Strange Brew Goes from Grain to Glass in One Week

My newest beer is now drinkable, way before it should have been. And I am delighted and confused.

Way back in 2004, I decided to brew something resembling a heavy Belgian beer. In my eyes, the Belgians are the kings of brewing. At least they were, before Americans and Australians became the world’s best homebrewers and craft brewers. Belgians make all kinds of nutty beers. Germans make BMW beer. Boring. All about hitting certain targets as accurately as possible, as though brewing were F-class shooting. They obey crusty old rules that are, sorry to say it, arbitrary. Belgians make beers that are full of weird flavors. Complex. Surprising. In many cases, strong.

I liked Chimay’s beers. Chimay is or was a Belgian company. I believe it now belongs to a multinational conglomerate. It started in a monastery, with Trappist monks. Let’s put this on the table: historically, monks have really enjoyed getting drunk and eating great food. The Chimay monks made beers I would describe as flamboyant. Tons of flavor. Tons of alcohol.

For some reason I no longer recall, I decided to see if I could make a wonderful beer that was sort of like what Chimay would make if it were me. I came up with a grain bill that was nearly half wheat. I added table sugar just to bump the ABV up, and I hoped it would add a cidery flavor, which sucrose supposedly does.

Belgians use something called candi sugar. I have no idea what it is, but experience brewers told me table sugar would have basically the same effect. There are dark candi sugars that color beer, but I wasn’t interested in that.

I came up with this, off the top of my head:

5 lbs Wheat Malt, Ger (2.0 SRM)
4 lbs Pilsner (2 Row) Bel (2.0 SRM)
2 lbs Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM)
1 lbs 8.0 oz Caramel/Crystal Malt – 60L (60.0 SRM)
1 lbs Munich Malt (9.0 SRM)
1 lbs table sugar

That’s how the brewing program Beersmith describes my grain bill.

I used Nugget and Crystal hops, which give a wonderful, penetrating aroma.

The beer was fantastic, and like a lot of heavy beers, it got better with age. A lot of people age heavy beers for a year or more before drinking them.

When I got back into brewing this year, I decided to redo this beer, but I chose to use Sabro hops. This is a new hop, and it’s pretty weird. It’s extremely bitter, so you have to be careful how much you add when you’re boiling. Boiling brings out bitterness. When you steep it or use it for dry-hopping, you get other things. It supposedly produces coconut and pineapple flavors and aromas. I thought Sabro was perfect for this beer, which is pretty sweet even after fermentation is over.

I brewed my new batch one week ago today. I have a brewing machine called a Braumeister, and it is rated for up to 6 kg of grain. My recipe goes over 6.1, and it contains wheat, which tends to gum things up and require the addition of rice hulls to make water go through it.

I chose to dump this stuff in the Braumeister and see what happened. I was only going over the published limit by a small amount, and the Braumeister does a great job with wheat. If it worked, I would know the machine could handle it, so I would be able to make future batches without changing anything. If not, I would know different.

I was shooting for an unfermented (original) gravity of 1.084, and I hit 1.073, assuming my measurements were okay. I had some issues with my cheap refractometer. I added dehydrated malt extract, which is mainly sugar, to make up the difference.

I fermented using Abbaye yeast, which is supposedly derived from Trappist yeast. It has a reputation for giving off esters that produce spicy and fruity flavors. I fermented at 65° to reduce banana-flavored esters and push spicy esters.

This beer went from 1.084 to 1.017 in two days. My target was 1.018. Heavy beers often take over a week to ferment. Wheat beers ferment very quickly, so I guess that explains what happened.

I sampled the beer when fermentation was over, and it was harsh. It had a solvent taste, which is normal for heavy beers that aren’t aged. I felt a burn when I drank it. This beer should contain about 9% alcohol by volume, and you can feel that when you drink, especially when a beer is young.

Yesterday, I sampled the beer again, and it was still harsh. I moved it to a new keg, to get it away from the hops I used to dry-hop it and the yeast that grew while it fermented. I decided to age the beer at 55° to kill the harshness. I expected weeks to pass before the beer was worth drinking.

Having no patience, today I checked the beer again, and it was perfect. Sweet, tasty, and free from solvent flavors. It no longer burned in my mouth, but I felt the burn down in my esophagus.

This is not supposed to happen. It should have taken a long time to improve.

I don’t know what’s going on. I’m sure the beer is finished. I had a pretty small amount tonight, and I have to say that I felt it. It was nothing like my other beers, which are considerably weaker.

I moved it to my keezer, where it will reach 35° by tomorrow. I see no point in keeping it at 55° when it’s so good right now. I know that if there is any fermentable sugar left in it, the residual yeast will consume it in spite of the low temperature. Anyone who tells you beer stops fermenting when you chill it and get rid of the yeast cake is dreaming.

I can’t figure out what’s going on, but good beer is good beer. If it’s done fermenting and the gravity is low, and the harshness is gone, it’s finished. It may not be as good as it will become later, but it’s ready to drink, weeks before I thought it would be.

It’s Beaujolais beer.

It’s unbelievably good. I thought my stout was good, and it is, but this is better.