My first Tripel

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dhutchings

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On August 5th, I brewed the Westmalle Tripel clone from BYO's 250 clones recipe book. I did the partial extract with grains option as I'm not set up for AG just yet.

Bottled on August 25th, left in my cold room to bottle condition until today...10 weeks down the line.

I just cracked the first one.

It's definitely well carbonated - a decent sized head that dissipated after a minute or so that left a lot of lacing around the glass. I don't remember Westmalle's taste because it's been a long time since I've had a real one but this one has a bit of a yeasty, spicy nose to it, light amber in colour, almost orange. It's a bit sweet to taste but there's also a sharp tanginess to it from the spice flavour, possibly a bit of the alcohol - though there's not a real alcohol burn, it's a gentle warming. Very clean, dry aftertaste.

I'm heading to Buffalo this weekend (from Toronto) and apparently there's a great beer store near Amherst that's got Westmalle Tripel permanently in stock so I'm going to bring a few back over the border with me so I can A-B 'em. But so far I like what I'm tasting with my clone effort!

I don't know if it's cool to post the BYO recipe here, so if not...let me know and I'll remove it. But here's what I used:

2 lbs Pilsner Malt
3 lbs Light DME
3.9 lbs Light LME (a can and a bit)
2 lbs Light Belgian Candi sugar
1.9 oz Styrian Golding Hops
.75 oz Tettnang hops
.75 oz Saaz Hops

I got an OG of 1.070 (should have had 1.080 - but I did a 2.5 gallon boil and topped up afterwards so the numbers are a little screwy) and an FG of 1.014. If I use the recipe's stated OG, that puts me at about 8.8%ABV
 
Nice job, I've only made one tripel and the one I made was just about perfect at about 12 months in the bottle. Good before that, but really got to where I wanted it to be after that year of conditioning.
 
I really want to try to ration these out so I can see how they continue to age and improve. That might take a bit of willpower though.
 
It does, just mark the caps of specific ones with something that tells you that they are reserved, or keep a 6-pack in the back of some closet that you won't bother with for the next year or so. Its disappointing to drink a bunch of a good high gravity batch early on and not think its that great, then get to the last few bottles and think its perfect that that point. You'd have wished you saved at least half the batch.
 
Yep - I've got plain white stickers that fit the flip-top lids perfectly. I've got all of the Westmalle labeled as "We" and all of my fresh-hopped Pale Ales as "HPA" :) I'm still working on the first bottle - this is definitely a beer that bears savouring.
 
Well, on New Year's Eve, I got to try my Westmalle clone against a real Westmalle tripel. My colour is a little dark, but that is most likely from using LME and having it darken up a bit during the boil. The spiciness is definitely there but something I didn't remember from the last time I had a Westmalle Tripel wasn't - sourness.

The real Westmalle Tripel had a bit of sourness to it, much like Orval. My clone didn't have that.

That being said, I still did greatly enjoy my Tripel and would likely try the recipe again!
 
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