Critique my Belgian Blonde mini-mash

First time doing anything remotely close to Belgian. My recipe is:

6 lbs Pale LME
3 lbs Vienna malt
.5 lbs Honey Malt
.5 lbs Biscuit Malt
.25 lbs Aromatic Malt

1.5 oz. Saaz (4%) FWP
.5 oz. Saaz (4%) 15 mins

T-58 Dry Yeast

beercalculus gives me 1.061 OG, 1.017 FG, 8 SRM, and 18.4 IBUs.

Thoughts?

Well, I got all the stuff and I'm making it anyways - so we'll see! Pretty excited.

I wouldn't really call that very belgian, though I would call it beer that will taste good. The honey malt doesn't really belong in there and it is a potent flavor. Go light on it when you use it. If you want to try and do something belgian then I would go with pilsner and sugar as a base. A little Aromatic or special B maybe to darken it up. Otherwise you are covering up the yeasts natural flavors.

As I said though, the beer will be tasty, it just might not be quite as traditionally belgian as you are hoping for.

Good luck!

I agree completely with Matt Up North - "Brew Like a Monk" contains info on a lot of Belgian beer, and the light beers have one common thread: very simple grain bills. Mostly pale / Pils, a little bit of maybe caramel / aroma, and that's it: the flavor is from the yeast and fermentation temperature.

Well then I guess I'll just have to call it a blonde then.

Hopefully the T-58 will lend some belgian-y characteristics to it.