La Montagne Noire - Belgian Dubbel

This beer was brewed using a recipe from Home Brew Mart here in San Diego; the only change I made from the original recipe was to use Columbus hops (14.2% AA) instead of the Northern Brewer hops (6.9% AA) that the recipe called for.

Here's the recipe for anyone who is curious:

• 9.5# Coopers LME (Light Malt Extract)
• 1# Belgian dark candi sugar
• 1# Caravienne malted barley
• 0.5# Special B malted barley
• 0.75 oz Columbus hops (60 mins, full boil duration)
• 1 oz Fuggles hops (last 5 mins of boil for flavor)

Fermented using White Labs Trappist Ale Yeast

OG: ~1.075, FG: 1.014 --> ABV: ~8%

The primary fermentation went for 2 weeks before being moved to a secondary fermentation on 1/23/2010, where the not-yet-finished beer was at a Specific Gravity (SG) of 1.016; after 2 weeks in the secondary, the SG dropped slightly to 1.014, signifying its readiness for bottling. The beer was bottled on 2/7/2010, and will be ready to drink as soon as 2/28/2010.

While brewing the Black Heart Imperial Stout yesterday, we took a 12 oz. bottle of the still-immature La Montagne Noire and decided to see how it was coming along. It. Was. Incredible. The use of Columbus hops in place of the Northern Brewer hops gives it a much more potent hop presence, likening the flavor to the Chimay Cinq Cents or even Green Flash's Le Freak, a Belgian-style trippel hopped like an imperial IPA. The only downside (and I mean only) was the fact that it was still flat: it had only been bottle-conditioning for 1 week and needs a minimum of 3 weeks to properly carbonate in the bottles.

2 more weeks and it will be good to go!