Quad City Quad

Brewer's notes:

As a homebrewer, there were a few beers I would brew once a year. One of my most ambitious was an homage to one of my favorite beers, the Trappist-brewed Rochefort 10 - a Belgian Quad I dubbed "Ross Fort 10" (because I'm a sucker for puns). Ambitious because this style is massive on paper - alcohol, color, specialty malts, flavor - but delicate in execution. It's one where you carefully set the table with malts and a huge amount of candy sugar and then step back to let the yeast pig out. And they did on this beer - it's the first time fermentation was active enough that it triggered our CO2 monitor across the room!

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It's interesting that a style of such excess has such austere roots. Belgian Quadrupel follows the increasing strength pattern of Dubbels and Tripels - beers made by stoic Trappist monks that live only to worship and brew. I'm no monk, but that sounds like a pretty sweet gig. And in typical Belgian fashion, these beers are meant to be paired with food - beer aperitifs and digestifs so to speak. 

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This is one of my favorite styles and it just so happens to share the root name with our metro area so win-win in my book. I hope you like it enough to give me an excuse to brew it again!

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Cheers