Fairgate Belgian Hot & Dirty Blonde Ale

April 25, 2021, Wesley Chapel, Florida. As I recall, it was a sunny, hot and humid and 87 degree day. On that day, your favorite brew crew got together in the garage headquarters of Fairgate Brewing to make what they thought would be an ordinary Belgian Blonde. 

Little did they know

At first, everything was going great. Water boiled ahead of schedule, everyone excited at the thought of a Belgian blonde, I mean who wouldn’t be right? We even had this side gig of FNO H2O+ going on, and then.. 

The ‘thing’ happened

After putting all of that yummy mash into the mash tun, we attempted to start circulation between the two kettles. But, the water wasn’t moving between the pumps, air bubbles going nowhere, we had to check it out. Following a bit of troubleshooting from the master brewer, no dice.

Shortly after that, a life changing moment happened. The braintrust got together and made an executive decision. It’s a beautiful thing to see a group people come together to solve a problem the way that we did. Friends, neighbors, possible future business partners working as one unit to solve a problem. Collectively we agreed to make the decision to remove the mash from the ton so that we could see what’s going on. We took the mash out of the mash tun and put it into buckets, coolers, whatever we could find and then..

There it was

This is a bit exhausting, so you know the elbow thingie that sits inside of the mash tun which is inverted down and intended to suck the water out from under the false bottom so that no mash is delivered to the boil kettle? Right, that thing, well it wasn’t seated properly. Note to the brewers of Fairgate: add to checklist, follow checklist next time. So we wound up seating the elbow thingie properly and then started transferring the mash back into in the mash tun from buckets to kettle. The bucket that I picked up, when I picked it up, the valve thats intended to pour liquid out of the bucket on the bottom just busted out from the pressure of the mash and the precious mash painfully spilled onto the concrete driveway of our Fairgate brewing garage headquarters. 

Given that brewing is a science and that you have to use the exact right amount of (irreplaceable) ingredients from start to finish we had to make another executive decision and had no choice but to take that mash with shovels and put it.. right… back into the mash tun. With the mash came whatever rocks, bacteria, bugs, oil, etc., etc., happened to be lying on the concrete that day. Truth be told, that DIRTY mash still had to be boiled for over 90 minutes so who cares – ain’t nothin surviving that burn! 

That’s where we get the DIRTY!

Out of simplicity the name of this beer came to us, we didn’t name it, it named itself. It being a HOT (87 degrees) DIRTY (concrete driveway muck), BELGIAN BLONDE. Or, a Belgian Hot & Dirty Blonde. Want to point out that we aren’t the first fools to think of this clever name for a beer. Check out this other (not so hot) Belgian Dirty Blonde . And while we’re at it, we should be thinking about mashin’ like this instead of doing it by hand!

FNO H2O+

Before we start the review, kudos to our resident residence president JT for driving us to achieve a parallel brew of Fairgate Navel Orange Hard Seltzer aka FNO H2O+ on the same hot day. I wasn’t there for the kegging but I heard it was an absolute hit and that it packs a whopping 7% ABV. One day I will write an add-on of how our 2nd batch of Hard Seltzer was a huge success but unfortunately for you JT, today is not that day.

Onto the #Belgianblonde

Typically, Belgian blondes are not easy to come by in our neck of the woods. Not that you can’t get them, you just don’t see them in abundance. RC mentioned Leffe, I’ve drunken that, Duvel, Chimay and hands down, no contest, one of my favorite beers of all time Delirium Tremens which before this blog I wasn’t even aware was a blonde!

I’m gonna start by saying that this beer is very good / excellent. At first I was skeptical because the pour was murky and it looked like the body lacked depth. I even texted RC, I was like dude, wtf?? But now when I look back, I realize that the ‘wtf’ was way premature.

After it sat and carb’d for a day, I poured myself a glass here and a glass there and then it hit me at night. Gonna put some random thoughts out there:

Scent: The smell of this beer is pure sweet malt, no kidding, like fruit, cereal and yeast.

Appearance: The color is like a golden hazy straw. I’ve seen that written about other Blondes and thought what better way to describe this one? Spot on pretty lookin beer color, check out the pic!

CLICK ME –>>

Flavor: The taste is at first sharp, kinda like the rind of a sweet/sour citrus fruit like a not-so-ripe Florida Orange or even a Mylar Lemon. Then, it hits your throat with a nice bit of spicy bubbles and finally the mouth watering unmistakably Belgian Blonde yeast taste that sits and waits for you to catch up to the next feeling which is…  

ABV: @ 7.9% – Dirty Hot Belgian Blonde or Belgian Hot & Dirty Blonde – now we’re talkin’ Fairgate! This is a good, strong beer.

Overall: The impression of a Belgian Blonde Ale from those snobby Beer Judges looks something like this..

A moderate-strength golden ale that has a subtle Belgian complexity, slightly sweet flavor, and dry finish.

That’s what this beer is – My first draft included some criticism about the body and head retention but I removed it because after the 2nd day in my keg it looked ok. Not as creamy and frothy as you would expect but the flavor and strength make up for it.

For good measure, quotes from the 18 person ‘kegging event’ group chat

“Hey sorry I couldn’t make it.  The girls will have to get together soon and I’m looking forward to trying that Blonde!”

… I have no idea what that means

“It was a great time.” … “I hear the foreign intelligent lady who needs a bath tastes pretty good”

… I didn’t think we were gonna go there but I like it!

“What about hard cider?” or… “Lagers next right?”

… What you talkin’ about Willis??

“The beer tasted so good I don’t remember walking the dog afterwards”

… The Esteemed JS

There it is folks… Belgian Hot & Dirty Blonde Ale from Fairgate Brewing – Drink up while it lasts!

One Response

  1. Ken, ask JT and RC about my temporary lose of fine motor skills. I blame the delicious blonde.

    JS

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