[hoppyliciuos]

Congac is made from a grape so i thoght the belgium yeast would compliment that. But it also sweet, so i thought an ipa would help balance the sweetness of the congac. going to soak 2 oz. of french oak chips in 16 oz. of henny for 4 days. Rack beer after 7 days and add chips to the secondary and let hang out for awhile or so.. Any comments on the beer O.G. was 1.076 when i pithched the starter.

[dbeechum]

Other than that the word you're looking for is "Belgian" not "Belgium", nope.

Ok, that's not true.. If you can soak your oak longer, I would do so. I like to strpi a fair amount of the raw oakiness from my cubes before I use them. Other than that, keep tasting the beer until you find the right level of oakiness and go for it. I don't know if you'll get a lot of "sweet" flavors out of the beer, but it sounds good never the less.

[bluesman]

Oak aging can do wonders for certain styles. Belgian beers have quite a complex yeast derived character, so I wouldn't muddy that up too much, but oak would add another layer of flavor which an addition to the ester/phenol character would be very nice. I wouldn't overdue the hop bitterness or flavor. I wouldn't go above a medium hop character or a medium bitterness.

[hoppyliciuos]

4 oz. warrior for 60 min.
4 oz. chinook for 10 min.
4 oz. chinook at flame out.
split a 10 gallon batch into 2- 6 gallon carboys
and only going to add the oak chips into one of the 5 gallons so i can come back and taste the other batch for refrence.
  BREW ON!!!!.

[skyler]

For the most part, I don't care for hoppy beers that are oaked. I think you would do better to just make a more typical unhoppy Belgian ale and give it cognac-soaked oak chips. I don't think the sweet aroma of cognac would need to be balanced by hop bitterness or aroma because a sweet brandy aroma is nothing at all like the sweetness of residual sugars from malt.

[hoppyliciuos]

Interesting, cause there is beer that is mixed with congac  at bottling. Called xo,  and most of the reviews said it to sweet. But, no two palates are the same. Maybe next time i'll make golden and let the henny give some carmel notes. I guess thats why they say, once you start brewin you don't stop!!!! Brew Today, Brew Tommorrow, Brew Forever.

[nateo]

I strongly encourage oaking strong Belgian beers. I had a dark strong that scored poorly for being out of style, but in the comments the judges agreed it was their favorite beer from that category. I used French oak, fwiw.

Some of their flavor comments: Oaky Chilean wine character, currants, spicy/peppery, vanilla oak, hot, malt sweetness, finish has low bitterness.