AHS Belgian Trappist Ale / Quadrupel (18E) - MINI MASH Homebrew Ingredient Kit

Not bad. Bit sweet and caramel-ly, doesn't feel boozy. Biggest taste from it I could only describe as wine-y and maybe a bit fruity. Find it's hard to describe. Recommend double pitching or using a starter. This was my first big beer, and I single pitched with the WL trappist 500 and it wound up stalling at too high an FG. I was able to get it going again through adding 12 pts of sugar in (my OG had been a bit low) and adding a starter of T-58. After that, things kicked back off again and my FG wound up perfect. So, I won't really comment on OG/FG for this recipe as I was kinda all over the place in my attempt. After 6 months of aging, I have found it to be quite a bit more mellowed and I am enjoying it more than that when it was 1-4 months old.

My first home brewing attempt. I figured I just go for the big beers straight away. Everything went very smoothly, it took 2 days to start fermenting, maybe I didn't aerate the yeast enough. Final product finished out at 9.5% ABV. The recipe says wait 3 weeks for bottle conditioning, well I couldn't wait, and I just cracked my first one after 1 week. Very delicious, deep bronze in color, very complex flavor and aroma, that I imagine will be just getting better and better with age. Kind of reminds me of Unibroue 17.

OK... one last thing... I know Belgian candi sugar has essentially the same effect as the alcohol boost, but this one is at it's best at 9.5-10% ABV and not more. IMHO, if you're looking to go really big, the Belgian Strongs seem to hold their complexity better above 10%.

Brewed extract version. Double pitched liquid yeast. 2 weeks in primary, then mistakenly DRY Hopped for a week (thought it was the IPA). Luckily, it's such a big beer, there is no chinook hop aroma. 2 weeks in bottle it tasted too boozy, but I had to try it. I'm about 4 weeks in now and can sit down and actually enjoy it. I imagine it will only get better! Real sweet and smooth! I'd most likely do this one again!

Outstanding beer. By far the best beer I've made and one of the best I've drank. I've held tastings up against some of the top rated quads in the world. Overall this was rated as a close second only to Rochefort 10. It easily man-handled St. Bernardus 12 and Chimay Blue. Beware this will completely ruin any inferior quads. St. Arnold's DR13 is a freakin joke compared to this beer. This will be the first recipe that I will make again, which says a lot because I consider myself too adventurous to make the same thing twice. But I gotta have more.