Easy belgian ale suggestions

The Homebrew Forum

Help Support The Homebrew Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

Darren Jeory

Regular.
Joined
Mar 12, 2019
Messages
221
Reaction score
43
Hi there

I'm looking for an easy belgian blonde ale recipe. Just to clarify my brew equipment is basic and I have no temp control.

I love beers like duvel and afflingem blonde and wanted to have a swing at one that doesn't require a degree in brewing.

Thanks
 
Belgian beers are really simple in terms of ingredients. Water, temp control and yeast selection will help obviously but as long as you keep things simple you’ll have no problems.

An easy blond recipe would be to use 90% lager malt or MO, 10% sugar (table sugar is fine) to an OG of 1.060 to 1.065).
Then bitter it to between 20 and 22 IBU with any hops you have to hand. Don’t bother with a late addition, but if you want to then throw in something noble like Hersbrucker. Ferment with a true Belgian strain and try and start it off fairly cool at about 18 degrees then you can let it free rise up to 22-23 degrees 🍺
 
Is the sugar addition purely for abv? If I wanted the abv a little more sensible would losing the sugar hurt the flavour?

Also how long would you say to mash for and would the hops be put in at 60min?


Thanks by the way
 
Is the sugar addition purely for abv? If I wanted the abv a little more sensible would losing the sugar hurt the flavour?

Also how long would you say to mash for and would the hops be put in at 60min?


Thanks by the way

The sugar is to keep the finish dry and to add fruity esters. A blond for example shouldn’t be too malty. Just a 60 minute mash at 64 to 66 will do the job 🍺
 
But if you mash in a pot which you can easily regulate the power of, e.g. on an inductive stove, use a 59°-65°-70°, for each step appr. 20 minutes.

Yeasts: Mangrove Jack's M47, not M31 or M41, unless you want to brew something Duvel-ish, in which case you will need a couple of weeks extra to make sure they are fermented out. BE-256, Bulldog B19 Belgian Trapix are also nice yeasts.

Hops: a bit at the start, a bit in the middle, a bit at the end. I like Goldings hops also very much for my tripels, but I recently did a single hop batch with Brewer's Gold.
 
I've never made a yeast starter before yet lots of recipes reccomend making one or using a liquid yeast...how do you make a yeast starter...or is it not important?
 
I've never made a yeast starter before yet lots of recipes reccomend making one or using a liquid yeast...how do you make a yeast starter...or is it not important?
One of the things in Belgian brewing is a slight underpitching. If you use dry yeast, don't make a starter. I you use liquid yeast, I would add it to some wort, e.g. 0,5 l, to make it active and pitch it when it is at high kraüsen (foaming).

How many litres do you want to make for a first, and how strong?
 
I'm a 20litre man but I would like to keep the abv as much below 6% as I can without ruining the beer.

So mix the dried yeast with some wort and wait until it starts to work...ill try that
 
I recently had a go at making a Belgian (style) Blond Ale. I found the original recipe on a US website, and it was based on 100% pilsner malt. I didn't have enough in stock, so I improvised with what I had. The grain bill for ~21l was as follows:
  • Pilsner malt - 3kg
  • Pale Maris Otter - 2 kg
My hop choice was also a bit unconventional, but again based on what I had available on the day:
  • Magnum - 12g (60 min)
  • Styrian Goldings - 25g (20 min)
  • Styrian Goldings - 25g (5min)
  • Styrian Goldings - 50g (dry hop for final 7 days of fermentation)
Mash temp - 66 degC
OG - 1.051
FG - 1.004
Yeast - SafAle S-33 (1 packet hydrated in 0.5l of boiled water)
Fermentation temp - ~20 degC
Calculated IBU - ~27.5
Calculated ABV - ~6.15%

The fermentation was not without some issues (see Quick or stuck fermentation?), but the end result is very nice indeed. (I still have 1 crate of 500ml bottles in the garage :onechug:).
I did not set out to make a Leffe clone, but this beer really has that distinctive Belgian taste and character . . . . . I will definitely make it again.
PS - If you really want to get under 6% then I don't think that a little more water would do any harm.
 
Thats great thanks. So is the yeast the most important thing with this then? What was the alpha acid of your hops (if you remember)?
 
Thats great thanks. So is the yeast the most important thing with this then? What was the alpha acid of your hops (if you remember)?
Yes, the yeast is what creates that special Belgian taste. I've used Mangrove Jack's M41 in the past, and it was very good. However, the flavour it creates was quite overpowering . . . . not at all subtle.
Sorry, I should have put the AA information in for guidance.
Magnum - 12.5%
St'n Goldings - 4%
If you play around with your calculations you can adjust the addition levels to suit any suitable hop varieties. I would not recommend using any highly distinctive US, Australian or NZ hops. The hop flavour needs to be subtle and European
 
Yes, the yeast is what creates that special Belgian taste. I've used Mangrove Jack's M41 in the past, and it was very good. However, the flavour it creates was quite overpowering . . . . not at all subtle.
Sorry, I should have put the AA information in for guidance.
Magnum - 12.5%
St'n Goldings - 4%
If you play around with your calculations you can adjust the addition levels to suit any suitable hop varieties. I would not recommend using any highly distinctive US, Australian or NZ hops. The hop flavour needs to be subtle and European
Oh no...ill be steering clear of the big Case as it is not a hop forward beer.

Big help thanks!
 
Definitely, the real trappists like to brew with German and Czech hops, Styrian Goldings and Saaz are used.
 
Auto correct grrrrrr:mad:

I mean saaz
I can't think of any reason why Saaz should not be suitable from a taste point of view. The only drawback is that they tend to have quite a low AA %age, so you will need to use quite a lot for the bulk of the bittering (60 min) addition. The 12g of Magnum that I used contributes ~18.5 of the total 27.5 IBUs, so you will probably have to use >3 times the weight of Saaz to achieve this. It might be more economical to use a smaller quantity of a fairly neutral but high AA hop (like Magnum) as the main bittering component, and then the Saaz for the rest.
 
This is my recipe for a Belgian light (colour) ale - definitely not light in terms of ABV, but doesn't taste like rocket fuel.

Having had a few issues with some prevous brews, it's one of the first I'm truly happy with.

You could easily cut down on the sugar - I was using what I had to hand.

Starting the ferment of slightly cooler was a good steer as the Belgian tones are not too overpowering, in my opinion.
 
This is my recipe for a Belgian light (colour) ale - definitely not light in terms of ABV, but doesn't taste like rocket fuel.

Having had a few issues with some prevous brews, it's one of the first I'm truly happy with.

You could easily cut down on the sugar - I was using what I had to hand.

Starting the ferment of slightly cooler was a good steer as the Belgian tones are not too overpowering, in my opinion.
Sounds awesome

I go through cycles of what I'm drinking...sometimes I just fancy a well made pilsner but right now I'm drinking a lot of leffe, duvet and Kwak so just fancy having a swing at something belgian
 
Back
Top