Great Belgian Experiment Conclusion

[newguy]

The Great Belgian Experiment came to a conclusion yesterday (see this post for details). There were about 40 people in attendance and we were quite amazed at the differences amongst the 10 yeasts.

Here is the data & tasting notes.

Wyeast 1214 Belgian Abbey: FG 1.017, 78.2% apparent attenuation. Aroma: strong banana, clove, low pepper. Flavour: banana, low clove, peppery finish. Low fruit (berries), moderate residual sweetness.

Wyeast 1388 Belgian Strong: FG 1.019, 75.6% apparent attenuation. Aroma: Fruity, berries, pear. Flavour: fruity - berries, low chocolate finish. Crisp and quite dry finish.

Wyeast 1762 Belgian Abbey II: FG 1.020, 74.3% apparent attenuation. Aroma: low purple grape, low pepper. Flavour: chocolate - soft and muted, low banana, low grape. Low sweet malt. Members in attendance commented that this yeast produces fabulous Scotch Ales and Russian Imperial Stouts. This yeast turned out to be the crowd's favourite.

Wyeast 3278 Belgian Lambic Blend: FG 1.020, 74.3% apparent attenuation. Aroma: horseblanket, sour, sharp. Flavour: horsey, barnyard, low sourness. Everyone was quite surprised that this beer had developed such a strong horseblanket/barnyard character in such a short time.

Wyeast 3463 Forbidden Fruit: FG 1.019, 75.6% apparent attenuation. Aroma: berries, apples, peach, low alcohol, clove, pepper. Flavour: fruit and chocolate. Finished quite dry but not sharp - lingering soft sweetness and chocolate.

Wyeast 3522 Belgian Ardennes: FG 1.022, 71.8% apparent attenuation. Aroma: clove, fruit, very low banana. Sweet malt. Flavour: clove, low banana, mixed fruit. Finishes slightly sweet yet attenuated. Long clovey finish.

Wyeast 3724 Belgian Saison: FG 1.021, 73.1% apparent attenuation. Aroma: phenolic - band aid (strong), clove, low orange. Strawberry. Flavour: sharp, bandaid, orange, low acidity. Vanilla/cream.

Wyeast 3787 Trappist High Gravity: FG 1.024, 69.2% apparent attenuation. Aroma: raspberry, cloves, low malt. Flavour: raspberry with banana to start, finishes very chocolatey. Soft sweetness. Finishes with a lingering bitter chocolate/banana.

Wyeast 3942 Belgian Wheat: FG 1.022, 71.8% apparent attenuation. Aroma: Cloves, citrus. Flavour: malt quite strong but a low citrus note especially in finish. Clove at end.

Wyeast 3944 Belgian Witbier: FG 1.016, 79.5% apparent attenuation. Aroma: banana, low clove. Flavour: sharp malt with a citric edge. Cloves, low banana. This yeast seemed to me to be a good alternative to 3068 for weizens.

 

[Quintrex]

Awesome work guys!!!

I'd love to see something similar with a belgian pale ale, it'd be a real blank canvas for the belgian yeasts to ummm... colour.
But very interesting results.

Thanks Again
Q

 

[Stuster]

Great info there, newguy. Sounds like you made some good beers there. Such a range of flavours. Interesting that the 1762 was the popular favourite. Was that your favourite too? Which others produced a good dubbel? Which ones would you not recommend for this style?

I'd guess you used up all the beer with the club tastings, but it would have been fascinating to repeat the taste tests after 3-6 months and see how things changed. Anyway, thanks for posting the results. :super:

 

[newguy]

Great info there, newguy. Sounds like you made some good beers there. Such a range of flavours. Interesting that the 1762 was the popular favourite. Was that your favourite too? Which others produced a good dubbel? Which ones would you not recommend for this style?

I'd guess you used up all the beer with the club tastings, but it would have been fascinating to repeat the taste tests after 3-6 months and see how things changed. Anyway, thanks for posting the results. :super:

The 1762 was indeed my favourite too. The yeasts that seemed to work the best with that recipe were 1214, 1388, 1762, 3463 and 3787. I'm not a fan of lambics in general, so that's why I'm not recommending 3278, but it seemed to work with this beer. 3522 had a long clove aftertaste that was borderline unpleasant, and 3724 is what it is. It's supposed to produce phenols, and this one didn't disappoint. Only problem is, I'm not a fan of saison. The 3942 and 3944 are fantastic yeasts, but not for this recipe. If you want to produce a wheat beer or wit, they're perfect choices as they produced a rather sharp taste that you'd expect in a wheat or wit.

I was thinking of setting aside a bottle of each to taste again in the fall when our meetings start again, but to be honest I really didn't feel like carting them out to the car and back home. That and I was pretty damn tipsy by the end of the night. One of our members took a bunch of pictures of the entire week (our competition ran this past week too) and he posted them here. I ended up being crowned 'brewer of the year' which surprised the living hell out of me. But I'll take it.

 

[blackbock]

Fascinating stuff newguy!

Not many of us will ever have the opportunity to directly compare more than a couple of different yeasts side-by-side. As Stuster suggests, keeping some samples of the lambic brew for tasting in a year or so would be interesting tasting. I would think the F.G would be quite different by then!

 

[chris.peile]

Awesome stuff - very impressive.

I bottled a brew using the 1762 about a month ago, and got very similar tastes/smells/flavours to what you identified...

Now here's a newbie question for you... to what extent does the wort change the flavours/smells generated by the yeast? I.e. if both a bitter, and a stout were brewed using the same yeast how does it change the impact of the yeast - or doesn't it?!? :unsure:

 

[newguy]

Awesome stuff - very impressive.

I bottled a brew using the 1762 about a month ago, and got very similar tastes/smells/flavours to what you identified...

Now here's a newbie question for you... to what extent does the wort change the flavours/smells generated by the yeast? I.e. if both a bitter, and a stout were brewed using the same yeast how does it change the impact of the yeast - or doesn't it?!? :unsure:

The wort definitely has an impact, but the point of the experiment was to remove wort from the list of variables. To be more definitive, the test should really be repeated another 3 times: once with a Belgian Pale Ale recipe, another with a Tripel, and lastly with a wheat beer of some sort. With these 3 'classes' of beer the true colours of every yeast will be allowed to shine. Time (and energy) permitting, we just may do another 3 experiments. But right now, I don't have the time or energy to do another one. When I forget how big of a pain in the ass bottling all 10 of these things was, maybe I'll volunteer to do another.