Recipes
Beer-style: Belgian Strong and Abbey Ales
New Belgium Brewing Company: Abbey clone
Abbey is one of the first beers brewed and released by New Belgium back in 1991. Since then it has been one of the brewery’s most award-winning beers. This Belgian-style dubbel is designed to represent the monastic beers of Belgium.
Iechyd Da Brewing Company: Walloon Belgian Dark Strong clone
This Belgian dark strong ale is brewed with dark candi syrup and dark malts to create a beautiful dark amber ale with sweet, toffee-like aromas.
Black Diamond Brewing Company: Winter Ale clone
Black Diamond Winter Ale is a classic Belgian dubbel. Perfect for the winter season, its deep garnet color accentuates its dark fruity undertones of raisins, dates, plums, and cherries.
Pike Brewing Co.’s Tandem Ale clone
“I’d recommend about 6 or 7 coriander seeds be crushed and added for the last minute of boil. Although this may seem like a miniscule amount, a touch of coriander is all that is desired.”
—Drew Cluley, head brewer
St. Bernardus Abt 12 60th Anniversary Edition clone
This recipe is for their 60th anniversary edition, which is closer to their original recipe. Although probably not authentic, the debittered black malt will give you a much smoother product. It’s reported that St. Bernardus uses a different bottling strain than the fermentation strain, so we recommend using Westmalle’s yeast.
Allagash Brewing Company: Curieux clone
“Curieux is a fairly simple recipe starting with our Tripel, which is then aged in bourbon barrels and blended with another batch of fresh Tripel.” – Michael O’Connor, Allagash Brewing Company
Allagash Brewing Co.’s Tripel clone
Allagash Tripel is a complex and delicious version of the Belgian classic. According to the brewery, the beer features herbal notes and passion fruit, with hints of banana and honey.
BJ’s Grand Cru clone
According to BJ’s Restaurant and Brewery their Grand Cru was designed to be a work of art. “Setting out to brew a best-in-class golden ale, we used a special Belgian yeast strain in the brewing process. Belgian yeast strains produce a lot of flavors during fermentation – fruity flavor compounds called esters or spicy flavor compounds called phenols. The Belgian yeast we brew with produces a good amount of both esters and phenols. In addition to this special Belgian yeast strain, we also spice the beer with bitter orange peel and coriander to contribute even more fruit and spice notes.”
Brewery Ommegang: Abbey Ale clone
“The crystal and roasted malts merge well together to yield soft caramel and raisin notes. These flavors will evolve gracefully as the beer ages.” — Randy Thiel, Brewer.
Brouwerij Bosteels: DueS clone
Are you ready to try brewing a Bière de Champagne, also known as a Bière Brut? If so, here is a recipe for one of the shining starts in this rare and unique category of beers.
Chimay Cinq Cents clone
Deep copper to light brown, fruity and rich, there just isn’t a better beer in the world than this Belgian Trappist ale. This is essentially an all-grain recipe, although there are some sugar adjuncts for higher alcohol content. The yeast is essential. I carefully saved the dregs from an entire six-pack of the White Label and a 22-oz. bottle of the Cinq Cents (which Michael Jackson says are the same thing) and built up to a half-gallon starter. Golden syrup is an English sweetener (increasingly easy to find here; check your gourmet bakery shop if your homebrew supplier isn’t carrying it yet), which is essentially invert sugar.
Dubbel Halo Ale
Horst Dornbusch lays out a recipe with fermentation tips for those looking to brew up a Belgian Dubbel.
