Cedar Rapids Brewing Society

I e-mailed Boulevard last week for assistance in creating a grist for this awesome Belgian Dark Strong. It's the same beer they use for the Bourbon Barrel Quad.

In my e-mail this morning I received a reply from one of the brewers I'm calling "Awesome Boulevard Brewer Dude" (not actual name). He was very forthcoming with grist composition, sugar additions, yeast pitching rates, fermentation temp etc.

I'm pretty sure I nailed the hops part. Per their website this beer has an OG of 1.090 (21.5 plato) FG of 1.009 (2.6 Plato). Spice additions he was a bit vague on but I'm going with a small addition of Grains of Paradise. I thought I'd share my e-mail and his reply, as he didn't say not to.



-----Original Message-----
From: "Awesome Boulevard Brewer dude"
Sent: Friday, July 20, 2012 6:33 AM
To: Prochaska, Steven
Subject: 6th glass

Hi Steven,

I'm "Awesome Boulevard Brewer dude", one of the brewers, I'll help you get 6th glass started.

First malt bill.
At blvd, we tend to not use to much of the fancy malts that have arisen in recent history, we keep it simple. 6th glass is:

85% pale
6% cara 300
5% munich
4% wheat malt

Shoot for a starting boil gravity of around 16-ish deg Plato. Add another 5 plato with sugar

28% dextrose
20% brown
12% dark
40% dark candi syrup

Use what ever else sugar you want, the more types, the better for complexity, we have used molasses in the past for that reason. A very small amount of some classical Belgian quad spices that I'm not telling you because you get to pick them, it's only one spice actually.

Fermentation wise shoot for a lot of yeast, 20 million cells per mil minimum. Aerate a lot one time at pitching, a regular Belgian quad yeast fermented low and slow, 65-69 ish deg.

And a challenge for you. most true Belgian quads are actually made with close to no speciality malts, almost always straight pils malt. They get near half the gravity and all the color with sugar of different colors. More varieties then we use, and more of it.


Sent from my iPhone

Hello Boulevard!

I’m a home brewer and craft beer lover in Cedar Rapids, IA and am absolutely in love with the Smokestack series of beers that you guys are putting out.

I’m looking to see if you can provide to me some assistance regarding The Sixth Glass. I’m trying to determine a proper grist ratio for making a home brew attempt at this one and getting hung up on the various sugar additions of Candi, brown sugar and dextrose.

Right now I’m looking at the below recipe grist ratio.

50% Pale
15% Munich
10% Carafa 1
5% White wheat malt
10% Dark Candy sugar
5% Dark brown sugar
5% Dextrose

60 min Perle for 17 IBU
30 min Tradition for 5 IBU

Ferment with White Labs 545 at about 70F.

Any feedback would be helpful. Keep up the good work!

Steven Prochaska

The Beersmith file is attached for those who are interested.

Cool Beans! Quad spice choice decision?

I'm at a toss up between Coriander or Grains of Paradise. I'm going to do some taste evaluations prior to making a final decision.

Steven P wrote:I'm at a toss up between Coriander or Grains of Paradise. I'm going to do some taste evaluations prior to making a final decision.

Grains will give you "pepper", coriander will give a"citrus tart". I have found they work well together with a light bodied beer. 6th is definately not light bodied. Interested in the outcome.

Bottled yesterday. This one went from 1.083 OG to 1.004 FG. One hydrometer read it at 1.000 (which I promptly dropped and broke) and another at 1.004. Since I broke the one that read 1.000 I'm going with 1.004 for an ABV of 10.5%. Tastes nice too. There's a bit of roast from the Carafa that I didn't really expect. I hope some bottle conditioning takes care of it.

I should be bringing some to the November meeting.

Update. Too much Carafa in the recipe for sure. If I do this again I'll be dialing back to about 2-3 oz. The 35 SRM noted on the Boulevard website is entirely too dark. The commercial beer is closer to 22-25 SRM and pours a reddish Mahogany color.

My version is inky black. It has the requisite dark fruit (good) character but also a roast profile (not so good) not found in the commercial version. I wonder if the dark malt plays differently with the water profile down Kansas City way.

This beer is more of a cross between a Quad and a RIS.