GABF bronze: New Belgium Abbey
Since the basics about the first- and third-place beers in Belgian-Style Abbey Ale at the 2005 Great American Beer Festival already appear in Brew Like a Monk it made sense to get the same information about Tripel de Ripple from Brugge Brasseries in Indianapolis, which won the silver medal.
So over the next three days (thus avoiding one really long post) we can examine the three medal winning beers, starting with Abbey Belgian Style Ale from New Belgium Brewing Co. in Colorado.
Abbey first captured gold at GABF in 1993, when there was no separate category for Belgian-style beers. The GABF created a Belgian category in 1994, and Abbey has since won nine more GABF medals, four of them gold.
Lest there be any doubt about the inspiration behind New Belgium Abbey, consider that co-founder Jeff Lebesch’s first three homebrewed batches were called Auberge de Poteaupré, which is the name of the inn Chimay operates about a quarter mile from the monastery. The recipe has changed since then as well as the name of the beer, but it is still fermented with yeast Lebesch harvested from a bottle of Chimay.
Until a few months before New Belgium opened in 1991 Lebesch expected Abbey, rather than Fat Tire, would be the brewery’s flagship beer.
Famed beer writer Michael Jackson has written about being driven around Colorado by Lebesch back in 1990: “The road climbs into the Rockies, and, at 11,990 feet, crosses the Continental Divide. My recollection was that we pulled over at this point and cracked a bottle of Chimay. While we had our celebratory drink, Jeff told me he was a nursing an idea. He wanted to establish in the United States a microbrewery specializing in Belgian-style ales. At the time, no one had done this. Nor had anyone even thought of it, as far as I can recall. I told him that it was a great idea, but that America was not yet ready for such a venture.”
After Jackson told a similar story at a gathering at New Belgium, Lebesch pointed out they had not celebrated with Chimay but one of his test batches for Abbey. When Jackson went home and checked his notes he “found the beer hoppier than Chimay.” Lebesch chuckled when the record showed he bittered that batch with American Willamette, Chinook, and Cascade hops.
Anyway, here are the specs:
New Belgium Abbey
Original Gravity: 1.063 (15.5 °P)
Alcohol by Volume: 7%
Apparent Degree of Attenuation: 83%
IBU: 24
Malts: Pale, Munich, caramel 80, chocolate, CaraPils
Hops: Target, Willamette, Liberty
Yeast: House abbey yeast
Primary Fermentation: Yeast pitched at 63 °F (17 °C), rises to 70 °F (21 °C), 7 days
Secondary Fermentation: 2 weeks at 30 °F (-1 °C)
Also Noteworthy: Refermentation in the bottle with second yeast
