Abbot's Ease - 1.025 Trappist table beer

How to tackle a 1.025 beer?

I've brewed 3 patersbiers in the past 7 weeks. All of them came in at 1.025-1.027. This one finished at 1.006, where I want it and to get me to 2.6% abv. Face it, when a beer gets below 1.030, its a very *light* beer. At 1.030+ you can use some body building adjuncts to give it a firmer beer backbone and still get enough attenuation to have some abv. You put some dextrinous malts in a 1.025 beer and this thing will only ferment out to 1.012-1.015, leaving you with sub 2% alcohol? Not good.

Anyway, this was an adventure. I struggled on two fronts...historical reality vs. creating a very small yet flavorful beer. Historically, this table beer is second runnings from a bigger beer. This beer is quite probably pretty boring in reality. The AHA had an article about patersbiers with a recipe in the 5% range. I'm sorry, but 5% is not a table beer. The creep of "session" ales to being near 5% is a crime. This Trappist table beer has to be 3% or less imho. you're not giving your kids a 5% beer with their dinner in the 18th century (but you are giving them home distilled whiskey for their headache). But, how do you get enough out of such a small beer to make it interesting? For a nano IPA, you can just use a metric ****-ton of hops and enjoy that. For a Belgian beer like this what do you do? Rely on the yeast, for one. And use a fair bit of Belgian syrup or Candi sugar to ensure attenuation and nominal abv in the end...and some flavor. This is what these handful of brews has brought me to, anyways....

Recipe
This is a a generic recipe, using percentages:

70% Pilsner
14% Munich
6% Caravienne
10% D-90 Candi Syrup

18 IBUs worth of Tettnager @ 60 min.

1.5 g/gal Coriander @ 5 min. (I use a 3" tea ball)

Mash at 152*F

Boil for 90 minutes.

Fermentation
Underpitch and cook it hot....I pitched 1/2 the recommended amount of yeast and I pitched at 68*F but immediately set the PID to 74*F. This promotes a decent amount of ester production, which may not occur in such a small beer otherwise. This beer will clear itself in 3 days. With such a small OG with a big yeast pitch, the yeast may not even multiply and kick off much flavorful esters that this beer needs.

I used WLP540, Rochefort strain, cuz I really love Rochefort and how they get some hot alcohol in their beers. Use any Trappist/Abbey yeast that you like.

Did you try any without sugar/syrup?

Seems like Belgian beers use these simple sugars to a bigger beer to a low FG. You could use a touch of special B and maybe some aromatic malt to bring in some of the favors you can get from candi syrup and leave a bit more body in the beer.

Of course mash high and pick belgian yeast that attenuates at low end of range...Wyeast 3522 looks promising with expected attenuation 72-76%.

I needed the flavor without the increase in FG that'd you'd see with Spec B or Aromatic or Caramunich. I did one with Spec B and the FG was too high and abv too low. You could sub Spec B for the Caravienne, if you like, but I wasn't look for much of the dark fruit flavor here anyway. This turned out better...I believe this beer should be *simple*.

If the beer was traditionally second runnings, the grain bill would probably look like a triple or a double, just scaled way back on the abv. Their only option would be to dress it up in the boil, with sugars and spices.

Weezy said:

Recipe
This is a a generic reciope, using percentages:

70% Pilsner
14% Munich
6% Caravienne
10% D-90 Candi Syrup

18 IBUs worth of Tettnager @ 60 min.

Click to expand...

So a grain bill like:

1lb 14 oz Pilsner
6 oz Munich
2.5 oz Caravienne
4 oz Candi Syrup D-90

0.55 oz 4% Tettnager

Does this look about right?

Thanks,
Cody

Hmmm I have some washed WLP-500 that is looking for a reason to not be dumped( nothing wrong with the yeast just don't used it often). I might have found its pardon.

I used Wyeast 1762 to brew a dubbel and it's about ready to bottle. I think that's basically the same as WLP540. This looks like a good reuse for it. I've been trying for a while to figure out what style might make a good 3.2% beer.

That looks good, Cody.

z-bob, you can definitely bump this up to ~3% and enjoy it. I just wanted to get this one to be pretty simple but also good at <3%. I drank 6 of these over the course of the day on Sunday, like it was iced tea.

Thanks, Weezy.

What carbonation volume did you use? The picture looks well carbonated.

Cody

about 3 volumes

Interesting, I might try something similar soon.

What results have others had with this? I'm interested in trying it out.