Looking to brew a deceivingly strong ale...

For my next batch I want to see how well I can mask a high alcohol content with a sweet, spicy and/or fruity flavor. I was thinking of designing my own recipe, thinking some sort of Belgian style, but I'm wondering if anyone has any favorites out there that match this criteria...Looking for something strong (>1.070 gravity ideally), low IBU (<30), yet something that is balanced enough to not taste heavy on the alcohol. Any ideas?

Going to be doing a Partial Mash.

That sounds exactly like the last saison I had. I'm planning on brewing one up once it gets consistently hot here.

ChshreCat said:

That sounds exactly like the last saison I had. I'm planning on brewing one up once it gets consistently hot here.

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Yeah, Randy Mosher has a tasty looking Saison recipe in his Radical Brewing book that I was thinking of going off of, has an OG of 1.060, so I was thinking of increasing the malt a bit, but I'm a bit hesitant to try anything that hasn't been tried before, ya know? I'd rather skip all the hassle and brew from others' experience and improvements ;-)

Ditto, a Saison. The last one I brewed had a OG of 1.072 and finished at .008 That's 8.3 abv, but you'd never know to taste it.

saison was the first thing i thought of. the yeast gives a natural earthy/spicy flavor that is very up-front and would mask some alcohol 'hotness'.

"Seduction Ale", eh?

A nice Weissenbock, maybe?

Evets said:

Ditto, a Saison. The last one I brewed had a OG of 1.072 and finished at .008 That's 8.3 abv, but you'd never know to taste it.

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Mind sharing that recipe? I'm curious to see how it looks. Finishing at .008 must be a damn dry beer!

I brewed an ESB (Young's Special London Ale semi-clone) that ended up being 1.079 SG and 7.2% ABV. It's very sweet with no hint of high alcohol except for the buzz you get. I underpitched my yeast and had low attenuation, as FG was 1.024. Had it finished, it would have tasted better, masked some of the sweetness, and been even higher in alcohol.