KingBrianI
Well-Known Member
I've been thinking about brewing a nice belgian table beer for a while. Something that's easy to drink and goes well with a meal. So I started listing some adjectives describing the beer I desired. Bready, caramelly, dry, creamy... Something along those lines.
I knew I wanted to use golden naked oats. I bought some a while back and never got around to using them. They are supposed to give a nice berry flavor while hopefully lending the beer that smooth, creamy mouthfeel oats are known for. I also want great head retention so I'm throwing a little unmalted wheat in there. For the breadiness, I decided to go with some brown malt. That should give a nice toasty/bready flavor if used in the right amount. For the caramel flavor, I'm approaching from two different angles. A half pound of Crisp crystal 60 should help while a lb of homemade amber candi syrup will back it up while providing fermentables without increasing the FG. I've got a sack of canadian 2-row so that will make up the rest of the fermentables.
Northern brewer is going to provide the bitterness and a bit of aroma. I feel like the earthy/woody/minty character will go well with the kind of beer I'm going for.
And I wanted a fruity yeast, but didn't want a lot of the spicy/peppery phenolic character some belgian yeasts produce. So I have a starter of wyeast 1388 on the stir plate right now. That should be nicely fruity without being too phenolic. I'll probably pitch in the mid-60s and let the beer free-rise to the mid-70s.
Anyway, there's really no point to this post. Just want to document my attempt at a beer to satisfy the above criteria without conforming to any particular style guideline.
I knew I wanted to use golden naked oats. I bought some a while back and never got around to using them. They are supposed to give a nice berry flavor while hopefully lending the beer that smooth, creamy mouthfeel oats are known for. I also want great head retention so I'm throwing a little unmalted wheat in there. For the breadiness, I decided to go with some brown malt. That should give a nice toasty/bready flavor if used in the right amount. For the caramel flavor, I'm approaching from two different angles. A half pound of Crisp crystal 60 should help while a lb of homemade amber candi syrup will back it up while providing fermentables without increasing the FG. I've got a sack of canadian 2-row so that will make up the rest of the fermentables.
Northern brewer is going to provide the bitterness and a bit of aroma. I feel like the earthy/woody/minty character will go well with the kind of beer I'm going for.
And I wanted a fruity yeast, but didn't want a lot of the spicy/peppery phenolic character some belgian yeasts produce. So I have a starter of wyeast 1388 on the stir plate right now. That should be nicely fruity without being too phenolic. I'll probably pitch in the mid-60s and let the beer free-rise to the mid-70s.
Anyway, there's really no point to this post. Just want to document my attempt at a beer to satisfy the above criteria without conforming to any particular style guideline.
