Belgian Hoppy Blonde

About This Beer

A Duvel-inspired Belgian hoppy blonde, pushed into Belgian IPA territory. The starting point was a set of brewing notes shared by Dimitry Staelens of Adept Brewery in Belgium — a very dry, effervescent, fruity pale gold base built on pilsner malt and a healthy dose of sugar. From there the hopping was dialled well past Duvel’s restraint and into BJCP 21B Belgian IPA: assertive Simcoe and Styrian Goldings (Celeia) in the whirlpool and again as a dry hop, with Czech Saaz holding down a soft Belgian bittering foundation.

The grist is deliberately lean and pale: Weyermann Bohemian Pilsner as the base, a slug of flaked rice and dextrose to dry it right out, and small amounts of wheat and Munich for head retention and a whisper of malt depth. Around 12% of the fermentables come from dextrose, mid of Dimitry’s 10–15% range, chosen for Duvel-like dryness. The target was a clean, gold, highly carbonated canvas that lets the hops and Belgian yeast lead.

The Grain Bill

Weyermann Bohemian Pilsner carries the beer at about 66% of the grist — a clean, faintly honeyed Continental pilsner base, the local-store sibling to the premium floor-malted version. Dextrose at 12% and flaked rice at 10% are there to lighten the body and push the finish bone dry, exactly the texture a Belgian hoppy blonde needs to stay drinkable at 8%. Gladfield Wheat Malt (7%) lends head retention, and a touch of Gladfield Munich Malt (5%) adds a subtle malt backbone without darkening the beer beyond pale gold.

The hop bill sits firmly in Belgian IPA territory: 150 g of whirlpool hops (Simcoe and Celeia) plus 100 g of dry hop, with Czech Saaz at 60 minutes for a soft bittering spine. Saaz stands in for Dimitry’s Polish Lublin, which is hard to source in New Zealand — it is the closest landrace relative. Styrian Goldings is genetically a Fuggle-derived Slovenian hop rather than an English Goldings; Celeia is the modern commercial cultivar, earthy and lemony.

Brew Day

Brewed on 30 May 2026 in Lower Hutt, Wellington, on a 23-litre all-grain setup. The recipe was followed closely. A step mash ran 63°C for 45 minutes — a long beta rest to drive fermentability and the dryness this style depends on — then 72°C for 20 minutes, and a mash-out at 78°C for 10 minutes. Mash volume was around 20 litres, with a fly sparge of roughly 12 litres at 78°C. Lower Hutt tap water is very soft, so it was built up with gypsum, calcium chloride and Epsom salt toward a sulfate-forward (~2:1 SO₄:Cl) profile for hop lift, and lactic acid to bring the mash to pH 5.2.

The boil ran 60 minutes. Czech Saaz (60 g) went in at the start for bittering, with dextrose, Whirlfloc and yeast nutrient added in the last 10 minutes. The one meaningful change from the recipe came at the whirlpool: it was extended to 40 minutes (from 30) and dropped to 75°C (from 80°C) to favour aroma and flavour over isomerised bitterness. Simcoe (85 g), Celeia (65 g) and a half zinc tablet went into the stand. The hop aroma coming off the whirlpool was fantastic — a big wave of pine, citrus and passionfruit from the Simcoe with the earthy-lemon Celeia sitting underneath. That alone made the lower, longer stand feel like the right call.

OG came in at 1.062, just under the 1.065 target, with around 22 litres into the fermenter.

Fermentation

The recipe’s preferred strain is Fermentis SafBrew BE-256, but it was unavailable at brew time, so a single liquid pack of Froth Tech Wildling FTW1 was pitched on top at 18.5°C into a FermZilla 30L. Wildling is a New Zealand Belgian-character strain already proven on a 2024 Belgian blonde, where it attenuated around 94% to a final gravity of 1.004. On that basis this batch should finish around 1.004–1.006 and land near 8.0% ABV.

One thing to expect from the look of it is a white krausen rather than the tan head most ale strains throw — normal for Wildling, not a fault. The plan is to hold 18.5°C until the yeast gets going, then let it free-rise a little to keep the esters fruity — nudging the fridge target up to track the actual temperature, but with a hard ceiling kept under 23°C so it never runs away. It holds near that peak until gravity is stable. The dry hop (Simcoe 55 g plus Celeia 45 g) goes in once gravity is falling but the yeast is still active enough to clean up any diacetyl from hop creep — roughly day six from pitch, watching the gravity rather than the calendar.

Fermentation Progress

Going in, the one worry was a slow start: the 2024 Wildling batch had taken a full 48 hours to show any sign of life, however that pack was about three months past its best-before date, where this one was fresh, best-before September 2026.

This one showed straight away. Pitched at 9 pm on brew night, the first specks of yeast and bubbles were forming on the surface within about twelve hours, and it has built momentum at every reading since.

The temperature plan is deliberately hands-off: hold the floor early so a cold night can’t stall the yeast before it gets going, then let it free-rise on its own ester-friendly path toward a ceiling kept under 23°C. Rather than leaving the fridge target parked at 18.5°C, it gets nudged up to track the actual rise — set to 19°C on the morning of 1 June, with the heater floor now sitting near 18.5°C on the fridge’s heating hysteresis. The reason is momentum: if the target stayed low while the wort climbed to 20°C and then spiked, cooling would drag it all the way back to 18.5°C and throw away every degree of free rise built up. Tracking the target up alongside the natural rise means any cooling event only pulls back to the last step, not back to the start — and from there the heater can recover it quickly. The ideal shape is a cool slow start, a steady climb to near the ceiling, then a hold near the top to finish and clean up, with as little interference as possible.

Through days 3–5 the ferment settled into a slow, steady grind: gravity stepping down a few points a day (1.046 → 1.036 → 1.030 → 1.025 → 1.021 → 1.018) while the target was walked up to 21.5°C to keep the yeast working without ever crossing the 23°C ceiling. The overnight slow-down on 2 June looked briefly worrying but turned out to be just the post-peak taper — lots of visible movement in the beer, only a gentle change in gravity.

On the evening of day 5 (4 June), with gravity at the planned 1.018 trigger and the yeast still clearly active, the dry hop went in: Simcoe 55 g plus Celeia 45 g, watched on gravity rather than the calendar exactly as intended. At the same time the temperature target was stepped up to 22°C and the spunding valve was closed 1–2 turns to start trapping CO₂ — by the next morning it had built to around 10 psi, on track to carry a good chunk of the Duvel-style carbonation naturally and to push hop oils into solution under pressure. Gravity kept falling through day 6 (1.015 → 1.012) with the pressure holding near 10 psi.

From there it ground cleanly to the finish: 1.009, 1.007, 1.006, 1.005 and then 1.004, terminal by around day 10 and stable for three days after. That is 1.004 from an OG of 1.062, about 94% apparent attenuation and 7.6% ABV — the exact attenuation the 2024 Wildling batch had shown, landing the prediction. With the valve held shut all the way to terminal, the spunding pressure climbed to a peak of around 20 psi, banking a real chunk of the target carbonation before the keg ever sees gas.

Kegging

With gravity steady at 1.004 the cold crash began on the evening of 12 June (22°C down to 21°C overnight), then stepped through 13 June — 17°C, 13°C and finally 9°C — before crashing on down to 3.5°C and holding there a day or two to drop bright. At that temperature the spunding valve was still reading around 10 psi, which at 3.5°C is already a good chunk of the target carbonation banked naturally — roughly 2.6 volumes — so the beer came off the fermenter well on its way to carbonated rather than flat.

It went into the keg on 15 June, a day later than planned. The earlier idea of splitting across keg and heavy Belgian bottles was dropped in favour of a single 19-litre keg, with the last ~600 mL run off into a PET for an early sample. Total yield was around 20 litres, or a touch under — the rest lost to trub, dry hop and yeast.

The transfer was the usual closed approach: keg and beer lines pre-purged and sanitised, the keg held slightly below the fermenter pressure. The siphon starts the moment the beer line is connected to the dip-tube side of the pressure fermenter and the out post of the keg — the one with the dip tube reaching the bottom — so the keg fills from the bottom up. Before the two vessels can equalise and stall the flow, the gas line is bridged between the spare posts on keg and fermenter to hold the pressure differential, and the keg sits on a scale to track the fill volume. From there the partly-carbonated beer was topped up with forced CO₂ to finish toward the Duvel-style ~3.5 volumes.

First Taste

The first taste off the PET sample is very promising. The yeast expression is really nice — clearly Belgian in character, almost leaning toward a saison. The Celeia hop flavour is prominent and lovely, and the Simcoe aroma and flavour work well alongside the yeast and Celeia. The body is good, with a great foam/head, a nice dry finish and a well-balanced bitterness. There is some alcohol aroma and flavour present at this young stage, which should settle and integrate with conditioning time. The beer will be left to carbonate up and condition in the keg before a fuller verdict.