The bloke who posted the recipe for my Chimay Blue clone reckons it gets better after about six months. Well, I reckon it is pretty good after a couple of months in the bottle, and so do one or two of my Belgiaphile friends. It's not quite the same as the original (that could be because I managed to not follow his recipe exactly), but it certainly stands up very well as a Belgian-style dark ale.
And I gotta tell you, I love this style of beer. Particularly when you can make it yourself for a tiny fraction of what it would cost to buy it off the Trappists themselves - or at least through the modern distribution systems that sit between them and me.
So, next brew into the fermentation facility was a Belgian-style Golden Ale of my own design fermented with a starter of Wyeast 1388 made on my stirplate. After just three short weeks in primary, it's still going. I wish it would hurry up so my next brew - currently in cube - can start feeding a pack of Wyeast 3787...
