Belgian beers, why do I not care for them?

Yakima 728
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iambeer said:
Coincidentally I"m about to brew my first chimay red dubbel. As this is my first attempt with the recipe and yeast, I have little idea of how it will turn out. But I thought I'd bounce the recipe off if anyone can supply some advice.

3 gal

Maris Otter 6.7 lbs
Cara Munich 5 oz
Aromatic 2 oz
Chocolate malt 1 oz
Caramelized sugar 10oz

Styrian Golding Pellets at 60 minutes .8 oz and 30 minutes .3 oz

WL trappist ale.

60F ambient fermentation (I also have 70F available but it seems wrong)

I didn't create this recipe but I trusted it even though the grain doesn't seem right now that I'm actually reading it. Because the grains seem too complicated and not belgian or german.

Maybe one day I will be able to even fathom the quad but today I'm all about the dub.
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Definitely don't want to use Maris Otter for a dubbel, it will make it toasty which isn't really a flavor you're going for and will clash. Use pils instead.

Otherwise, the recipe looks very good so long as your caramelized sugar is fairly dark. You are going to want a fairly prominent raisin flavor in there. Trust me, I've made lighter dubbels and it just doesn't work. You want a good candi syrup around 90 SRM.
 
glockspeed31 said:
Ok, I have tried a few different Belgian brews and can not get over the sharp sweet bite that they have, if that is a proper description. I tried a Homebrew Triple, a New Belgian Tripple, a Delirium Tremens and a Delirium Noel and they all have that "bite" to them that I just can't get over. I drink a large variety of beers and this style just doesn't suit me.

What is this taste/bite that I am tasting in these beers.

Thanks
Click to expand...

Two of those beers aren't Belgian and the two that are Belgian, aren't very good. Don't write off a country with thousands of beers because you don't like the two you've tried. What beers do you like a lot? Maybe we can suggest a few other Belgians to try.
 
a german guy i met made a very firm argument that belgian beer isn't really "beer" in the traditional sense. didn't say it was bad or he hated it, but kinda like the difference between wine and brandy. guess you could say they were the original style breakers of brewing.
 
I want to like them but they give me the sensation of gagging. I think it is a combination of the yeast and something in Belgian malt. It's like eating a whole bunch of bananas or something. I'm not talking about the hefe type banana flavor either which I also can't drink.
 
domdom said:
a german guy i met made a very firm argument that belgian beer isn't really "beer" in the traditional sense. didn't say it was bad or he hated it, but kinda like the difference between wine and brandy. guess you could say they were the original style breakers of brewing.
Click to expand...

The difference between wine and brandy is distillation.
 
domdom said:
a german guy i met made a very firm argument that belgian beer isn't really "beer" in the traditional sense. didn't say it was bad or he hated it, but kinda like the difference between wine and brandy. guess you could say they were the original style breakers of brewing.
Click to expand...

He probably meant it in the sense that the Belgian beer world is about the polar opposite of Reinheitsgebot. Belgian brewers see nothing wrong with adding fruit, spices, wild yeasts, and so on. To many Germans, that would still be blasphemous.

How do you really argue what is and isn't beer though? Several centuries ago, the finest German pilsener wouldn't have been considered beer in the traditional sense, because there was no such thing as light-colored beer.
 
drainbamage said:
How do you really argue what is and isn't beer though? Several centuries ago, the finest German pilsener wouldn't have been considered beer in the traditional sense, because there was no such thing as light-colored beer.
Click to expand...

The German Beer Purity Law pretty much defines what is beer, especially to Germans, and it was first created before the discovery of yeast. So from the German perspective, it makes perfect sense that Belgian beer isn't traditional beer. He could simply have said no beer is traditional beer unless it follows the Purity Law. We can refer to history to tell us where beer comes from and how a rational state without the crucial knowledge of yeast was able to control production of ale--and fortunately, we can experiment a lot more now without needing such rules.
 

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