My Belgian Beer Need Your Help!

Hello I just brewed an all-grain kit from Northern Brewer. Here's the link to the recipe kit http://www.northernbrewer.com/shop/tallgrass-velvet-rooster-pro-series-all-grain-kit.html Well I missed my gravity something awful. It is 1.060 suppose to be 1.080. I obviously have some efficiency problems I need to work out and evaluate my whole process. However this brew is being made for a special occasion and I was really looking forward to the 8.5%. My question-Is there any kind of liquor I could add that would blend well to make this more of that high alcohol special occasion beer or should I just forget about it and just enjoy it since it will still be good? The beer is a Belgian Tripel. Thanks

You could add some sugar and it would ferment out and increase the ABV.


Without knowing the AA of the hops it is a little difficult to determine the IBU's but if you boil up some sugar and add it after a couple of days. The yeast will do their thing and makes more alcohol. But I am guessing that a little more sugar willget things up to where they belong.

I vote for letting it ride. Overall taste is more important than ABV IMO. If hard press I might consider adding .5# 0L belgian candy, but I think you should just drink doppel of the tripel to compensate.

The original recipe caled for an OG of 1.080 so the hops were balanced for that OG.Adding some sugar will get things back in balance.

The original recipe also calls for 1# of sugar. To get to 1.080 you are going to need to add 2.5 additional pounds of sugar. That will be an out of balance sucrose beer. Potentially overly thin laced with hangover.
This is just my opinion. Tastes may vary...
I agree that the hops could be out of balance though, leaving it at 1.060. I think leaving it, (or gong mild on the sugar) is the best of the two evils.