Out of the Bottle: Golden Tripel II

Round two of my Candi Sugar experiment is ready to go. After looking at my sugarless Abbey Blonde base beer, it's time to see how my Tripel turned out.

The beer pours with a deep gold hue that's slightly paler than the Blonde. It's topped by a dense bone-white cap. Head retention is decent, but not spectacular. A nice amount of lace is left behind.

I'm amazed at the clarity I got with this beer. There's much less haze than in my previous Tripel. In the picture, you can even see the Chimay logo on the backside of the glass I poured it in.

Pale fruits and fresh cut flowers greet the nose. Pear and green grape are the most prominent aromas. There's a very light coriander spice note. Letting the nose linger lets the floral aromas come out. There's no alcohol heat to be found.

In the mouth, the beer is dry and deceptively light. Carbonation is soft and perhaps a touch low for the style. The pale fruits from the nose are bolstered by bready grains. The beer's bitterness comes on quick with a spicy, yet flowery bite. Although Magnum hops provide most of the bitterness, it's the Styrian Golding hops that really come through to add a fresh cut flower complexity to the overall flavor. Despite the considerable strength, there are no alcohol flavors and only a touch of warmth going down. The floral bitterness lingers through the dry finish.

So, the main story here is that I've created a strong, yet eerily light beer. The Candi Sugar provided strength and lightness, plus additional sweet pale fruit flavors and aromas not found in the previous beer. It's the floral hops that really define this Tripel; however, even though the bitterness isn't all that great. Next up is the Quad. We'll find out about it tomorrow.

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Out of the Bottle: Oak Aged La Petite Orange

I said in my previous post that I'd saved some of Northern Brewer's La Petite Orange kit to age with Sherry Infused Oak Cubes. The aged beer is ready to go, so let's see what the Oak and Sherry did. I've had more than a few Barrel Aged beers that were completely dominated by the wood and whatever alcohol (Rum, Bourbon, Sherry, etc) the barrel originally contained. In my beer, the oak and sherry are subtle. That's what I was shooting for, so I'm quite happy with that. The flavors and aromas from the original beer are still present. There's no point in revisiting them. What I really care about is the changes the wood made. Vanilla is the most significant contribution. There's also a very mild almond note at work. The Sherry really cuts through in the aroma. It provides an extra helping of dark fruits, plus a little more alcohol heat. The beer is definitely more wine-like than before. On a side note, I took my own advice and bumped the priming su

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Kitchen Brewing Part 3: Sparge and Boil

The mash emerges from the oven. Now that we're finished with Part 1 and Part 2 of this series, it's time to Sparge. As you can see from the photo, the grains have absorbed a lot of liquid. In a traditional all-grain setup, your Mash Tun has a valve at the bottom to release the first running of Wort. The grains are then rinsed with the sparge water to extract any remaining sugars. My stove-top method doesn't afford such luxury, so a different method is called for. The grains have gained a little weight. There are a couple of choices at this point. One choice is to lift the grain bag out of Pot A and place it into the sparge water in Pot B to steep for 10-15 minutes or more. The other is to lift the grain bag up, put a colander under it and slowly pour the sparge water through the grains into the original pot. I prefer the former, because I get a better extraction rate from my grains. All that absorption means that the grains weigh a lot more than they did going i

Colorado Kitchen Brew

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