This big brown beer is a spiced Belgian-style Double ale. Brewed from a base of specialty malts including wheat malt, raw white wheat, aromatic and caramel malts, and oats and hopped to 22 BU's with Styrian Goldings and Czech Saaz. Sixty pounds of honey and 110 pounds of Belgian Candi sugar were added to the brew kettle to raise the original gravity of the beer while maintaining lightness of body. Near the end of boil, the wort was flavored with a blend of Wit-style spices; bitter and sweet orange peel, corriander, and grains of paradise. Fermented with a special yeast strain at elevated temperatures providing an additional layer of fruity flavors. Estery/phenolic aromas are joined by a sudden tartness in flavor, followed by an initial im pression of sweetness that soon dissolves into sublte spice and hop flavors and fininshing out in a subdued dryness.
