Kit Review: Northern Brewer La Petite Orange

Every once in awhile, a good deal on a beer kit hits my inbox. This time around, I received a nice offer from the folks at Northern Brewer for their La Petite Orange. It's described by them as a lighter take on the traditional Trappist Dubbel. What's the finished brew like? Let's find out.

The kit is Malt Extract based, but also has a nice compliment of pre-crushed specialty grains in the box. In addition, there's a bag of Belgian Candi Sugar. Replacing part of the extract with Belgian Pils malt allowed me to perform a Mini-Mash with the kit's grains, rather than simply steep them. Other than that, I followed the instructions as written. Of the two recommended yeasts, I went with Wyeast's Trappist High Gravity (a.k.a Westmalle) strain.

Fist off, the beer has nice clarity and a copper hue that's paler than I expect from a Dubbel. The dense eggshell cap has decent staying power and leaves quite a bit of lace behind.

Whether I approve of the color or not, it's the taste that counts. I definitely approve of that.

Dark fruits dominate the nose with cherry and plum. There's a bit of fresh biscuits and a hint of spice as well. When the beer hits the mouth, the aromas follow. Bitterness is extremely light and bolstered by a touch of alcohol warmth. The alcohol caught me off guard, because this beer is only a hair over 6.0% ABV. In my opinion, the alcohol in a Dubbel should be as highly masked as possible. That's not the case here.

The beer's body is quite light and has soft carbonation. Yours truly should have bumped up the priming sugar, because there's not quite enough tingle going on for this style.

Since the kit produces a couple of cases worth of beer, I did go ahead and set aside half for aging on Sherry soaked Oak Chips. I'm going to give that beer a few weeks on the wood and then bottle it. Then, I'll compare it against this beer to report the differences.

As far as the beer goes in its present form, I have to say that I like, but don't love it. More dark fruit, in addition to a bit less booze would boost my opinion. I'll check back in a month with my thoughts on this beer's oak aged cousin.

Comments

In the Fermentor: Kitchen Sink Barleywine

The Leftovers It's time for a cleanup of leftover grains and partially used packets of hops from 2012. With the exception of the 2-Row base malt, everything in the recipe below has been sitting on the shelf, or in the fridge waiting to be used. I had several open hop packages, some leftover toasted malts and a half-full bottle of malt extract too. I also had yeast cultured from my White House Honey Porter . My decision was to use almost all of my leftovers and make a partial-mash Barleywine. The finished beer will be quite strong and quite bitter. A toasted malt backbone should nicely complement pine, spice and citrus hop flavors. Because of the beer's strength, it will not be ready for at least three months and should improve with age. The recipe has been scaled up to five gallons from the 2.5 gallons I actually brewed: Grains: 9 lbs Rahr 2-Row 8.5 oz Victory 7.5 oz Brown Hops: Bittering: 0.75 oz Chinook (11.1% a.a.): 60 min 0.5 oz Colum...

In the Fermentor: Flaming Pumpkin

I'll admit that I'm not a huge Pumpkin Beer fan. I didn't have one on my brewing calendar for this year and didn't have my sights set on one for next Fall either. Then my niece came along and threw down the gauntlet. She asked me to brew her a pumpkin beer and I accepted the challenge. I did a lot of reading to see how to best go about using pumpkin in beer. Some people mash it with the grains. Others add it to the brew kettle during the boil. Some add it to the primary or secondary fermentor. The consensus from professional brewers appears to be adding it to the mash, so I took the same approach. The pumpkin was cooked ahead of time by my girlfriend to soften it, convert some of the starch and help release some of its sugars. It then joined the grains in the mash. I really want the pumpkin pie effect here, so I've thrown in all of the requisite spices toward the end of the boil. I've also gone with just enough bitterness to balance the sweetness of the ...

Out of the Bottle: Insert clever use of the word Wit here

My latest Wit was a hit at my friend's birthday party. He especially liked the beer's citrus components. Others found it to be light and refreshing. I heard no Blue Moon comparisons, which actually made me quite happy. Compared to My Wit's End , this beer is much closer to style. Unmalted Wheat is part of the reason, as there's much less grainy sweetness at work. Instead, the beer is crisp and dry. The bitter orange peel really does its thing. The peel's sharp flavor melds nicely with the sweet orange peel I also used. Coriander pushes the beer's spicy character along. If I were to change anything, it would be to dial it back a notch or two. Some light sourdough aromas round out the flavor and aroma. Despite the relatively low ABV of right around 5.0%, the beer sports a fairly hefty body. Overall, I'm quite happy with this Wit. Next time, I'll hold back on the coriander. Maybe I will even take a shot at a Turbid Mash, which sounds like a great sub...

Colorado Kitchen Brew

Search This Blog