Brew Day - Fire in the Abbey

Inspired by my girlfriend's love of Rauchbier, and my love of its nickname 'liquid bacon', we decided to brew a smoky twist on a Belgian Dubbel. As this was an extract batch, we weren't able to use a full grain-bill's worth of smoky rauch malt, but that would have been a bit much anyway.

Some steeped rauch malt was used, then a traditional Dubbel extract recipe - Saaz Hops, Belgian Pale Malt LME/DME, Wyeast's abbey yeast, and dark candi sugar.

The main thing we learned during brewing is that the rauch malt you can buy from Northern Brewer is, well, not smoky enough. It lends a nice twist to a simple Dubbel, but not so much that you can specifically call it out as smokiness...it feels more like an interesting specialty grain choice. 

At first tasting (2 weeks, FG at 1.018, down from 1.072), it looks and tastes like an unfiltered red-brown dubbel with a nice twist. Still well within classification, but just a little more interesting. Boozy warmth and caramel sweetness dominate, but should be muted given time in secondary, some carbonation, and refrigeration. This will likely go into corked 750's, as it will both age well and provide a nice set of holiday presents for my beer-ey friends/family.

As the first beer I've actually given a name, it had to be good. Thanks to my good friend Ryan for the name...Fire in the Abbey!