I brewed a BPA with Belgian Abbey II (Wyeast #1762) to propagate yeast for a Rochefort 10 clone. Just tasted the beer after 1.5 weeks of fermentation and it tasted a little insipid. Not bad, no flaws that I noticed but lacking zip. I’m thinking about dryhopping it now. Any ideas on what I should do? Traditional or stylistically correct suggestions are preferred, but I’m open to all ideas.
I’d either go with a hop that will play off the plummy fruit esters (Caliente would be fantastic - used it recently in a hopped up dubbel using the Unibroue strain and I’m planning on brewing it again using 1762. Glacier would be nice as well.), or a spicy noble-type hop (Saaz, Sterling, Ultra).
I really like Amarillo’s orange character in a BPA.
Interesting ideas. I think I’ll keg it and taste it before dryhopping to see if I pick up more flavors that might guide the selection of dryhops.
If you have a spare keg, split the batch and try two different hops or one dry-hopped and one not.
I tend to stick to the same old hops over and over. For a Belgian I might dry hop with a goldings, saaz or maybe hallertau.
I use Sterling in my BPA. A number of Belgian breweries (including Orval) use EKG.