days or so. That is why I thought about making a smaller beer for the yeast cake and seeing how it went. One place said they got the ferment down to 4 DAYS when they went to a shallower conical set up. So 4 days ferment, 3 days cold crash and 14 days in the bottle for a double and 21 days for the triple at 75F. I'm still taking the whole book with a grain of salt.