Belgian Tripel recipe (Bede’s Chalice)

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DC
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Belgian Tripel recipe (Bede’s Chalice)

Post by DC » Mon Nov 05, 2012 10:18 am

Hi all, after recently sampling a few Durham Brewery beers I have decided I would like to try and emulate their Bede’s Chalice Belgian Tripel or try and brew something along the same lines. Please see the information below from their website describing this wonderful Belgian Tripel. I see from the recipe below it uses Maris Otter I would be substituting that for Golden Promise. They also mention a Belgian charge of coriander which I have heard of being used in beers but I have never used it myself but it sounds interesting. Just wondering if any of you Belgian Tripel experts out there could give me a recipe to clone this beer or get me somewhere near to it?
Bede’s Chalice
Colour: Pale Golden
Type: Belgian Tripel
Origin
Bede's Chalice celebrates the Venerable Bede.
The origin of the term "Tripel" is unknown but would appear to denote alcoholic strength. First used in the 1930s in association with the Trappist brewery Westmalle, it now refers to a strong pale ale.
Tasting Notes
Full bodied Maris Otter malt with a small addition of wheat and Vienna malt are aromatised by a typical Belgian charge of coriander. The result is a smooth, sweetish, luscious and fruity experience. The peach and orange notes of the malt base are enhanced by the judicious use of a single American hop, centennial. A very satisfying beer with a Belgian character. Some say it is the best beer ever made!

Cheers DC
FV No 1: Nowt
FV No 2: Nowt
FV No 3: Nowt
FV No 4: Nowt
Pressure Barrel No 1: Nowt
Conditioning: Nowt
Drinking: Nowt
Planning:
Yeast Bank: SafAle S04, Youngs Cider Yeast.
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Barley Water
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Re: Belgian Tripel recipe (Bede’s Chalice)

Post by Barley Water » Mon Nov 05, 2012 3:33 pm

Well having never tasted that beer it would be hard to come up with a clone but I can help you out a little on doing Triples. First of all, you want a beer with an O.G. in the neighborhood of about 1.080. All the really cool fruity flavors come from the yeast, there are several out there to choose from. WLP500 is the Chimay strain and it is extremely fruity (of course depending on how hot you ferment). WLP530 is Westmalle I believe and I have also played with WLP550, neither of those strains is as expressive as the Chimay yeast but make great beer. It is extremely important to pitch enough yeast, you want the beer to attenuate as much as possible. What I like to do is make an Abbey Single with an O.G. in the 1.045 neighborhood to grow up enough yeast to do the job. If you control the fermentation temperature, pitch enough healthy yeast and possibly add your sugars after the primary fermentation is well under way plus heavily oxigenate the wort you should get good results. The trick is to avoid the hot/solvent like flavors that fermenting too warm or under pitching will get you. I hate judging Belgian beer in contests because you always get some entries which remind me of "jet fuel" and man, do those beers give you a pounding headache. When making Belgians your manta should always be "fermentation control" (actually that is true for all brewing but is especially important when doing Belgians).

A couple of things about recipe formulation. First of all as alluded to above, you need to add sugar, maybe around 10% of the fermentables. You can use table sugar purchased from the grocery store but I like to fool around with the less processed stuff (I use jaggery sourced from local Indian stores in my area). Do not be shy when adding sugars, if you don't the beer will end up way too sweet and cloying. While you are purchasing the jaggery, pick up some Indian coriander, it's the good stuff. It will add an orange like note to the beer and if you want to get out there, add the zest of some oranges near the end of the boil for a bit of citrus aroma. I would not worry too much about making a clone though, getting close is almost impossible with beers like this. You would need to know exactly which yeast the brewer used and exactly how they handled it along with details as small as the geometry of their fementation tanks, all these details affect the flavor expressed by the yeast. Just concentrate on making you beer taste good and do your own thing.

Finally one last little piece of advice. If you naturally carbonate the beer, make sure to add yeast at bottling time. My last batch ended up absolutely flat because the high gravity beer stressed out the yeast and it just wouldn't carbonate (I just dumped a batch of Triple for that very reason and trust me, it will piss you off). I just bottled two batches of Belgians (a Dubbel and an Oud Bruin) over the last week and we are now over-yeasting with a white wine yeast because it should be able to stand the high alcholol environment, we'll see (I did that at the advice of Tommy Arthur, head guy at Lost Abbey, they bottle condition all their beers). Incidentally, you want the beer pretty fizzy so if you bottle make sure to use stout bottles so as to avoid explosions and...good luck and have fun. :D
Drinking:Saison (in bottles), Belgian Dubbel (in bottles), Oud Bruin (in bottles), Olde Ale (in bottles),
Abbey Triple (in bottles), Munich Helles, Best Bitter (TT Landlord clone), English IPA
Conditioning: Traditional bock bier, CAP
Fermenting: Munich Dunkel
Next up: Bitter (London Pride like), ESB
So many beers to make, so little time (and cold storage space)

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seymour
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Re: Belgian Tripel recipe (Bede’s Chalice)

Post by seymour » Mon Nov 05, 2012 5:14 pm

Lots of great advice as always, thanks Barley Water!

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