Westbennetteren 20: The Quest for 20 Percent

After a 3 month primary brawl, using almost 5lbs of sugar, I cracked 20% and created a beast of a beer!

After breaking such a massive barrier I'm briefly sneaking out of my blogging retirement to tell the story of how it came to be.

The Road There

The road to what became Westbennetteren 20 was a long and winding one.  It started in 2013 during an evening of beers and games.  I clearly remember at least two of the people at the table being Daniel Fernandez (of Beancurdturtle Brewing and BCT Brewing Project fame) and Miklos Somogyi.  During the evening the subject of quads came up and we had a discussion on the evolution of the trappist styles along with what the next logical step would be.  Logically the argument was for it to be called a Quintuple (or The Quint as Miklos would refer to it over the next few years) and be in the mid-teens abv wise.

Over the next few years I would think about brewing it, even occasionally putting it on deck. During this time I would toy with the recipe trying to think both of what I wanted it to be and how I would push it into the abv range.   One of my initial recipes had doubling the amount of candi syrup I use in the boil for Westbennetteren 12. During this time I firmed up in my mind that this beer would be more of a supped up quad than anything else.  

Eventually I moved away from just trying to overload it with candi syrup in the boil and instead moved towards step feeding it pure dextrose in primary.  This is the technique used in brewing Black Tuesday, 120 Minute IPA and several others.  I ended up adapting the methodology Scott over at Bertus Brewery used for his DogFish 120 IPA clone with the base recipe being my Westbennetteren 12.  Additional notes on brewing massive beers. 

With the recipe firmed up and after two back to back years of disappointing batches of Westbennetteren 12 (b3 stalled fermentation followed by a slight infection, b4 flat) I decided that the time to brew the quint had arrived.

The Journey Begins 

On Sunday, March 6, 2016 I set out early in the morning to brew essentially Westbennetteren 12 for the fifth time.  Overall it was a smooth brewday.

After some discussion on brewday and thinking about it in more depth I've decided that Westbennetteren 20 isn't a Quintuple after all, it's actually something more.

To start with let's take a look at the progression of "trappist" style beers.

Single 4-6% ABV pale in color

Dubbel 6-7.5% ABV dark in color

Tripel 7.5-9.5% ABV pale in color

Quad 9.5-13% ABV dark in color

The pattern that emerges is that odd numbered beers are pale while even numbers are dark with deep red, brown and garnet hues. There is also a pattern in the abv range with little overlap. Between the high range of a quad and the lowest abv I targeted for Westbennettern 20 (18% to 22%) there's 5 percentage points up for grabs. Based on that here is my proposed expansion of trappist styles 

Single 4-6% ABV pale in color

Dubbel 6-7.5% ABV dark in color

Tripel 7.5-9.5% ABV pale in color

Quad 9.5-13% ABV dark in color

Quintuple 13-18% ABV pale in color 

Westbennetteren 20 18-22% dark in color

As far as style names go there are actually 2 options sextuple or hexatruple

Given the fact I'm probably making many a monk roll over in their grave I'm going with Westbennetteren 20 - The Hex (hexatruple)

The Battle Rages

Fermentation started out fine and within a week it had gone from 1.113 to 1.024.  At this point (14 March 2016) I pitched the first starter of WLP099 (Super High Gravity Ale Yeast) along with 12oz of dextrose and some pure O2. My plan out of the Bertus methodology had been to pitch 12 oz of sugar morning and night till it slowed down then moving over to 6 oz additions till it reached the target range. The expectation is that the yeast consumes the sugar at a rate equal to what you are adding. I would check gravity nightly using cleaned and sanitized equipment so that I could add the samples back after measurement. 

It became clear pretty quickly that I was adding gravity points faster than the yeast was consuming them.  For the 5th addition I moved from 12oz to 6oz to see it that would help, it didn't.  During the first 5 days I'd added 54.2 oz of dextrose with the gravity increasing to 1.041. So while it was consuming the sugar, gravity would have been up to 1.051 if it hadn't been, it wasn't consuming it nearly fast enough.  At this point I stopped adding sugar and moved gravity checks to every couple of days.  My plan was to resume adding sugar once it reached 1.026.  

Alas it completely staled out at 1.030 for over 3 weeks.  At this point the accumulated OG was 1.140 and calculated alcohol only 17.1%.  Too low for me to stop yet not to mention at 1.030 was a little too sweet.

To kick it back into gear I ended up repitching twice - the first was another starter of WLP099 with an additional 12oz of sugar.  Unfortunately it didn't get very far and ended up stalling for another month at 1.035.

Not long after, during a meeting of The Fellowship of Tao Brewers at my place we sampled it and discussed my plight.  Afterwards I took in all the advice I was given and formulated a cure for my situation. 

The Cure

The cure consisted of pitching a liter starter made with 2 packages of Champagne yeast and several capsules of Servomyces. At pitching I also included another couple capsules and some fresh O2 for good measure. I took gravity a couple of days later and it had dropped to 1.026 ~ 18.7% abv.  With some solid fermentation progress I decided resume slowing feeding it another 12oz.  This took me to a accumulated OG of 1.152. 

Final Gravity

On June 11th, just a touch over 3 months since the brewday, it hit 1.020. After some back and forth texts with Shawn I set the fermentation chamber to 30°F to cold crash the yeast and stopped the fermentation! Using the advanced gravity formula 1.152 to 1.020 came out to be 20.7% abv. 

I lagered it for 2 months to help it clear before I forced carbbed it for bottling as I didn't have any confidence it would bottle condition.

The Conclusion 

The last change I made from Westbennetteren 12 was to change the color of the cap.  With Westbennetteren 12 being directly inspired by Westvleteren 12 I'd always used gold caps from Bottle Mark. For Westbennetteren 20 I optied to go with SNB "house colors" of red and black, a combo that worked within the existing Green Blue Gold Westvleteren cap color scheme.

Lessons for next time.

- Start with 6oz of sugar per feeding and ensure it gets consumed before adding more

- Keep the upper temp below 82 (one of the reasons it could have stalled is I might have cooked the yeast in the upper 80s) 

- Use Servomyces at second pitch

- Drive the FG lower to the 1.014 range, it was still going when I cold crashed it and I find it a little sweet (something which might mellow with age) 

- More hops to help counteract the sweetness. 

Now that it's all wrapped up it gets a couple months to even out before I share them (1 or 2 might have already slipped out).  If we do a QuadFest 2016 I debut a couple bottles then, if not I'll have a private celebration to release them

Cheers

- SNB

Recipe and Instagram Pictures Below the Break

#QuadFest2013

New Font for 2013 

Last December (of 2012) I wrote a recap of QuadFest 2012, a get-together tasting that my friends Daniel, Shawn and myself had a put together in order to try a series of quadruples that we had brewed at the start of that year.  We all felt that it was a very fun and successful event that we wanted to do again next year.  We also decided that we wanted to expand the field of participants by extending invitations to brewers whose beers we've enjoyed in the past and run it through our Fellowship of Tao Brewers Google group.    

We presented the idea of QuadFest 2 - the Quadening, along with a style presentation on brewing quadruples at the January meeting of Tao.  It was met with a lot of positive feedback and interest so I started a new discussion topic for QuadFest 2013 the next day.

The guidelines for new participants were very simple; brew a quad that quarter (sooner the better to give it time to age), bottle it in later summer, come to QuadFest 2013 and have a great time.  There was no set recipe to follow but I included the presentation on quads with some “tips” along with my recipe for Westbennetteren 12 b1.  I still think the recipe would be incredibly easy to convert to extract.  We used the thread all year as a place holder for recipe development, feedback, advice and planning.

The QuadFest 2013 Chalice!

As QuadFest 2013 approached I scrambled to finish some pretty slick participant shirts giving them free range over color and logo set (I had started over the summer but my new job zapped my time).  Daniel also had a set of chalices made with both the QuadFest 2013 logo and the Fellowship of Tao Brewers logo.  The chalices came out incredible taking the silly seriousness of QuadFest to the next level. Once more the Globe hosted us and ended up reserving front tables just to fit us all in as we ended up increase participation to 10 quads and expanded the number of people in attendance to 18 which for once included my wife which made me very happy.  We divided the quads into two flights; Classic (pils/2-row with candi syrup) and Belgian Dark Strong (inclusion of specially malts). Before each one Daniel presented a commercial example for calibration.

In the order presented
SNB Brewing - Westbennetteren 12 - 11.1% - Classic
Kitten Town Brewing - Fifteen Keys - 9.0% - Classic
Burlane Brewhaus - Red sQuadron - 9.5% - Classic
Dogface Brewing Co - Dark Bark 12 - 9.5% - Classic
Neice Brewing Co - Quadzilla II – 13.0% - Classic
Boyd Brewing - Father of Dead in the water – 10.0% - BDS
BreezeWay Brewing - Qua(d)regnon – 10.7% - BDS
Ølë Brewing – Fyrdübbel – 9.9% - BDS
Beadcurdturtle Brewing - BCT Quad 2013 – 10.3% - BDS
Edick Ale Works – Brandy Barrel Quad – 16.0% - BDS

The line up of 10 incredible beers

10 excellent quads from 10 excellent brewers, each one was nicely executed and delicious but still 10 quads… So where do QuadFests go from here?  I’m concerned that we might have outgrown the Globe for next year as we continue to expand. In addition sampling 10 quads is a tough job but I think with a more structured setup we can maybe handle about double that many next year.   

Next year I see QuadFest 2014 going through another expansion in its original format, but with a few slight changes: Early requirements for how much will be needed for QuadFest (3-4 x 750mls) for better planning come bottling. Set the date further in advance, possibly over the summer. Find a new venue to allow for a more focused event with better lighting, I’m hoping we can convince Brad over at Peace to both participate and host. QuadFest 2015 will happen but only time will tell what form it will take.

#QuadFest2014!

Cheers

-SNB

Westbennetteren 12 b2

I got a corded drill to help me mill

Over a year ago I set out to brew my first Belgium Quadrupel aka quad which I tongue-in-cheek called Westbennetteren 12. Not only did it become one of best beers I've brewed (in my opinion) but helped to kick off QuadFest along with Shawn and Daniel.  If you recall from the post we had such a good time we already started planning the 2013 event. To make the date I needed to get brewing!

According to my notes from QuadFest 2012 

I'm very pleased with how it came out.  Lots of nice dark stone fruit flavor.  Great character from the yeast. Slightly high level of carbonation but not as bad as I had feared.  Similar to the Westvleteren but not as dead on as I was hoping for. It was definitely a little darker and the taste was close but not right there. I had another bottle of it the next day and took some notes for a tasting analysis. Next year I'll follow some of Daniel's advice and simplify the grain bill even more going straight up plisner.

I decided after reviewing Daniel's recipe (which was actually pretty similar to mine) to keep the split between pale and plisner the same. Last year I think I ended up using US grain (despite my notes saying Bel) because it's special order at the shop as I found out when I tried to get Pale Malt (2 Row) Bel so I ended up using some of the 2 row I had on hand (I do love buying grain by the sack). 

A rainbow of flavor

For the sugar portion I again sought out syrup from Candi Syrup Inc. In order to lighten in up and modify the flavor slighty to try and get it more in line with Westvleteren 12 I changed the amount of D-180 from 2 lb to 1 lb and made up for it by adding a pound of D-45.  So my order to Candi Syrup Inc was pretty much one of every syrup they offered (I use Simplicity to prime) with the exception of Golden.

If I recall the logic behind my hop schedule from last year I might have grabbed the Northdown thinking that they were a sub for Goldings which I couldn't find.  This year I was able to find some Goldings so I made that switch.

I briefly toyed with the idea of using East Coast Yeast Trappist Ale (ECY13) but between price, availability and time I decided to stick with good old WLP530 Abbey Ale from White Lab.  To build the projected 336.3 billion yeast cells needed I made a 6 pint starter and tossed it on my stir plate a few days in advance. For some reason BeerSmith 2 stops calculating yeast cell build after 4 pints (which ended up at 465.9 billion) so I know I was nicely north of the required amount.

As before when it came to temperature I took to the mid 80s for the initial fermentation.  I actually got there a little fast (oh no) due to some issues with the balancing act as ask my fermentation cube to do for warming beers. I got it under control and will start lowing it as soon as it enters the below 1.020 range.  After that it will be a nice 6 months of bulking conditioning at lager temps.

Cheers

-SNB

#QuadFest2012

Official Logo

Way back in January 2012 I brewed a tribute to Westvleteren 12 which I tongue-in-cheek called Westbennetteren 12.  I mentioned at the time that my two brewbrothers-in-arms Shawn and Daniel also ended up brewing quads that same month.  Over the course of the next several months, as our quads bulk aged, we started to talk about getting together sometime that winter once they were conditioned for a little tasting. 

By the time I bottled my quad in July plans to hold a Quad night sometime in November/December were in full swing. It's funny to read that I'd planned on opening my first bottle then as I ended up imbibing on nearly half the batch by the time we got together.  Over the summer Daniel obtained 6 Westvleteren 12s for us to enjoy side by side with our quads. I figured if we were going to enjoy some Westy 12 we should enjoy it out of the proper glass so I grabbed 3 off of eBay.

By August it had officially started to be called Quad fest and by the end of that month I had designed a logo and t-shirts for the event.  I've often said that the best thing about homebrewing is you can take it as seriously or as sillily as you want, and the idea of making fest related t-shirts with our logos and beer names was too much fun to pass up. 

The Westvleteren Set

In October we settled on both a date (December 7th) and location (The Globe - Dine • Bar) for the event.  The Globe was an easy choice for something like the QuadFest.   In addition to a global focused menu, owner Michael Pauwels has always been extremely accommodating to opening homebrews to share.  As a bonus they also have one of Orange County's best selection of Belgian and Trappist beers available, which was key for QuadFest.

After months of anticipation we meet up at Shawn's place, in our official shirts, for some pre-game tasting so some of Shawn's latest triumphs of brewing.  Shawn's wife Sonja had volunteered to be our DD and given the amount of 10%+ beer on the schedule to be consumed we felt it was a great idea to carpool. We also brought a bunch of bottles to give each other in addition to the ones we planned on opening that night.

When we got to The Globe we ordered some of the delicious noel beers that Michael had on tap.  I personally really enjoyed the St. Bernardus Christmas Ale and felt it was a perfect warm up beer for the night. 

Then it was time to start the main event.  We decided to open up a couple of bottles of Westvleteren 12 to calibrate our palates and allow us a decent pour. I've had this beer a bunch of times over the last year, some bottles better than others.  Fortunately these bottles were spot on what I remembered. I'll get around to doing a full review of it later.

Classic Daniel

Next up came my Westbennetteren 12. I'm very pleased with how it came out.  Lots of nice dark stone fruit flavor.  Great character from the yeast. Slightly high level of carbonation but not as bad as I had feared.  Similar to the Westvleteren but not as dead on as I was hoping for. It was definitely a little darker and the taste was close but not right there. I had another bottle of it the next day and took some notes for a tasting analysis. Next year I'll follow some of Daniel's advice and simplify the grain bill even more going straight up plisner.

Next came Shawn's quad - The Blessed One.  While it wasn't exactly how I remember it tasted it was still very well done. I really loved the added details he put into the packaging of it.  I'm glad I have another bottle of this to enjoy later.

Daniel was really concerned with the carbonation levels he'd been experiencing with the bottles of Westy Southwest that he'd been opening for people.  He suspects that it's probably a cap issue as there is evidence of sediment on the bottle of the bottles that suggest bottle conditioning had occurred.  Fortunately the bottle he opened for us was wonderfully carbonated.  Again, it was just a fantastic quad that hit all the right flavor notes.

Me, Daniel, Sonja and Shawn

After that we opened a few other beers that Shawn and Daniel had brought.  Shawn had another version of his quad that he had soured which I'm really looking forward to trying again soon.  Daniel brought a preview bottle of Black Lingerie batch 2.  The rebrew of a beer I've gone on the record as saying it was one of the most complex beers I'd ever had. The taste was strikingly reminiscent of the first batch just much younger.  I definitely want to grab a couple of bottles when he releases it next year.

To sum it up QuadFest 2012 was a pretty big success.  All of us had a lot of fun and want to do it again.  We've already starting thinking about expanding it to even more brewers.  The big thing is that make it in time all participants have to have beers fermenting in the next quarter. For me I'll probably brew my next batch of it in mid January.

#QuadFest2013!

Cheers

-SNB