Pitch a healthy starter into 64°F, well-oxygenated wort. Ramp the temperature up by 2°F every 2 days until 76°F. Hold at 76°F until gravity is stable, about 7 to 10 more days. Spices and Flavoring If you choose to spice your Tripel, use each addition sparingly. About a half ounce to an ounce per 5 gallon batch is all it takes – and add them to the end of the boil. Classic, balanced, and perfectly brewed, St. Bernardus Tripel is bright golden with a puffy, dense head. All the fruity and spicy yeast notes you’d expect are intertwined with a light floral hoppiness. At 8% ABV, it’s svelte for a Tripel, with a quaffing drinkability.

Greg Doss, a microbiologist and brewer with Wyeast, recommends that “brewers should use 8–15 ppm of oxygen for healthy fermentations,” but with Belgian ales “12–15 ppm oxygen is recommended.” When brewing strong Belgian ales, two factors impede oxygen dissolving into the cool wort: temperature and specific gravity. Oxygen dissolves more readily at cooler temperatures. Since ales inherently are brewed at higher temperatures, the maximum possible dissolved oxygen is lower than that for lagers. Also, oxygen is less soluble in high gravity worts, making this another barrier for getting proper dissolved oxygen levels in a strong Belgian ale wort. Therefore, it is highly recommended that pure oxygen be used for oxygenating the cool wort for a strong Belgian ale. Doss goes on to recommend that “splashing and shaking the carboy, a traditional homebrew method, only reached 8 ppm of dissolved oxygen where 15 ppm can be reached with pure oxygen and a stone in 80 seconds.” Delicate flavor balance between bready malts, herbaceous hops, and spicy and estery yeast is the nucleus of a perfect Tripel. With high-strength beers, alcoholic bite is sometimes inevitable. A major key is to control the fermentation, coaxing desirable esters and phenols, while keeping fusel alcohols to a minimum. A great example of the Trappist beers , the alcohol punch is smoothed out with a well balanced hop and slight fruit after taste. A bit of history: One of the seven Trappist monasteries, Scourmont Abbey produces some of the most respected beers in the world, including the Chimay Blanche or White tripel.In 1956, the Westmalle brewery was modernised and the recipes of the Tripel were adapted, these are the Tripels we enjoy today. Nestled at the end of the narrowest street in Bruges, De Garre is a historic pub in one of the world’s great cities. Inside, you’ll find beer loving locals and tourists indulging in goblets of Tripel De Garre. House rules state that you’re only allowed three glasses in one sitting. At 11% ABV, that’s usually plenty – especially for eager tourists not used to Belgian beer.

The verdict: Chalk it up, that’s two from Huntsville, a city I’ve previously written an in-depth beer guide for, if you ever happen to be visiting. Oddly enough, every taster present on this day of tasting gave this beer the exact same score, although they all enjoyed slightly different aspects of it. Miracle Worker has an excellent malt profile with great complexity; funny, considering that the description makes it sound like solely pilsner malt. One would think there was at least a decent amount of wheat in there, as the beer conveys some pleasantly grainy, bready characteristics before segueing into subtle spice and floral/herbal hops. Regardless, it was enough for one taster to consider it “ON POINT.” It could be considered a good example of an “Americanized” Belgian tripel, considering that it still uses a Belgian yeast strain, but produces a much cleaner, brighter beer than the Belgian-made tripels tend to be, with an emphasis on drinkability rather than richness. Still, this was a refreshing tasting, despite the ABV. After all of those stouts, we needed a real palate cleanser in terms of flavor profiles, and the effervescence and Belgian yeast-driven flavors of these tripels really hit the spot nicely. Even tasters who didn’t previously count tripels among their favorite beer styles came away with a new appreciation for them. Tripel, like most Belgian styles, is heavily carbonated. Aim for 3.0 to 3.5 volumes of CO 2 at least. If bottling, you’ll need to use Belgian-style bottles rated for higher pressures.Tripels should be made with mostly Pilsner malt to give a golden yellow appearance. Beer clarity is not a priority for the style – many Tripels have a light, pleasant haze. How to brew Belgian Tripel Yeast has a starring role in Tripel beer. Light to moderate banana, bubblegum, and pear-like esters combined with a bit of phenolic spice is the target. Many Belgian strains will work well, such as: A bit of history: The family-owned Flemish brewery, Duvel Moortgat, has been around since 1871, and is best know for its pale ale, Duvel. Belgian Tripels can approach an alcohol content as high as 12% ABV. The best examples hide this through careful fermentation control. Most famous for their genre-defining Saison, Brasserie Dupont’s best beer is Avec Les Bons Voeux. Blurring the line between Saison and Tripel, this 9.5% ABV golden amber beer is both thirst quenching and layered with complexity. Spicy and fruity on the nose, a fine carbonation allows a bright white head to float on the sparkling body.

A bit of history: As you might have guessed, Avery Brewing Company has been around for 19 years, but this beer is brand new.Highly carbonated, Tripels are dangerously drinkable and refreshing despite their elevated alcohol content. A light and very smooth body carries notes of fresh bread and sweet malts. Spice from specially selected yeast blends delicately with pleasant European hoppiness. This beer is usually served from 33 cl bottles, exactly the contents of the accompanying chalice glass. The Tripel is also available in 75 cl bottles. It is remarkable that the beer in these larger bottles matures in a different way. The fruity aroma is a bit softer and riper and the beer gets a light vanilla touch. The verdict: Now we come to a couple of big surprises. Or maybe not so surprising after all—it turns out that this beer from Iron Hill has won no fewer than three medals at the Great American Beer Festival over the years, so we’re not the only ones to identify it as one of the best American tripels out there. Fairly light of body despite the 9.5% ABV, Bedotter features a crisp, grainy malt profile that is layered with yeast-derived notes of bubblegum and banana. It drinks almost like an inflated saison, with a bit of peppery/coriander spice and booze that is impressively well hidden. 10% ABV seems to be the magic number, as far as tripel goes—none of the beers in the top 15 surpassed that number. This one showcases nearly everything that we like in the best American versions of the style, which are almost all dangerously drinkable. Of course, the bitterness is also very important, which is around 38 to 40 EBU for Tripel,” he agreed. (EBU is a different bitterness measure, but is very close to IBU.) “Our hop recipe contains about six different hops, which are dosed as hop cones in our boiling vessel.” I wondered whether he used a consistent blend of hops or, since hops vary year to year, whether he used different varieties. “As we also have a very fruity beer, the hop balance is very important and not easy to achieve. The right balance between fruitiness, bitterness, and hoppy flavors needs a constant ‘follow up.’”