Enkel

The Trappists are a branch of the Cistercian order of Roman Catholic monks.  In addition to their vows of poverty, silence, etc, the members of each Monastery must work to support the Abbey.  This means producing a commodity to sell in the outside world.  Some Trappist Monasteries are famous for their complex, stinky, delicious cheese, while others are famous for their beer.

Trappist breweries, once found all over the European countryside, now number just seven:  six in Belgium and one in the Netherlands. When the American Craft Beer Revolution began and beer lovers found ourselves looking across the globe for evidence that beer could be more than fizzy yellow swill, names like Chimay, Corsendonk, and Orval put Belgium on the beer map.

Even today, for many people, the term Belgian Beer means Trappist styles and flavor profiles.  And why not?  Imagine a life in which all of your time, attention, and energy was spent brewing (when not praying or meditating) in the name of God.  What beautiful expressions of yeast, malt, hops and water could you knock out in complete and utter silence?

Styles like the dubbel, tripel, and quadrupel are so satisfying with their depth of flavor and complexity.  There may be no other style in the world with such complexity, mainly because there may be no style whose character is so yeast driven.  And these MFers know how to elicit all the best yeastiness out of their yeast--fruity esters, spicy phenols--which can even improve a beer with time like a fine wine.

Each of these Monasteries brews a style which, unlike the others, rarely --if ever--makes it outside the walls of the Abbey.  In his book "Brew Like a Monk," Stan Hieronymus refers to this as a Patersbier.  Brewed by the monks for their own daily consumption, this beer both nourishes and hydrates them.  With no beet sugar or added fermentables, brewed with a lighter grain bill for a lower abv and lighter body, this is a monk's session beer!  Still, its no less flavorful, as the lighter grain bill and crazy fermentation temps really allows the house yeast to shine.

I call my version Enkel (single); it's brewed with 100% Belgian pilsener malt to an OG of 1.052, then fermented with WLP550 (the Achouffe strain-not Trappist, but it's what I had on hand) to about a 5.2% abv.  Bottled two days ago, and the sample I drew was absolutely delicious:  spicy, phenolic, with a bit of banana on the dry biscuity finish.  Can't wait until this one conditions and I can start drinking it!