This brew was my third go round at making beer, but the first time I made my own recipe as opposed to buying the ingredient kit. It’s actually a fusion of four or so recipes I found online for Belgian strong golden ales. I picked out qualities I wanted my beer to have and came up with this:

Graduation Golden Ale (Partial Extract, 5 gal boil, og 1068)

Fermentables:

• 6lb Light LME
• 3lb Gold LME
• .7 lb Dingemans Pale
• .7lb Flaked Wheat
• .35 lb Dingemans Special B
• 1.5 lb Clear candi sugar

Boil Additions

• 2oz Sterling (60)
• 1.5 tsp Irish Moss (10)
• .3oz Cardamom (5)
• .3oz Ground Coriander (5)
• 1oz Saaz (1)

Yeast: Wyeast Belgian Strong Ale

Tasting notes: Pours a little darker than I was hoping for, more of an amber color, with a big, persistent off-white head. The cardamom comes through big in the aroma, definitely overpowering the saaz. I would say that’s a matter of less cardamom, not more hops. The taste is sweet, both malty and sugary. The spices are there too. There’s a nice bitterness on the backend. Plenty of alcohol in here as well… my amateur calculations put it at 7.5%.

If I were to do this again, I might lose the Special B. It made the beer too dark and I’m assuming it added complexity to a beer that was already complex enough.

Today I brewed a california common, which I’ll write up in a month or so.