In addition to the cider we just made, we also finally bottled (and kegged) our quad. Just in time for Christmas! Redbeard had made an additional mini-batch by adding some Bruxellensis to a gallon of our quad (Prometheus #11). So, we bottled that, and a few more bottles of the regular quad, and kegged the rest.
Now just waiting for it to be get bubbly enough to drink…
Merry Christmas, everyone!
We pulled the quad to secondary fermentation, and had enough that it wouldn’t all fit in the carboy we typically use. So I put the extra gallon in the ex-blowoff growler and threw in some old Brett. Bruxellensis yeast, just for kicks. The color is not quite as dark as a typical quad, but it’s perfect for a high-gravity sour.
The quad is fermenting away nicely, and I was just thinking how smoothly everything’s going. The brew went well and we hit our gravity right on the mark. In fact, it went a little too well and we wound up with a little more than 5 gallons, but we figured there was enough head space in the fermenter, so why not keep it?
Now fermentation has started, and is going perhaps a bit too briskly — foaming up out the airlock and gumming it up. I just cleaned out the airlock and two minutes later it was all gunky again. So I rigged up a blow off tube. Luckily, our normal tubing we use for siphoning is the same gauge as our airlock stem, so I just plugged it into the airlock hole and put the other end in a half-full gallon growler. It’s bubbling very musically every minute or so.
Well, we haven’t gotten around to blogging about the tripel because, well, we were too busy drinking it. Because of the trouble in the brew, we weren’t quite sure what to expect. But it turned out to be very nice, probably my favorite tripel.
It’s not quite as strong as a tripel should be, stalling out around 8.5% instead of the 9.5% we were aiming for. But it’s nice and creamy, with a rich mouthfeel as a result of all the extra unfermented sugar. So in many ways it’s a bit more like a dubbel. So we’ve taken to calling it “Dubbel Axel”, since it’s more like 2.5x instead of 3x.
In any event, flush with quasi-success, we decided to brew a quad. Well, I should say we were planning on brewing a stout, but even after trying a dozen or so of them, couldn’t agree on what we liked. So we gave up on the stout idea and just made a Westy 12 clone. Most of the recipes you see online have a ton of specialty malts that I know St. Sixtus doesn’t use. So instead we went with a very elemental recipe: 16 lbs. of Pilsner malt, 3 lbs. of candi sugar syrup, Styrian Goldings and Hallertau hops, and White Labs 350 yeast. Instead of paying a ton for the candi sugar syrup, I found a recipe online and it worked out pretty well. It took longer than I expected to boil off the water and get the temperature up high enough to convert glucose to fructose. But once that happened, it worked like a charm.
Unlike last time, things went off without a hitch. The only small problem was that we had two old thermometers and they couldn’t bring themselves to agree on anything (even boiling water and ice water had 20°+ differences). So we picked up a new candy thermometer. Since we were also making candy, it worked out very nicely.
After our first round of quads, we wanted to try a few less popular versions, with mixed success:
We also had a couple of favorites (including another bottle of St. Bernardus to replace a spoiled bottle from the first round):
Overall, I think I found the quads to be a little less varied than the tripels, but still differing quite a bit (and differing in the same way as the tripels — with some being very boozy but otherwise mild, and others being more spicy and earthy). Â The Kasteel Donker was the only beer in this group that I’d say was disappointing. Â I still haven’t had them side-by-side, so I’d be hard pressed to pick a favorite among the Westy 12, St. Bernardus 12 and Rochefort 10. Â I’d happily drink any of them any time.
We’ve had quite enough tripel for now, so we decided to move on to quads. Â These are heavy enough that we’ll just do a few at a time. Â So we started with a few of our favorites:
La Trappe Quadrupel: The most commercial of the Trappist breweries (and the only one in the Netherlands). Â This quad was actually on sale at our local grocery store last week (no Guinness here, even for St. Paddy’s). Â It’s got a good CO2 bite up front, yielding to a nice malty sweetness. Â A little toffee. Â A very nice, well-rounded quad, with a lighter color than most.
Straffe Hendrik Quadrupel: This beer was first brewed by De Haalve Maan in the early 80’s for the inauguration of a statue of St. Arnold (patron saint of brewers) in Bruges. Â Sweet and creamy, with an herbal note that is almost like licorice (but not overpowering). Â Reminds me of some of the sweeter Russian Imperial Stouts I’ve tasted.
Westvleteren 12: Widely regarded as the best beer in the world. Â It’s got a ton of sweetness with malt, candi sugar, and some fig. Also spicy, earthy, and a definite boozy kick. Packs the usual abbey aromatics. Since it’s such a pain to come by, I keep hoping this beer will disappoint me, but it hasn’t yet.
St. Bernardus Abt 12: The former contract brewer of Westvleteren’s beers (before they brought them back in-house in ’92). I was definitely looking forward to trying this side-by-side with the Westy 12. Alas, our bottle was chipped, and the beer poured totally flat. Though I have to say this was the best spoiled beer I’ve ever had — with the candi sugar, caramel and a hint of vanilla. Really brings out how much of the beer experience depends on carbonation, since this was drinkable, but completely unrecognizable as a quad. We’ll definitely have to get another bottle for the next round.