I’ve only brewed a few Belgian style beers in my homebrew career.  Not because they’re particularly difficult.  It’s primarily because my tastes have changed dramatically since I first started drinking dubbel, tripel and quad Belgians.  As my pallet shifted away from sweeter, heavier, candied beer flavors, I couldn’t handle thick, strong, fruity Belgians.  And I couldn’t imaging going through 5 or more gallons of a such a beer.

With that, I’m not surprised it’s taken me this long to get around brewing one.  The other Belgian’s I’ve attempted have come out quite well.  I’ve brewed a Belgian IPA (not *really* Belgian, but inspired by them), a fantastic Belgian Blonde and have been happy with both of these.  One of the few Belgian style beers I can get into though is one of my original American favorites:  Avery The Reverend.

I couldn’t think of a better Belgian beer that would stand up to some aging in a Whiskey barrel, which is the real motivation behind this brew session.  This will be the third beer to go into the 5 gallon Balcones Corn Whiskey barrel with the hope of pulling out the last vestiges of oak and whiskey leaving it ready for sour beer aging!

Avery Brewing is top notch in just about every way, including being very friendly to the homebrew community.  As you might expect, they’ve helpfully posted a homebrew scale version of the recipe which I’ve used as the basis for Quad Damage.

Looking forward to seeing how the barrel treats this one.