Bud (Powell) Belgian Specialty Ale
Seeing that I’m on the last bit of my Belgian Specialy Ale I figured it would be a nice time to reflect back on this beer and add a new entry. Before you say anything I wanted to mention that I name my Belgian beers & ciders after Jazz musicians. While I named this beer “Bud” I was completely spacing out and forgot about that other “Bud”. Now let’s get onto the beer.
I had harvested some yeast from a nice little Belgian pale ale I made for my holiday 6-pack. I then created a 1-gallon starter from that yeast from a little 15-minute experiment I did (and made a video). I then used the yeast from that for my big Belgian.
Here are the details for the beer:
- Original Gravity: 1.062
- Final Gravity: 1.005
- ABV: 7.2%
- SRM: 18
- IBU: 18
Grain Bill
- 9.375# Pilsner Malt
- 1# Munich Malt
- 1# Victory Malt
- .375# Aromatic Malt
Mash Details
- Steep @148 for 75 min
- Batch sparge @168 for 10 min
Boil Additions
- 1oz Stryian Goldings (5.4% AA) @60
- 1oz Saaz (4% AA) @30
- 2# Candi Sugar @10 (video on how I did it)
- Whirfloc tab @5
Yeast
- Abbey Ale (WLP530)
Overall impressions:
Color: Golden amber. My wife, who is not color deficient like I am says, “amber”.
Aroma: Very slight pepper aroma. If you take a big whiff, you almost want to sneeze.
Taste: Since the hops aren’t front and center there is certainly an earthy spicieness. Although the yeast did a very good job of eating the sugars, there’s still a residual sweetness to the beer. This beer doesn’t drink like it’s 7.2%. Another bonus: there is zero aftertaste so it comes off real clean.
Mouthfeel: It has a surprisingly thick mouthfeel for the style.
