Out of the Bottle: Golden Spark, the beer that started it all.

It seems fitting that my first real post be about the beer that inspired this blog. My son appropriately named it Golden Spark. It's a Belgian Strong Pale Ale (BSPA, for all you beer nerds out there) that weighs in at 9.8% alcohol. In the future, my "In the Fermentor" articles will list the recipes for my beers, but I'm making an exception this time. Golden Spark is a Partial Mash recipe that can easily be converted to all-grain. The following recipe is scaled up to make the traditional five gallon batch of homebrew:

Grains:
4 lbs Rahr Two-Row
8 oz Crisp Crystal 15L
4 oz Briess Carapils

Hops:
1 oz Hallertauer: 60 min
0.5 oz Saaz: 20 min
0.5 oz Crystal: 20 min
0.5 oz Saaz: 7 min
0.5 oz Crystal: 7 min

Yeast:
Wyeast 1388 - Belgian Strong Ale

Extras:
6 lbs Briess Pilsen Light DME (Dry Malt Extract)
12 oz Clear Belgian Candi Sugar

Original Gravity:
1.077
Final Gravity:
1.002

Fermentation Schedule:
2 Weeks Primary
4 Weeks Secondary
2 Weeks Bottle Conditioning

This beer has really changed with time. After two weeks in the bottle, the beer had great carbonation and a nice dense head. Due to my forgetting to throw in Irish Moss during the boil, there was as a fair amount of chill haze, which didn't bother me. Pears and apricots dominated, with a hint of spicy bitterness. Fast forward to a month plus in the bottle and things have changed. The fruits have faded and let the bitterness through. The mouthfeel is extremely dry and deceivingly light. The alcohol adds warmth to the body as it goes down (it should, with this much on hand), but can't be tasted much. I was really surprised by the yeast I used. I was expecting a higher final gravity and therefore less alcohol. The yeast; apparently, had other ideas. Overall, I'm quite pleased.

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