My most recent visit to my favorite Trappist Breweries (Chimay et Orval) was August 2024. My first visit to both of these was fifteen years earlier in November of 2009 — see my Trappist Thanksgiving Post(s).
Although much remains the same, there have been many changes. Fortunately, they both still make the same great beers.
At first, when I drove down into the valley near Florenville and saw the Abbaye d’Orval, I thought, this is my favorite brewery location in Belgium. However, as I’ve grown older and after a few trips, I’ve found that I favor the Abbaye Notre Dame de Scourmont. I find that it is less busy with tourists now. If you book far enough ahead, you can stay in the Auberge de Poteaupre. Then walk through the forest to get to the Abbey. It has always been very welcoming and serene.
An added bonus is the Michelin-starred restaurant just around the corner! Ferme des 4 Saisons is wonderful — the food delicious, the service impeccable, and the beer — well. Chimay! Yay!
Now, make no mistake. I love the locale and the beer. But Orval is still my favorite beer, hands down. And a visit to the Valley of Gold is always in order. If you can swing a tour of the brewery, the tour is awesome. The grounds are spectacular — they have a wonderful brewery museum and another art exhibit in the cellar of the monastery. Wow. Maybe it is my favorite after all. Hmmm … so hard to choose.
I guess the best thing for folks to do is to visit both and decide for themselves.
I’m up to 79 places on the Growler List visits … What a concerted effort! But I am determined to complete as much of the list as I can — all in the name of good beer drinking!
I was able to visit t’Brugs Beertje, number 112 on the list, during a recent trip to Belgium. With around 300 different Belgian beers, it’s a pretty good place to find a winner–the Orval in this picture was a 2013 version … tasty (and was made the last time I visited Orval, which made it even more special)! This place is definitely worthy of a spot on the list.
But, really, if you are going to visit Belgium, I would recommend the other spots on this list first: 1) Orval, 2) Halve Maan Brewery, 3) Cantillon … maybe even the Grand Place in Brussels. Don’t get me wrong, this is a great bar … but that’s what it is. There are other bars in Bruges that we found to be as intriguing and well stocked with beer:
This place, down a narrow alley, is well worth the visit!
Very cool venue, excellent beers, and great presentation!
There are so many good places with great beer in Bruges. Even sitting on the patio of our hotel, we enjoyed a refreshing beverage and checked out the views.
We didn’t even make it to Halve Maan this trip …
I loved #112 … the bar is quite eclectic, and the beer selection was phenomenal. What a treat to visit Bruges, and this place in particular. If you have a chance to visit here, these places are well worth the visit. Make sure you spend some time walking around the city and taking in the sights — this will make the great beer taste that much better! 🙂
So far, 2025 has started out pretty well in the Ziggy Brau! Although not really beer-related, we had a great Burns Supper evening in January to kick off the year. Our featured Scotch was the Ardbeg “Heavy Vapours.” I had to substitute since I couldn’t find it and went with the Ardbeg “An Oa.” Delicious.
As I had mentioned in a previous post, I’m pretty well setup with my Brew Equipment (Brewtools), Recipe Tracking Software (Brewfather), and 20 Standard recipes and a good brewing process.
This last year, I adjusted my 20 Standard Recipes and have decided to add an additional 10 Flex Recipes. I realized my Standard Recipes were all Strong Beers (mostly). My 10 Flex Recipes are lower ABV (<= 5%) and will really challenge my skill in producing a flavorful beer with fewer ingredients. First, here is the list of my Standard Recipes:
Belgian Lambic-style Ale (Name: Hefenebel [Translation – Yeast Galaxy]).
Belgian-style Blond (Name: Keoni Blond).
Belgian-style IPA (Name: St Hommel).
Belgian-style IPA (Name: St Hommelganger). The Dark Version of #3.
Orval Clone (Name: Liquid Valor)
Monastic-style Dubbel (Name: Dubbel Trubbel).
Monastic-style Tripel (Name: Die Drie Draken)
Belgian/Monastic-style Dark Strong Ale (Name: Drakengeist)
I owe a few more updates on the blog — I have a couple of beer trips on which I’m way overdue in posting. I also owe an update on my Gueuze Process (I think a successful one!). I will be stepping through each of my Standard Recipes as an informative post.
Today I brewed the M3. This is the sixth iteration of this one. My friend, Mike, and I brewed the original of this one back in 2018. This was on my old brew set up. His recipe was out of this world. We really enjoyed that beer … my only problem was I couldn’t find the recipe the next time I wanted to brew it! Haha.
I didn’t get around to brewing it in 2019 (I was still enjoying all the bottles from the previous batch). I used Maker’s Mark Bourbon in this first batch and all following batches. In that first one I used “small french oak” blocks I was given from a local supplier. I soaked the chips (but didn’t char them).
In 2020 and 2021, I crafted a recipe and bounced it off Mike. He said it sounded good–I used my French Oak Blocks again in 2020 but I made a mistake and bought pre-soaked (bourbon) chips for 2021. I found that I had the wrong kind of oxidation in that batch. They both were so big that they blew out the fermenter each time! I brewed these two batches on my old system. I think the 2021 batch was the last one before the new system arrived!
In 2022, I brewed it for the first time on the new system. This time, I made my own “oak staves.” I bought some American Oak, cut them to length, and then charred them on my grill. I soaked them in Maker’s Mark and then dropped them in to the secondary fermentation. I found that 3 days was just about the right length of time for that. I used those staves in 2023 and plan on using them again on this batch.
In 2022, I put 20 pounds of grain in my new brew system to make the Imperial Stout–it was too much! I was lucky to have some DME to use in the boil to boost up my gravity to make it an imperial stout. Last year and this year, I used around 18 pounds of grain (still too much) and added 3 pounds of Traditional Dark DME.
This year’s batch definitely has the viscosity appropriate for an Imperial Stout. The gravity was up around 1.095 … pretty happy all the way around.
About 3 weeks, and the sixth iteration of the Merkin will be available for all to enjoy! 🙂
As stated in a previous post, I started brewing a lambic-style beer in December 2021. In December 2022, my friend gave me a bag of Italian Plums from the tree in his backyard … I used a couple of gallons of my wild-fermenting lambic-style beer as a base and, bottled in March 2023, La Prugna was born! Another 6 months later (October 2024), and it was ready to drink. Here it is March 2024 and I’m down to two bottles remaining. However, no need to worry that I will run out … I’ve bottled the next batch! This batch is from the December 2022 wild-fermenting lambic-style beer. Unfortunately my friend’s plum tree didn’t produce in 2023–again, no worries–I was able to obtain some locally grown plums again!
Here’s a couple of photos of the “initial pitch” of plums … It’s sitting in my “Lambic Cellar (under the stairwell).” It looks pretty plain with some initial fermentation activity — this was from 13 Dec 2023.
In the background of the photos you can see my “wood staves” to be added to my lambic (my simulated cask staves …)
I pulled the fermenter out of my Lambic Cellar a couple of weeks ago planning on bottling it, but it kept fermenting. I felt the gravity could go a touch lower, so I left it sitting in my “brewery.”
You can see the plums are pretty “squishy” looking — I know I got full sugar conversion on them, even without cutting them up or pulping them. I didn’t pit them either — my friend thought it would help with a “tannic” characteristic.
I bottled it on 16 March 24. Ended up with close to 1.75 gallons (about 18 33cl bottles). Really like the color and the flavor of this Fruit Lambic — the brett is evident but well supported by the plum. Now to wait 90 days or so for it to carbonate …
One of the things I’ve tried to do in recent years is to recapture and harvest yeast from the beers I’ve been brewing. Even one pack of dried yeast is $6 bucks! If you go with some of the specialty yeasts (liquid/what not) you are looking at $12 to $15 a package. With 9 brewing sessions this year, that would add up to about $100. I’ve worked really hard on capturing and storing the yeasts I use the most often. Here’s a picture of those in my beer fridge:
You’ll see I have one vial of “Brettanomyces Bruxellensis” from White Labs. The rest of the vials are all recaptures. I’ve got WLP 550, WLP 565, Hornindal Kveik, a few misc Orval (Brett Bs). I still have some dry yeasts packets as well.
Knock on wood, so far I’ve had great luck by re-pitching a starter (2 cups water, 1/2 cup DME) about 2 to 3 days ahead of brew day. I usually check my yeast health and do some random cell counting.
If it’s a big brew, I’ll do a bigger starter. I have a couple of 1 liter, a 2 liter, and a 5 liter flask if I need them! I had built a laminar flow hood, but I “gifted” it to a local brewery while I was living in Tucson (hopefully they are still using it). I would like to do some yeast culturing, so I’m probably going to have to build a new one — I’d like to build a smaller version — I’ll just have to figure out the noise reduction/venting issues in my “brewery.”
One of my goals over the next couple of years is to try and capture a local yeast (from one of the many fruit orchards near here) and see if I can make a passable beer from all British Columbia ingredients. The Gambrinus Malt house is about an hour north of me. I can get locally grown hops — I just need the yeast! I’ll keep my fingers crossed that I can capture some and it doesn’t smell like dirty socks. Stay tuned for more of this adventure!
The photo above is a current snapshot of the Ziggy Brau beers I have in my beer refrigerator. Several years ago, Volkswagen had a commercial talking about Fahrvergnügen. It basically meant “Driving Pleasure.” Here’s a link to one of the commercials. In a fit of creativity, I came up with this slogan for my beer fridge (and made it my Ziggy Brau slogan): “Biervergnügen in der Flasche.” It’s German for “Beer pleasure in the bottle.” To keep that “Biervergnügen” going, I’ve developed a brewing schedule to keep a plethora of different beers available in the fridge.
As I posted earlier, I standardized my brew setup and have now developed a pretty consistent brew routine/process. I’m pretty settled now on a Library of 20 Beers. There are three below that are not highlighted — I haven’t developed those recipes yet. The rest are in the library, and as you can see above, several are in the fridge!
This list covers all the styles I like to drink:
Belgian Lambic-style Ale (Name: Hefenebel [Translation – Yeast Galaxy]). This is a continuing experiment — I just brewed the third version of it and will be making a Gueuze out of it at the end of this year! Oh, I also make a Fruited-Lambic (Name: La Prugna) with locally-grown plums. So (a) Lambic, (b) Gueuze, and (c) Fruit Lambic.
Belgian-style Blond (Name: Keoni Blond). I brewed the first iteration of this beer on the day my grandson was born! April 11, 2021. Version 2 and 3 were right around his birthday as well. I love this beer — great flavor/color.
Belgian-style IPA (Name: St Hommel). This is my attempt to clone the Hommelbier from Leroy Breweries in Belgium. I’m taking a trip there this year so I want to gather some notes on the flavor to use in adjusting my recipe. Would like to narrow it down and nail this one. I like the current version, but I’m just not convinced the hops are right yet.
Orval Clone (Name:Valle Dorado) — my favorite beer — my clone is so close in flavor–I’m just off on color now–next iteration should dial it in!
Monastic-style Dubbel (Name: Dubbel Trubbel). My Trappist-style Dubbel (Westmalle / Chimay clone). This one is very nice, but I haven’t made it in a couple of years. Looking at later this year (early winter, possibly)
Monastic-style Tripel (Name: Die Drie Draken) My last Tripel was a little under-carbonated — I put it in the cold storage too soon. Flavor was nice. Gonna be a do-over–maybe 2025.
Belgian/Monastic Dark Strong Ale (Name: Drakengeist) Also known as a Belgian Quad. This beer turned out very well (and has aged very well). I still have a few–need to work it back into the schedule …
Belgian-style Pale Ale (Name: Merlin’s Magical Elixir). I made two of these right in a row. The first one not so great, but the second one was nice. It is coming up again on the radar!
Baltic Porter (Name: Polly Porter). I brewed this beer last year on my second grand-child’s birthday! Yum. I will be brewing it again this year. What I like about this one is that I can use the left over ingredients from my Barrel-aged Imperial Stout.
Bourbon-oaked Imperial Stout (Name: Morganna’s Mystical Merkin) This beer has been great–I’ll do a whole post on this one later (Brewing again in March 2024). I char my own oak staves and soak them in Maker’s Mark Bourbon. This will be the fifth iteration — it just keeps getting better. I have a bottle from each of the last 3 years (I think). Time for a vertical tasting!
American Brown Ale (Name: Big Brown Beer) I made this one and it ended up having Brett in it. Still tasted good, but want a do over as well So far (fingers crossed), this is the only cross-contaminated beer I’ve had in my brewery. I should have called it “Big Brown Brett Beer.” haha.
(Imperial) American-style IPA (Name: Wedding IPA). I made this beer in 2016 to celebrate our wedding and have made it four times since. Sometimes it is just big enough for a Imperial IPA and other times my mash efficiency keeps it in the IPA category.
German-style Pilsner (Name: OK Premium Pils). This is a mid-winter beer for me to make — so it can lager into the early spring summer. This year I made the Eis-bock instead. OK stands for Okanagan (where I live), but also “OK” in the sense of OK. I found it funny using OK and Premium together.
German-style Weizen Doppelbock/Eis-bock (Name: Frosty Billy). See previous post on this one. I really liked the flavor of this as a Weizen Doppelbock — but making the Eis-bock is fun, too. I might alternate them (every third year with the Pils)
German-style Dunkel Weizen (Name: TBD). This is a beer in initial design phase. I have a smoked-pecan weizen recipe I really like … I might make it again as part of this recipe.
Irish-style Red Ale (Name: Auburn Sunset). This is a collaboration I did with Kelowna Brewing Company — think Kilkenny or Smithwicks. It turned out nice — we are still working on this one to dial in the recipe.
English-style Strong Bitter (Name: The Finger). Another collaboration with Kelowna Brewing Company. This one has turned out great — it’s been brewed a few times now. Ask me about the name over a beer. haha.
Finnish-style Sahti (Name: Surreal Sahti). My experimental Finnish beer — turned out very nice–want to reduce the amount of liquid, bump up the rye and add a little more juniper next year. This will be a yearly brew (around December). Will make less than 3 gallons because it needs to be consumed fresh!
Flanders-style Red Ale (Name: TBD). Work in progress.
English-style Barley Wine (Name:TBD). Work in progress.
My schedule so far this year (2024) is quite full! Brewing approximately nine different beers.
2 Jan – Surreal Sahti
21 Jan – Frosty Billy
11 Mar – Morganna’s Mystical Merkin
11 Apr – Keoni Blond
12/13 Apr – Attend Penticton Fest of Ale
9 May – Polly Porter
23/24 May – Brew St Hommel with Sierra Nevada Brewing
My favorite German Beer is the Schneider-Weisse Aventinus (Weizen Doppelbock). It is a BIG beer and has an awesome flavor. You will see several posts here on my blog about this beer. I’ve enjoyed a tour of the brewery, attended the Aventinus Festival in Kelheim, and generally have determined that it is definitely an A++ beer.
A Weizen Bock is a strong wheat ale. Weizen in German means “Wheat.” The term Bock is more nebulous but really, in this sense, means “Strong Ale.” Another meaning for Bock is “He Goat.” That’s why on most traditional bock beers, you will find the image of a Goat (or Ram). Here are a couple of examples:
However, on Weizen Bocks, the label usually references some historical figure or religious saint … in Schneider’s instance, it is Aventinus, a (local to Kelheim, Germany) historical figure. Aventinus is actually called a Doppelbock — meaning an extremely strong (over 8% ABV) beer.
From Schneider’s Aventinus beer comes the Aventinus “Eis-bock.” An “Eis-bock” is made from “freeze distillation” — a fermenting “wort” (in this instance the Aventinus beer) is frozen and the ice is removed. In this instance, to get to 12% for Aventinus Eis-bock, they remove approximately 31.6% of the water content.
If you’ve had a Weizen beer, you recognize that the flavors/aromas are typically a sweet malt character supported with Banana esters and Clove phenols. These are yeast derived characters that support the sweet malt character and make Weizens some of the tastiest of beers (in my opinion). Making it even stronger requires great balance and skill — something Schneider demonstrates time and again. Both of these beers are the best examples (see here) and that’s why I wanted to try and clone them.
To get the big beer I wanted in my current brew setup, I had to use some dry malt extract with my other grains. I used what I called a “fake decoction” process (a step mash really) and an open fermentation to try and match the ester/phenol character in the Weizen doppelbock. I think I hit it pretty well–ending up with an 8.7% beer. Then, I tried the freeze distillation — my target was to remove about 27.5% of the ice to get to that 12% ABV level. I was not patient enough and only removed about 8% of the ice … ending up with a 9.5% ABV “Eis-bock.”
Because I didn’t have any patron saint or historical figure in mind to name my beer after, I took the traditional meaning of Bock and a winter theme and came up with “Frosty Billy.” Here are the two beers compared side-by-side.
The one on the left is my Eis-Bock — the one on the right is the Aventinus. The middle, single glass is the Aventinus … so clear! Mine is the one on the right. Both have really good flavor. I can tell the Aventinus is aged — it has a great oxidized character of plums/raisins/molasses. So good! The flavor/alcohol are balanced nicely. The flavors are there in mine — since it’s only been in the bottle for a week or so it needs time. In another couple of months, it should really be entering its prime!
I really enjoyed making this beer … I’m hoping it will be my annual February Beer. We’ll see.
My last (really) belated post … New Zealand Beers! haha. I know, I know … it’s been a couple of years since I was there, but I have some nice photos to spark my memory. I flew into Auckland as my beginning location … and promptly visited The Shakespeare.
Although it was an excellent start to a pretty good beer journey, the focus of this trip was biking, birding, hiking, and major sight seeing, so the beer was added in where it fit and when we were close to civilization … otherwise it was kind of like this — fast, furious, and out of focus! lol
Not a lot of opportunities on the North Island — we were only there for a week — mostly around the National Park at Tongariro … but the South Island … wow. Of course, the first week (or so) on the South Island was a lot of small planes, boating, hiking, and birding.
By the time we made it to Wanaka, we had a chance to catch our breath and enjoy a good beer. Fortunately, this place had several options — we went with Speight’s Ale House — great patio with a view over the lake and an excellent selection of beers!
The IPA, made with New Zealand hops, was very satisfying. I was able to purchase a few more beers to enjoy during our stay and transition travels to Hokitika.
Of course, a Hazy.
A crisp Pils.
I did get to try this North Island brew!
This was my first intro to Moa … not my last from them.
Celebrating the local birdlife!
Mixed Bag of some Nice beers!
When we left Wanaka, we cruised across the lower Southern Alps and ended up on the West Coast … we staged out of the town of Hokitika — great place! We saw a couple of glaciers, put in some miles on the West Coast Wilderness Trail … and toured a brewery!
Monteith’s is a brewery in Greymouth … the original craft brewery (I think) in New Zealand — now owned by the Heineken Group. The tour was fun and informative and the beers were pretty good — worth a stop when in Greymouth … refreshing!
Monteith’s Brewery Tour!
As we continued our trip back over the Southern Alps, I was able to sample a variety of other beverages when we arrived in Hanmer Springs.
These MOA beers were good!
Everyone needs one Big Size!
Not a beer … but an interesting drink …
This was a Rauchbier — very nice!
Another Not Beer. lol.
Quite a selection of dark beers along the way.
We enjoyed these different brews around the interior of the South Island … as we made our way back to Christchurch to start our Alps to Ocean bike tour, we stopped at a small brewery near Geraldine — Valley Brewing Company.
They had some pretty tasty beers and excellent food … talk about your out of the way spot!
Finally, during our Alps to Ocean six day bike ride, I had a chance to sample a variety of beers (again) …
the MOA beers ended up being my favorite.
The scenery was stunning!
Our final stop was in Oamaru … at Scott’s Brewing Company. The location was beautiful — the beers were good … they matched their beers with their pizzas. Very nice patio.
Stating the obvious — the location made many of the beers special … and not necessarily the other way around! There were four or five outstanding beers … the rest were good to very good — but I wouldn’t complain. Solid beer trip!
This entry will catch me up on my Growler List visits … I’ve now made it to 78 out of 125. Whew. What a concerted effort! But I am determined to complete as much of the list as I can — all in the name of good beer drinking!
#60 on the Growler List is the Sierra Nevada Brewing Company in Chico, CA. I visited this place a few days after visiting Deschutes in Bend, OR in 2019. I loved both places — the difference in the vibe (to me) is that Deschutes is employee-owned (similar to New Belgium) and Sierra Nevada is family-owned … although the people loved working there (Sierra Nevada), you still felt like it was just their job–but what a great job! lol. Fantastic people and awesome beer.
They have a selection of different tours — we took the in-depth one … they showed you around everywhere, answered all my esoteric questions, and generally had a great time doing it. If you can make it to Chico, it’s well worth the stop and visit. Highly recommend!
Beer Mentor 