Beer Forum

I already have all of my grains ready for a Sunday brew, which is basically Jamil's Belgian Pale on top of Trappist yeast...
I want to experiment and make a very highly hopped Belgian IPA sort of thing and I'm sure I'm not the first person here to do this, so what hops will work well? Here's the recipe I've got set aside for Sunday:

6.75# Pilsener
.75# Cara Munich
.25# Biscuit
3# Pilsen Extract

WLP 500 Trappist Ale

I have quite a variety of hops at home to choose from: Cascade, Centennial, Northern Brewer, Warrior (from like 2005 i think), Pacific Gem, Hallertauer, Willamette, Goldings, Amarillo and Zeus

Any suggestions as to how much and what types of hops I should use would be great

Try This:

1 oz Centenial
1 oz Amarillo
.5 oz Hallertauer

To stay truer to "Belgian IPA" such as LaChouff, from that collection of hops I'd bitter it with Northern Brewer and then add a bunch of Hallertaur at 15, 10, 5 and 0. Try to go for a 1:1 BU:GU ratio (ie, if your OG is 1.065, aim for 65 IBU's. If 1.080, go for 80 IBUs, etc.).

HTH-

I just finished a bottle of Chouffe Houblon IPA, and on the bottle it says they use Amarillo, Tomahawk and Saaz Hops.
Sorry but I cannot help with the hop schedule.

The LaChouff Trippel IPA I had a couple months ago (Thanks, Code!) tasted great, but the hop profile didn't taste anything like the Amarillo and Columbus/Tomahawk/Zeus that I am used to getting around here up in WA. To me, it tasted much more like an Imperial Pils hop wise but with a more mellow bitterness and a great Belgian yeast character. I don't remember reading the hop bill on that bottle.

Thanks for the help!

The Belgian Blonde that I've got in the carboy was still fermenting too strong to be bottled on Sunday, so I put off brewing the Belgian IPA until next weekend. I actually was able to swill down a pint of Russian River's belgian ipa on Saturday for research purposes, it had a very bright hop candy flavor (honestly smelled almost exactly like smarties/sweet tarts), nothing too pungent or dank but it certainly had some west coast varieties in there. I'm thinking about bittering with Northern Brewer, Using Amarillo around 30 and then some Hallertauer for finishing... and I'm also considering dry hopping with Amarillo in a 1 gallon fermenter on the side for an experiment (I love the 1 gallon experiments of the same wort I've got in the 5 gallon)... I'll post up here again in a couple months about how it turned out

Bdawg, Here is a photo of the back of the Chouffe Houblon Bottle,

Great pic - Thx.