Belgian Pale Malt or Continental Pilsner

Ingredients
1

I am brewing a Belgian Brown Ale…

Which one would you choose and why?

Recipe as follows:

10lbs. pale malt or pilsner malt???
0.5 lb. dark caramel malt (90° Lovibond)
0.5 lb. Special B malt
0.25 lb. kilncoffee
4 AAU Styrian Goldings hops (1.33 oz. at 3% alpha acid)
4 AAU Saaz hops (1 oz. at 4% alpha acid)
White Labs WLP530

Thanks

2

I brew a Belgian brown ale that is US pale malt-based. For my purposes I don’t want the grainy pilsner character and I want a touch more sweetness. My base malt is a mix of vienna, munich and pale though (with special B and black patent). I am trying to create a brown ale that marries some of the Belgian character without turning it into a dubbel or similar beer and I think a pilsner base leans too closely to feeling like a dubbel.

However, if you are more interested in something that is approaching a dubbel then maybe you want to use pilsner instead.

The Belgian pale malt is darker and closer to maris otter than domestic pale malt. It’s usually in the 3.5-4 range. Something to keep in mind.

3

Westvleteren uses a mixture in all 3 of their beers and many of the Abbey beers mix pilsner and pale as well. It seems more prevalent in the Dark Strongs to mix the two.

Many of the non-Dark Strong Trappist beers use pilsner exclusively. La Trappe on the other hand brews most of their beers with pale malt as the base.

Dealer’s choice I guess.

4

Interesting, I didn’t know that. I guess I have to go back to BLAM.

Thanks man!

5

I vote belgian pale ale malt as it has a fuller body and flavor than the pilsner malt and sounds more suitable for a belgian brown ale.  As stated above it may help to separate it from a traditional dubbel, plus you can get away with a 60 minute boil if need be due to to the darker kilning.