What to brew with Dark Belgian Candi Sugar?

[Thirsty Mallard]

Drew Beechum's sounds good...

Drew, if you happen to be reading... a few questions...
At the end, the notes say vanilla bean and cinammon stick, but no idication of when those should be used. Secondary?

Also, is the cinammon stick and vanilla bean really necessary?

[Thirsty Mallard]

I was looking through my copy of Beer Captured and came across a Chimay Grand Reserve (Blue) Clone! I think I'm going to brew that...

5 gallons
60 Minte boil
EST OG: 1.087
EST FG: 1.015
EST IBU: 27

Fermentables:
13.33 lb. Belgian 2-row
8 oz. Cara-Munich
6 oz. Belgian Aromatic
4 oz. Belgian Special B
2.5 oz. British Chocolate
1½ lb. Dark Belgian Candi Sugar - 60 min

Mash: Single Infusion at 149F for 90 minutes @ 1.25 qt./lb. of soft water.

Hops:
0.5 oz. Magnum (Yakima) - 15.4% AA - 60 Min.
0.5 oz. Hallertau Hersbrucker - 15 min.
0.5 oz. Hallertau Hersbrucker - 2 min.

Other:
1/8 tsp. Grains of Paradise - 15 min.
1/8 tsp. Grains of Paradise - 2 min.

Yeast:
White Labs WLP500 Trappist Ale

Fermentation:
Primary 65-68F for 7 days, rack to secondary.
Secondary for 6 weeks.

Bottling:
3 days before bottling, prime beer with fresh yeast.
Bottling day, use 1/2 cup of corn sugar and 1/3 cup clear Belgian candi sugar boiled with 2 cups of water.
Let beer age for at least 6 weeks in bottle.

[Pseudolus.]

Drew Beechum's sounds good...

Drew, if you happen to be reading... a few questions...
At the end, the notes say vanilla bean and cinammon stick, but no idication of when those should be used. Secondary?

Also, is the cinammon stick and vanilla bean really necessary?

I'm not Drew, but here's what I did:

I brewed, fermented, and secondaried the beer without spices.

Then I took an old White Labs vial, popped a cinamon stick and a vanilla bean (split) into it, and then filled it up with bourbon. Let that sit for a week or two so the bourbon could extract all the spicy goodness.

I then added half of that bourbon into the secondary, let it sit for a few days to homogenize ( ), and then tasted it. I decided I wanted a bit more spice character than that, so I went ahead and added the rest of the spiced bourbon. Let it sit, tasted - liked it.

Then I bottled.

The base beer by itself was very nice. (Which is why I was particularly careful not to ruin such a nice beer by junking it up with too much spice.) The subtle-but-present spices make a nice beer into, well, I'm not in a position to call it a Great Beer, but it is the best beer I've brewed.