Trappist Single

Belgian ales are not something I have brewed a lot in the past. No particular reason really just that most are traditionally high in alcohol. They don't have to be though and with the yeast adding a lot of complexity, there's a real opportunity to create a low alcohol flavorful beer.
I've heard good things about wlp570 golden ale which is supposedly the Duvel strain and although I rarely drink it, it's one of my all-time favorite beers. With the yeast being balanced between fruity and phenolic esters, I thought this was a good place to start. One of the lower alcohol belgian beers in the 2015 bjcp style guidelines is trapist single. For those not familiar, "Overall Impression: A pale, bitter, highly attenuated and well carbonated Trappist ale, showing a fruity-spicy Trappist yeast character, a spicy-floral hop profile, and a soft, supportive grainy-sweet malt palate." Sounds good to me.

Before this beer I brewed a belgian blonde kind of ale that didn't really fit into any bjcp category but gave me a good sense of the flavor profile of the yeast. It was 6% abv with 85% pilsner, 8.5% flaked wheat and 6.5% honey at flameout. This beer was for my brother and I only tasted it young but it was good enough to get a general feel for this yeast that I've never used before. I also then had a nice fresh slurry to repitch into this beer.

Overall the beer came out ok but not great. The biggest issue was my own fault. I think my water profile recently changed because I've always had good results using the bru'n water spreadsheet to calculate how much acid I need to add to the mash to hit my desired ph. This time though, it was lower than expected at 5.06 instead of my target of 5.3. As a result the beer is on the acidic side and takes away from the drinkability for me. Being dry to begin with, it's almost white wine like in its finish. Still a good summer beer.

• og - 1.047
• fg - 1.009
• 5.2% abv
• 32 ibu
• 3.6 srm

Recipe

• 95% bohemian pilsner (weyermann)
• 5% belgian golden candi syrup @5m
• wlp570 golden ale 200ml slurry

• fwh - .5 oz amarillo - 18 ibu
• 20m - .5 oz saaz - 2.6 ibu
• 20m - .5 oz tettnang - 2.0 ibu
• 10m whirlpool at 180f - 1.5 oz tettnang - 4.1 ibu
• 10m whirlpool at 180f - 1.5 oz saaz - 2.4 ibu
• 10m whirlpool at 180f - .5 oz amarillo - 3.0 ibu

Water Profile
ca 55 ppm | mg 7 ppm | na 0 ppm | s04 99 ppm | cl 42 ppm

Brew Day 5/29/17
- mashed at 148f for 45m then 150f for 15m
- boiled for 90m
- pitched at 66f and fermented at that temp for 6 hours then ramped up to 68f for 12 hours then up to 71 for 32 hrs then left it at 73 for the remainder

Tasting Notes 8/20/17
appearance: golden straw colored, pillowy white 1 finger head, good lacing
aroma: spicy yeast, little bit of fruitiness (stone fruit), slight grainy malts
taste: spicy phenolic yeast, pils malt, minimal earthy hop flavor and medium bitterness, finishes dry

For Next Time
Besides getting the ph right, it needs more hop flavor and aroma. These damn continental hops are too delicate, I'm used to over the top aggressive american varieties. Oh well, I'll just add more. No real issues with the grain bill, maybe bump up the candi syrup to 10% because I couldn't really perceive much of an impact from it. Lower alcohol.