34A Commercial Specialty Beer
Orval-style Brett Pale
In fermenter OG1.061 IBU31Grain bill
| Gladfield Pilsner Malt | 4.45 kg | 79.4% |
| Gladfield Toffee Malt | 0.3 kg | 5.4% |
| Gladfield Supernova Malt | 0.25 kg | 4.5% |
| D45 Candi Syrup | 0.304 kg | 5.4% |
| White Sugar | 0.3 kg | 5.3% |
Adjuncts
| Whirlfloc | 1 tablet @ 15 min |
| Yeast Nutrient | 4 g |
| Zinc (crushed supplement tablet) | 1/2 tablet |
Hop schedule
| Hop | 60 min | 15 min | WP 80°C |
|---|---|---|---|
| Simcoe 15 g | 15g | · | · |
| Styrian Goldings 100 g | · | 40g | 60g |
Yeast
| LalBrew Abbaye | 2 sachets (22 g), rehydrated, pitched at 23°C |
Water additions
| Calcium Sulfate (CaSO₄·2H₂O) | 7 g |
| Calcium Chloride (CaCl₂·2H₂O) | 2 g |
| Lactic Acid (88%) | — |
About This Beer
A Belgian pale in the Orval mould: dry, earthy Styrian Goldings, a little light and toasted caramel, and candi syrup and white sugar to keep it lean. LalBrew Abbaye does the primary and stays in the background. The beer then conditions in a keg on a single Brett strain, White Labs WLP650 Brettanomyces bruxellensis, so that strain’s character can be tasted on its own. There is no ferulic acid rest, to keep the phenols the Brett has to work with to whatever the Abbaye makes by itself.
The Abbaye cake goes on to ferment a Belgian tripel.
Brew day
Thursday 5 November 2026. Mashed in at 11:00, mashed out at noon, and the boil was away at 12:35. Whirlfloc went in with the 15-minute Styrian Goldings. Yeast nutrient and half a crushed zinc tablet were dissolved in a cup of boiling wort from the kettle and went into the fermenter with the yeast.
Fermentation
Two sachets of Abbaye, rehydrated in warm water and brought to wort temperature with splashes of wort, were pitched at 23°C. The fermentation chamber then took it down to 18.5°C.
By eight the next morning there was a krausen and plenty of movement, and the gravity was already 5 points down. From there I raised the set point half a degree at a time to keep pace with the free-rise: 19°C that morning, 20°C on day two, 21°C on day three, and 22°C on the evening of day four to help the yeast clean up. The bulk of the work happened overnight between days one and two, 21 points in about 16 hours.
The gravity sat at 1.014 for more than a day, then read 1.012 after a gentle swirl of the fermenter and held there. On day five the primary looked finished, well ahead of the 2 weeks I had allowed, and it sat on the cake at 22°C to clean up.
Racked on day seven, Thursday 12 November, at 1.010 on the hydrometer, 84% apparent attenuation. A refractometer reading on the same sample confirms the 1.061 original gravity.
19.2 litres went by closed transfer into a PET keg holding a pouch of WLP650, with no priming sugar. The Brett carbonates it over the coming months. A 750 ml bottle went aside without Brett, to taste beside the keg as it develops.
Warm and flat at racking, it was very tasty and clean, with no diacetyl and a little spice from the yeast. The tripel went onto the cake the same day.