Drunken Monk Tripel

Ingredients:
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Amount Item
15 lbs Pilsner (2 Row) Bel (2.0 SRM)
1.00 oz Styrian Goldings [7.00 %] (90 min)
1.00 oz Saaz [3.80 %] (15 min)
1.00 oz Saaz [3.20 %] (5 min)
1.00 oz Coriander Seed (Boil 5.0 min)
2 lbs Homemade Amber candi syrup (directions here)
1 Pkgs Trappist High Gravity (Wyeast Labs #3787)


Mash Schedule: Single Infusion, Light Body, Batch Sparge
Total Grain Weight: 15.00 lb
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Single Infusion, Light Body, Batch Sparge
Step Time Name Description Step Temp
90 min Mash In Add 18.75 qt of water at 162.9 F 148.0 F

Bottled conditioned at 3 volumes of CO2. Added an additional pack of T-58 dry yeast at bottling time to ensure carbonation.


This beer placed 2nd at the HOPS BOPS homebrew competition in Philadelphia

Below are the judges feedback:

Aroma:
1. Peppery, clove aroma with maltiness. Slight Banana appropriate to style
2. Clove-like, some phenols, no hop

Appearance:
1. Golden, Brilliantly clear. Big, Big off white head that lingers
2. Gold, good clarity. Big Head

Flavor:
1. Balance forward toward malt. Beer with spicy notes; slight citrus(orange) flavor with alcohol detectable.
2. Spicy and fruity up front with lingering bitterness and some alcohol in the finish

Mouthfeel:
1. Full Body, High Carbonation. Some warmth, medium creaminess.
2. Medium Body, good Carb

Overall:
1.Big, Spicy, Fruity example of the Style
2.Alcohol big in finish but otherwise very good.



This beer is still only about 4 months old. I plan on stashing the rest of the bottles for a couple more months and entering it again later on. Hopefully by then the alcohol hotness will mellow out and the score will improve a little bit. It ended up scoring an average of 38 between the 2 judges.

interesting using the coriander.. dont see that a lot with tripels

The coriander gives it a slight citrus hint in the background. I like that addition a lot.

After reading Brew like a Monk, a lot of the Belgian abbeys and monasteries spice the beers they brew for the monks (and a few some of their regular beers as well) with a little coriander. I figured I'd give it a try.

since pictures are worth a thousand words:

Have you tried any of this since. I'm curious what it tastes like now.

Actually I haven't had one in a little while. I'll pop one open sometime this week and let you know.

Finally got around to having another one of these. I can't say the flavor has changed all that much. The alcohol hotness has definitely mellowed out a lot, which was the only real complaint the judges had originally. And I'm picking up a little vanilla in the background too now which i don't remember originally. Definitely still a great beer though. Still has the nice subtle banana/citrus/apple that i remember.

There's a local contest coming up which is where this beer placed last time. I'm going to enter it again and see if the score improves any with age.

I'll put this on my list to brew in a couple of weeks. What temp were you fermenting at?. How long did you keep it in the bottle before drinking it?
Thanks

I started fermentation off around 68, and i just let it rise to whatever temp the yeast took it to. I kept it in a water bath so i think the temp peaked somewhere around 78ish.

It won the award 4 months from the date it was brewed. I didn't start really hitting it hard until probably the 6-8 month mark. I still have about a half case left that i pop open one every now and then and they're still really tasty and getting better.

Thanks this is on my short list.

What score did it get, out of curiosity.

38. I included the score in the bottom of the first post. I don't remember what the scores were from the individual judges though.

Don't know how I missed that. Nice work, and a good looking recipe. I have yet to brew my 1st BGS, but this recipe looks pretty much exactly how I'd go about it.

Brewed this up tonight. Substituted store bought amber candi syrup and added 2 lbs grain to make up for efficiency. Ended up at 1.090 OG. Looking forward to this one !

Awesome! Let me know how it comes out for you.

I still have a bottle or 2 of this in my fridge. Waiting for a special occasion to break into them. Then I'll actually need to brew up another batch of this soon as well!

when do you add the candi syrup in the brewing process? into the BK or fermentor? or some other time.. i've adapted your recipe a bit to give it a try.. thanks for the building blocks

I added mine right at the end of the boil. Turned off the burner, dumped the candi syrup in, gave it a stir, then started the chiller.

Lots of people mention not adding it until later on during fermentation, but i didn't have any troubles getting it to dry out so i don't think it really matters.

I bottled this today. Ended up a bit darker than the picture, the hydrometer sample tasted raisin-y with little banana. We'll see how it carbs up. Also had quite an alcohol bite, I calculated approx 10.8 % abv. Hopefully this will mellow.

It definitely starts out quite strong. After a couple months it starts to mellow out. What temp did you ferment at?

I didn't really get any raisin note on mine, perhaps that was due to the different candy syrup? This is color of the homemade syrup that i used.

It fermented between 72 - 75 degrees room temperature, and it sat in secondary for 5 weeks or so at at 75-78, so maybe not enough temperature to get a good Belgian flavor. I have to think the raisin flavor is from the sugar. It was a lot darker than i thought it would be. The hydro sample reminded me of the chimay grand reserve, not near as good, but it had that same sort of flavor.

I would age it out a little bit. 75 ambient might have been closer to 80ish inside the fermenter. I started mine off around 68 and it finished at 78. That was the temp of the fermenter though not ambient. So that might be why your getting a lot of alcohol up front right now. I imagine some of that will mellow out with time.