Foam alert on beer number 8

[deansquishman]

Make sure you open this one with your glass ready and over the sink---This is a Belgian clone recipe based on the West Vletteren 12---The foam activates within seconds of removing the cap---Bryan

[Kyle H.]

I have lost a keyboard to foamy homebrew before, so thank you for the warning. My #8 was completely flat. I noticed it was only partially filled, that could definitely effect the carbonation. Could you post the recipe please? I'm curious what yeast you used and what temperature you fermented at.

[deansquishman]

West Vletteren 13

This is an extract clone recipe based and tweaked off of one I found on beertools.com
In the grain bag for an hour soak
4oz Dingmans special B malt
2oz Bries chocolate malt
18 oz cara munich #1 light malt
8oz of Belgium aromatic malt
7 0z of Belgium biscuit malt

Dried Malt extract 165 degrees for 30 minutes
1 LB of Briess CBW Golden light
6 Lb of Briess golden light
3 Lb of Briess Plsen Light
Then add
8 oz of light candi sugar
8 oz of dark candi sugar
1 cup of molasses
1 oz of Styrian Golding Hops
.5 oz of German Saphir 3.8% alpha hops
At the 45 minute mark
1 oz of German Hallertau 4.1 % alpha
1 TBLSP of Irish moss
6oz of maltodextrin

Off the heat at the one hour mark and fermented at 70 degrees for 9 days with Wyeast 3787 Trappist high gravity. I had to re-invent the airlock on this one as the initial fermentation blew the top off my fermentation bucket. In the secondary after that for 2 weeks and stored in the basement for a little over a year. This was my third try of making this recipe and I added the molasses after finally getting to try the real west vletteren and trying to deepen and darken the overall taste and appearance to get a closer taste. I was challenged to make it some years ago by a Belgian friend of mine who said it was considered to be the best beer in the world. I don't know about all that. I usually consider the best beer in the world to be whatever happens to be in my hand. I have found that the overall flavor peaks at around 8 months and is good for another 6 months after that. Cheers

[jadixon]

#8 was completely flat for me as well, and it was filled to the appropriate level. The flavor is quite good, though. I can definitely taste the molasses, and get some dark fruity notes.

[thejiggyfly]

My beer did not foam out of the bottle, but a very gentle pour yielded an enormous head that I decided to let settle for several minutes before topping off the glass. Very nice dried fruit and molasses flavors with the other usual goodness that I expected. My beer is a touch on the sweet side, but still very drinkable. I started eating a spicy meal about half way through my glass, and the beer only got better.

Excellent work, thank you.

[scott22]

Sweet, fruity, malty like a big Belgian should be. Interesting that others were flat as mine was quite well-carbed. Poured, put kids to bed, then returned to it in perfect form. #Yummy

[Scott H]

I got good carbonation in my bottle too. I didn't look up what kind of beer this was before drinking, and was pretty shocked on my first sip. It's funny how once my mind understood that it was about to taste a rich Belgian, suddenly the flavor became just right. I've only had Westvleteren 12 once before (I didn't even know there was a 13, or even a 1-11) and this one fits nicely in that style of beer. It is a little sweet, but it's supposed to be, right? The aroma is bursting with lots of heavy fruit like figs and dates, and the taste matches that perfectly. I'm glad that mine had good carbonation, otherwise this would have been a bit heavy for me... it turned out just right as is. Excellent beer, thanks for sharing one that took so much time to make and mature!

[ricky]

Just poured this (catching up from a weekend out of town). I, too, had plenty of carbonation and let it settle out a bit before drinking.

Good gravy, what's the ABV of this? 9%? It's downright tasty. I've never had a Westvleteren before.

[deansquishman]

So the reason I call this a West Vleteren 13 is because I upped the ABV to about %13---The original is called West Vletteren 12 and I added my own touch by upping the ABV a bit in hopes it would give it a longer stay for aging purposes and mellow into a greater flavor---so far so good---It was a very special moment to be able to do a side by side taste test with the original and my clone recipe and feel like I hit fairly close to the mark for what felt like a blind shot in the dark