Belgian Black IPA, or as I call it Belgian Congo Black Ale.

On April 6th, 2013, a Saturday, I brewed this beer.

I had read a lot online and exchanged some e-mails with some folks about the concept of making a Belgian Black IPA.  Some people are skeptical that the flavors will meld well.  They think that the roasty grains won't go well with the fruity esters and spicy phenols that a Belgian yeast produce.  Some of the people I've seen posting online that have this opinion also think that hops in larger amounts, as with Belgian IPAs, don't go together well with Belgian yeast either.  I don't agree with this opinion.  In addition to the usual suspect, Houblon Chouffe from Achouffe, I've also had a very nice Imperial IPA from Viven.  It's extremely heavily hopped, though I can't clearly recall the yeast character in this particular beer.

I've also made Belgian IPA using various yeasts; Wyeast 3522 and 3711, White Labs WLP530, 545 and 570.  In my opinion, they all worked very nicely with hops.  But, then, in my own Belgian IPAs, I think I don't hop them quite so crazily as some people.  I'm not someone who uses 150 grams of dry hops in a 20 liter batch of Belgian IPA.  I'm more of the mind to use about 40-60 grams of dry hops.

I'm sure I will post more about Belgian IPA in the future as it's currently one of my favorite beers.  So, clearly I don't agree with the people who say that hops in semi large quantities don't work in Belgian beers.  It might simply be that these folks are using too large of a quantity of hops. 

In addition to this, I enjoy the Belgian Imperial Stout Black Albert from De Struise Brewing.  It's quite a tasty beer.  And it has both roast character and fruity yeast character.  They don't clash in this beer.

With all of this in mind, I decided to just go ahead and brew the beer.  I am also someone who doesn't believe in using malts ONLY for color.  I want some character from that dark grain in the beer.  I enjoy when I taste some black grain character in a Black IPA and don't really see the point in trying to totally avoid any character from those grains.  That said, I went with huskless grains; a roasted wheat and a dehusked black malt, and I didn't use unusually large amounts of them.

I used a decently large amount of slurry from a previous Saison using White Labs WLP565, a strain derived from Saison Dupont.  The Saison I made reached over 90% attenuation without the use of sugar, so for this Black IPA, I decided to take a few steps to try to not have a totally dry beer with no mouthfeel.  I used some oats for mouthfeel.  I mashed a bit higher, at 154, to retain some sugars in the beer.  And I used a bit of Crystal.  In addition to that, I aim to ferment this a little cooler than the Saison, which reached 95 F during the ferment.  With this one, I intend to keep it to 85 or under.  I suppose it may sound like I'm working against the yeast here, but I think of it more as understanding what the yeast can do and trying to work with it.  I also went a bit easy on the bittering hops here.  My Belgian IPAs haven't been so crazy with the ibus either, something around .71 to .77 IBU to GU ratio.  This one is a touch lower than even that at .638.

Those are my thoughts going into this beer.  I'll see what the results are.



The recipe is as follows:

Recipe: 174:  Belgian Congo Black Ale
Style: Belgian Black IPA
TYPE: All Grain

Recipe Specifications
--------------------------
Boil Size: 35.00 l
Post Boil Volume: 28.60 l
Batch Size (fermenter): 24.80 l  
OG: 1.071 SG
Estimated Color: 54.9 EBC
Estimated IBU: 45.2 IBUs
Brewhouse Efficiency: 70.00 %

Boil Time: 90 Minutes


 Ingredients:
------------
                                                                  
6.30 kg               Pale Malt  (8.0 EBC)                                                  75.4 %       
0.70 kg               Cara Gold - 120 (120.0 EBC)                                     8.4 %        
0.50 kg               Oats, Flaked (2.0 EBC)                                              6.0 %        
0.50 kg               Wheat, Flaked (3.2 EBC)                                           6.0 %        
0.25 kg               Wheat, Roasted (900.0 EBC)                                     3.0 %        
0.10 kg               Black Barley Dehusked (1200.0 EBC)                       1.2 %
   
30.00 g               Mosaic-2012 [12.30 %] - Boil 30.0 min                    21.2 IBUs    
68.00 g               Mosaic-2012 [11.80 %] - Boil 10.0 min                    24.0 IBUs    
68.00 g               Mosaic-2012 [11.80 %] - Aroma Steep -5.0              0.0 IBUs

1.0 pkg               Belgian Saison I Ale White Labs #WLP565                               


Mash Schedule:
Total Grain Weight: 8.35 kg
----------------------------
Name              Description                                           Temp.        Step Time    
Mash in           22.00 l of water at                               154.0 F       60 min       
Mash out                                                                     168.0 F       15 min

Water was like so:

100% carbon filtered tap water.  Calcium Sulfate and Calcium Chloride were added to achieve these numbers:

Ca 120
Mg 27
Na 9
Chloride 45
Sulfate 69
Alkalinity 316
Residual Alkalinity 215
Chloride to Sulfate ratio of .65, bitter.

The yeast was pitched at 71F and allowed to rise to 80 over the course of a few days.  It's now 8 days later and activity has slowed a lot.  The beer looks to be in the final stretch of fermentation.  Early in the fermentation, the aroma coming out of the fermenter was amazing.  Too bad that came OUT.  It was a lovely mix of intense hops and esters. 

I pulled a sample today to see how the yeast is performing and it's currently at 1.016 and still showing signs of activity.  I ferment in glass so I can see that it's active.  Anyway, that's more than 77% attenuated.  I'd say if it goes down to 1.010 or 1.012 that that is a good target.  When I pulled the sample, initially the aroma was all yeast character, lots of esters and the taste was pretty harsh and grainy.  I chilled the beer for a few hours while I was brewing and tasted it again.  Totally different beast.  The heavy yeast in suspension had settled out.  And the hops were now dominating the aroma with a heavy grapefruit and tom cat piss aroma.  I had this character from this hop in an IPA recently, though that beer used a lot of different hops so I couldn't be sure it was from this hop.  Seems it was.  It's a very nice character.  The beer also tasted much better, less harsh.  This is 8 day old beer that's still fermenting, though, so it's not good to judge it too much at this stage.  I would say it's shaping up nicely, though. 

Updates:

14-05-2013:  I pulled a sample a couple of days ago to taste it.  The flavors have melded together nicely but there are some harsh fusels in this one, at least at the moment.  I will age it to try to soften those up.  The dark grains, hops and phenols/esters don't seem to me to be clashing, however.  I don't really like fusels, though.  For now, alcohol is dominating the aroma and flavor on this one.  Given that, I will just let it sit for a couple of months at least to see if that can soften up.

Looking at what was done with this one, I assume that the fusels are from over pitching the yeast.  I used the entire washed slurry from a previous batch and that's just too much.  This was fermented cooler than a recent Saison, so I don't think the fusels are from a hot ferment.  Can't be certain, however.