A Belgian Abbey Tripel style from the recipe files of award winning homebrewer Keith Curtachio. This beer has an interesting and unusual story:  At one of our beer tasting events, Keith handed out generic ingredient cards, such as "finishing hops", "yeast" and so forth to each of a number of beer enthusiasts at the event. He then committed to brewing a batch from the resulting conglomeration of stuff.  The result of course-- a style from the brewing country where anything goes.  Keith went one further and developed a whole series of beers related to the Abbey Normal theme, completely sweeping the Belgian Ale category in our local homebrewing competition one year.  This beer is one of those recipes and we're happy to say the boxed kit has continued to earn awards by other brewers in competition.  The Bride is a deep gold colored ale, with a fruity, peppery flavor and aroma and is very, very strong.  The kit comes packed with over 9 pounds of malt extract, a generous amount of Belgian candi sugar, unmalted wheat and specialty malt, along with Continental European hops, spices and orange peel.  A very delicious and memorable brew indeed.

Secondary fermentation highly recommended.

ABV: 8.5 - 9.0 %

Makes 5 gallons.