Belgian Pale Recipe

I'd like to brew up a Belgian Pale in the near future. I'd be shooting for a fairly dry, easy drinking 4-6% ABV beer with the fruity, musty Belgain yeast doing most of the work. Something along the lines of La Caracole Saxo, JP's Oro de Calabaza, or Orval. I'd really like a to do a saison (Bam Biere and Hennepin are two of my favorites), but don't have the temp control capabilities at the moment.

My LBHS carries Wyeast, so I have 1214, 1388, and 3942 as options. I suppose I could order online as well, so I'll take any suggestions. Any thoughts on extract recipes?

How 'bout this: six pounds dry lite extract, 1 pound cane sugar, 6-8oz caramunich, and one ounce fuggles for 60 min. The hops can be changed readily, the long boil will drive off almost all flavor from them. Just keep them around 4-5%. The yeast is up to you, I use whitelabs Belgian blend usually. I do a variation of this that is 6.3% and a nice copper color. It has more grains to achieve the color, but the munich should be good for a pale. Also, be sure to keep early ferm temps low, and then increase it over a weeks time. I started this recently and the results are great. I just start the ferm in my AC'ed bedroom, then move it to the hallway later.

I brewed the Belgian Pale Ale recipe from JZ's "Brewing Classic Styles." It was really good. Probably one of my favorite beers that I made. If you don't have the book - get it. It has some excellant stuff in it.

rh348877 said:

I brewed the Belgian Pale Ale recipe from JZ's "Brewing Classic Styles." It was really good. Probably one of my favorite beers that I made. If you don't have the book - get it. It has some excellent stuff in it.

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+1. It's a great book alright.