Belgian beers are idiosyncratic to their provenance. While the desired dissemination of Belgian styles is global, they are perhaps the most esoteric to produce. It’s exciting to see our antipodean efforts translate to local, fresh versions of the styles. And because we want to do everything at least once, we figured it was time for a WT version of a Belgian Blonde.
Of the Belgo beers, Blondes are arguably the most accessible. 6-8%, sweet, fruity flavours driven by yeast fermentation and importantly, dry for drinkability. How can it be sweet and dry? Well I think the answer lies in the consequences of the most important Belgian ingredient: the yeast.
Belgian origin yeast are among the most distinctive in the world. I would argue that it would be impossible to make something emerging towards an authentic Belgo beer without proper Belgo yeast. And what I love about Blondes in particular is that they call for a balance of phenolics and esters.
For our Blonde we got a big old pitch of Ardennes yeast from @mogwaiculture. Ardennes is perfect as it produces phenolics and esters in balance, has a high flocculation capacity and potentially produces more glycerol; another compound that aides mouthfeel without sugar or dextrins.
To drive dryness and drinkability we also plopped in some Candi sugar. This highly fermentable sugar drys out the body and improves drinkability.
Undoubtedly inauthentic but at least we tried, hard.
Experimental
