Belgian Pale Ale

[SiHoltye]

Chimaybe Baby - Belgian Pale Ale

Ingredients
25L brewlength, 90min SI mash, 60min boil
Amount Item Type % or IBU
4.50 kg Pale Malt, Maris Otter (5.9 EBC) Grain 90.73 %
0.23 kg Caramunich Malt (110.3 EBC) Grain 4.64 %
0.23 kg Munich Malt - 10L (19.7 EBC) Grain 4.64 %
40.00 gm Goldings, East Kent [5.60 %] (60 min) Hops 19.5 IBU
20.00 gm Saaz [4.00 %] (15 min) Hops 3.8 IBU
1 Pkgs Trappist Ale (White Labs #WLP500) Yeast-Ale

Beer Profile

Est Original Gravity: 1.050 SG
Est Final Gravity: 1.012 SG
Estimated Alcohol by Vol: 4.96 %
Bitterness: 23.4 IBU
Est Color: 13.8 EBC

Does this look OK? I'm planning to pitch some slurry from this to ferment a Chimay Blue clone after.

[steve_flack]

Looks fine to me - I'd maybe up the Munich a bit but it's fine as is.

[SiHoltye]

Thanks,

I just ordered the Hallertauer Hersbrucker from H&G for the Chimay Blue to come. £4.69 for 100g and that's 2%AA . Still the brew will taste great and will last me ages. Confidence is key. I might be worried if I was brewing barrels of the stuff, but I'm not.

[steve_flack]

The Hallertau alpha's are pretty rotten - I have some at 4.2% and that's usable. There are Hallertau replacements you could use for bittering and save the low alpha stuff for aroma. Magnum is an obvious high-alpha choice as it's very clean but they're rarer than rocking horse crap at the mo. Liberty is not bad as a Hallertau replacement and has a 4-5% alpha and could do both aroma and bittering.

I'm pretty certain that Chimay aren't using 2% alpha hops for bittering (they probably use extract anyway).