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Dubbels, Tripels & Quadruples

Phlicker

also know as @PhillyBeerGuy
Joined
Jan 9, 2007
Messages
884
I subscribe to most of the local breweries' newsletters. This month's Sly Fox offering had an article from Brewmaster Brian O'Reilly explaining exactly what the difference is with all those Belgian beers Justin hoards. I found it interesting enough to repost here:
"Brian_OReilly" said:
The most frequent questions I am asked when conducting a tasting and talking about our Belgian style beers Incubus and Ichor are "Why is it called tripel?" "Do you use triple the malt, or is it triple the alcohol?"

The origins of the styles Single, Dubbel and Tripel are rooted in classic partigyle brewing (running additional water through the mash to collect a second beer with the remaining sugar). This old technique was abandoned for the newer style in which brewers sparge, which means rinsing the sugar from the malt by spraying hot water over the top of the mash in the lauter tun (essentially a giant strainer). This modern method was pioneered by the Guinness brewery early on in their career and has won popularity because it is more efficient. I'm sure this helped the Guinness brewery gain an edge on its competitors.

Early brewing was often performed on a larger scale at European monasteries and it was common for the monks to use the same malt for three distinct mashes. They would mix the grist with water and make a first mash. This would then be drained off and boiled to produce the premium beer. It would receive three chalk x marks on the barrel (remember, paper labels were not in use yet). The same malt would then be mixed with more water and another beer would be produced for sale. It would receive two x marks on the barrel. The third mixture was used to produce a table beer for the monks. Water was not always safe to drink, so beer was preferred at every meal. Those x's were how these beers became known as Single, Dubbel and Tripel. Eventually they were recreated with the modern sparging technique.

Things have changed somewhat from those long-ago days, of course. After World War 2, Westmalle redesigned their Tripel to compete with the new lighter-colored lager beers. It was a hit and many of the Abbey style beers followed suit. And the La Trappe monastery eventually decided that Tripel was not enough, so they named their dark 10% abv beer a Quadruple.

We have released Ichor, our Quadruple, in bottles again this year after a one-year break. It is one of the most complex beers we brew and ages the most gracefully. This year we took the bold step of using a different yeast strain, and we are very happy with the results. It has attenuated the beer while leaving the malt and ester character intact. I am eager to brew Incubus Tripel with this strain later this month.

These big, complex beers take lots of time to ferment and they can be hard to fit into the brewing schedule, so we always hope to keep enough around the brewery to enjoy most of the year--but they almost always sell out.

Not that there's anything wrong with that.
 
I've actually read about the X's before and knew that's where they got their names initially, but had no clue as to how the styles have evolved since then. Very cool info.

We may have to talk about the Ichor...
 
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