Monticello Door Ale

So my next project was an idea I had to make a Pale Ale style brew with Fuggles only hops based on a basic recipe I have seen that apparently Thomas Jefferson used to use back in the day. It so happened that his birthday was coming up (April 13), so I was shooting to brew that day, however, life struck, and I wasnt able to get to it until the following weekend.

It so happened that Shep's (who is from Virginia) 30th B-day was coming up in about a month, so I invited him over to help with the brew, and then, when it was ready, I put half of it into the Party Pig, and it was enjoyed at his 30th b-day celebration along with other assorted bottles I contributed to the occasion.

Anyway, between the initial idea for the Monticello to be a classic Pale Ale, as usually happens, some random events changed its course. The first was when I went to buy the malt at Brewcraft, I was looking through the yeast selection. Originally planning to use the California Ale yeast (standard yeast used for brewing stuff like Sierra Nevada clones, classic IPA stuff, etc), I noticed a lone silver vial of White Labs Bastogne, which is a Belgian strain originating at Orval, apparently. Well, Orval happens to be one of my favorite beers. So I picked it up, I could use it on a future beer. I looked at the expiration date. "Best if used by April 13". That solved that. It was written!

To make things even a bit crazier, I had been saving up some Brettanomyces yeast from the dregs of numerous Orval bottles. It was back in my fridge. So I cleaned that stuff off, and when we bottled this sucker, with the half that was actually going into bottles, I hit it with the Brett, to age in the bottles. What that does, over time, is give the beer that slight sour tinge, like Orval.

So after all that, it ended up a Belgian-style Pale Ale, in the tradition of Orval. And it is super good!


Monticello Door Ale
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5.5 lbs Pale Malt Syrup
2 lbs Two Row
.75 lb Crystal 20L
.75 lb Crystal 40L
.5 lb Carapils

3 oz Fuggle hops

1.5 lbs Turbinado sugar
Whirfloc tablet
Servomyces capsule

White Labs Bastogne Yeast (WLP510)



Partial Mash brought to 160; 60 min rest; sparge w/ water at 170 - 60 min boil - Hop sched: 60 (1 oz), 30 (1.5 oz), 20 (.5 oz) - .5 lb Turbinado at 30, 1 lb Turbinado at 15 - Whirfloc tab at 15 - and at 1o - Servomyces

When I bottled, after priming, and funneling half into the Party Pig, I tossed in dregs of two Orval bottles into the remainder brew in the carboy, and let it sit for another 10 mins or so before bottling it up.

Brewed Sat, April 18
Racked Tue, April 28
Bottled Mon, May 4 (Half into Party Pig - only bottles got the Brett)