In the course of your homebrewing experience, you get accustomed to brewing your favorite styles or the ones you have had success with. Often once you get good at brewing a certain type of beer, you keep brewing it.

Mike decided to break out of that rut and brew something he had never brewed before. We talk about it in this video.

Without knowing what this beer was, I was tasked with trying to figure it out. I picked up on the malt forward aroma and the nice amber color. It was a fairly clear beer with just a touch of haze.

After tasting it a bit, I couldn’t figure it out. It was very clean and not that hoppy. Before I made a total fool of myself, Mike revealed that the beer he brewed was a Belgian Pale Ale.

The Belgian Pale Ale Notes

Unlike other Belgian ales, the pale ale has only mellow fruit esters and a light spiciness. It finishes pretty dry and was a tasty beer that you could have 2 or 3 without having the effects of a stronger beer. There were no funky notes in this Belgian.

Mike followed the recipe from Jamil’s Brewing Classic Styles. He wanted to try something that he hadn’t brewed before to get back into the swing of home brewing for fun. Sometimes when you’re brewing for competition or brewing to perfect, the enjoyment can be lost a little bit. This brew session had low expectations and it helped to relax and just brew.

He went with Dingemans Pilser malt for the majority of his grain bill with some CaraMunich and a whole pound of Biscuit malt because he had it. He used Perle hops and White Labs WLP515 Antwerp Ale yeast for fermentation.

I was a big fan of this beer and certainly thought that it would be a good gateway for people you know who are Belgian haters. This beer was not what I think people expect when they think Belgian ales.

Hopefully Mike puts it into competition to see how it fares.

Brew on!