Short & Shoddy | Belgian Golden Strong Ale

Author: Jordan Folks

Over the last 20 years, I’ve had the opportunity to spend some time in Belgium on two occasions… very small windows of time, around 24 hours each time, certainly not enough to allow me to visit my favorite Belgian breweries, sadly. But I’ll finally have that opportunity later this year, and I cannot wait to experience drinking the various regional styles I’ve come to love including Belgian Golden Strong Ale.

Originally developed by Brouwerij Moortgat in the 1920s, the now iconic Duvel was a response to the growing popularity of both continental pale lagers and English pale ales. Following WWII, the style evolved to become paler, stronger, and more sparkling than it initially was, and other breweries began offering their own versions. The BJCP describes Belgian Golden Strong Ale as:

A very pale, highly attenuated, strong Belgian ale that is more fruity and hoppy than spicy. Complex and delicate, the dry finish, light body, and high carbonation accentuate the yeast and hop character. Sparkling carbonation and effervescent, forming a rocky white head.

My love of hoppy ales, traditional lagers, and hoppy lagers is well-known, but I also enjoy the characterful fermentation of classic Belgian ales. The beauty of Belgian Golden Strong Ale, in my opinion, lies in its simplicity – bready malt and noble-esque hop flavors tied together by the unique esters and phenols associated with Belgian yeast. This seemed an ideal style for a Short & Shoddy approach, so I designed a recipe and gave it a go!

| BREWING THE BEER |

This recipe was based on what I’ve learned about some of my favorite commercial Belgian Golden Strong Ales.

Short & Shoddy Belgian Golden Strong Ale

I started this brew day at 1:32 PM by collecting the full volume of water, which I adjusted to my desired mineral profile, before weighing out and milling the grain.

When the water was properly heated, I stirred in the grist then set the controller on my 240v Clawhammer Supply unit to maintain my desired fermentation temperature of 154°F/68°C.

At this point, I prepared the kettle hop additions.

Once the 30 minute mash rest was complete, I removed the grains, set the controller to heat the wort up, then integrated the corn sugar into the wort.

Following the brief 30 minute boil, I quickly chilled the wort with my JaDeD Brewing SS Coil Hydra IC before taking a refractometer reading showing it was at 1.064 OG, for a brewhouse efficiency of 69%.

After transferring the wort to a sanitized fermentation keg, I direct pitched a pouch of Imperial Yeast B45 Gnome into the 68°F/20°C wort. The time was 3:29 PM for a total brew day duration of 1 hour and 57 minutes.

I let the fermentation temperature naturally rise to 75°F/24°C over two weeks, at which point I took a hydrometer measurement showing FG had been reached.

Rather than kegging this beer, I opted to bottle condition and calculated the amount of priming sugar to achieve 3.2 volumes of CO2.

The filled bottles were placed in my basement and left for 8 weeks before I decided to move them cold storage in preparation for serving to tasters.

| RESULTS |

A total of 21 people of various levels of experience participated in this Short & Shoddy evaluation. Participants were informed of the specific beer style and provided the BJCP description prior to completing the survey. Tasters were then instructed to rate how hoppy, malty, and dry they perceived the beer to be on a 0-5 scale where a rating of 0 indicated “not at all” and 5 indicated “extremely.”

Tasters were provided a list of common hop, malt, and yeast characteristics then instructed to select from each the one they perceived as being most prominent in the beer.

Hop Characteristics

Malt Characteristics

Yeast Characteristics

Next, participants were asked to indicate whether or not they detected any off-flavors in the beer; those who did were provided a list of common off-flavors and instructed to select the one they perceived as being strongest. Out of the 21 participants, 8 reported perceiving off-flavors, with 3 each noting sour/acidic and solvent, 2 endorsing acetaldehyde, and 1 each perceiving alcoholic, astringent, diacetyl, grassy, light-struck, musty, oxidized, phenolic, and yeast flavors. It should be noted that a single outlier taster endorsed acetaldehyde, diacetyl, musty, oxidized, phenolic, solvent, and yeasty, whereas all but 2 of the remaining tasters endorsed just one off-flavor.

Tasters were then asked to rate how well the beer represented the intended style, based on the provided BJCP description, on a 0-5 scale where 0 meant “not at all” and 5 meant “exactly.”

Finally, tasters were asked to rate how much they enjoyed the beer on a 0-5 scale where 0 indicated not at all and 5 indicated extremely.

My Impressions: While I felt this beer had slightly lower carbonation, a touch more hop character, and was a bit hazier than expected, it really was a decent example of Belgian Golden Strong Ale that I rather enjoyed drinking.

| CONCLUSION |

When most in-the-know beer drinkers think of Belgian ales, their minds likely go to the classic Trappist ales, some of which have been around since the mid-19^th century. The relative new kid on the block is Belgian Golden Strong Ale, which really came to prominence following WWII as a refreshingly pale and effervescent alternative to popular pale lagers of the time.

As an ale that’s fermented with yeast known to tolerate warmer fermentation temperatures, Belgian Golden Strong Ale is a fairly forgiving style that isn’t necessarily viewed as difficult to brew. Overall, tasters of this Short & Shoddy version seemed to think it was a decent example of the style that was well-attenuated with characterful fermentation, cracker/bread crust malt flavor, and earthy and spicy hop notes. While several tasters felt they perceived off-flavors in this beer, the only ones that were endorsed by more than one taster were sour/acidic (3), solvent (3), and acetaldehyde (2).

I was pretty pleased with how this Belgian Golden Strong Ale turned out, though I would have preferred it be clearer with slightly less hop character and a touch more carbonation. Compared to the stylistic standard-bearer, Duvel, I did feel the modest 7.7% ABV of my Short & Shoddy version made it a bit more refreshing. Finally, I’m not sure Gnome is the best yeast for this particular style and will likely reach for a different strain in future batches, but all in all, I would never have guess any corners were cut in brewing this beer.

If you have thoughts about this Short & Shoddy brew, please feel free to share it in the comments section below!

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