Dear Replicator,

Is it possible to get the recipe for Millennium Ale from BJ’s Pizza and Beer in Woodland Hills, California? They originally brewed this beer for the New Year’s 2000 celebration and it was the reason I took up homebrewing.

Craig Shapland
Agoura Hills, California

Many brewpubs and micros made special high-gravity beers for Y2K. BJ’s chose to make a tripel, a high-alcohol Belgian beer that is moderately fruity, with a spicy finish and high carbonation. Belgian candi sugar gives it a lighter body than the usual high-alcohol beer.

David Mathis, the head brewer at BJ’s and the creator of this recipe, shared some tips and techniques with me. For fermentable sugars he suggests using just one malt, a European (preferably Belgian) two-row pale. Candi sugar and honey boosted the fermentables. For hops, Mathis picked European Hallertau Hersbrucker to get the low bitterness that’s typical of a tripel. Three spices — bitter orange peel, coriander and ginger root — that are often used in Belgian beers for both aroma and flavor finished off the beer. When using spices, it is normal to not have any aroma hops.

This beer has a fairly high alcohol level (9% alcohol by volume), but the alcohol profile is relatively muted. BJ’s conditioned it for a month to mature the flavors. I would suggest aerating heavily to give the yeast enough oxygen to ferment all of the sugars.

You can get more information about BJ’s Pizza and Brewery at www.bjsbrewhouse.com or by calling them at (818) 340-1748.

BJ’s Millennium Ale

5 gallon (19 L), extract with grains
OG: 1.090 FG: 1.02 IBU: 24-26 ABV: 9.1

Ingredients

• 7.75 lbs. (3.5 kg) Muntons light dry malt extract
• 2 lbs. (0.9 kg) honey (orange blossom)
• 1 lb. (0.45 kg) light Belgian candi sugar
• 8 AAU Hallertau Hersbrucker hops (bittering) (2 oz./56 g of 4% alpha acid)
• 1 oz. (28 g) bitter orange peel (Curacao)
• 1 oz. (28 g) ginger root
• 0.5 oz. (14 g) coriander seed (crushed)
• 1 tsp. Irish moss
• White Labs WLP500 (Trappist Ale) or
• Wyeast 3787 (Trappist Ale) yeast
• O.75 cup of corn sugar (for priming)

Step by step:

Bring 3 gal. (11.4 L) of water to a boil. Remove from heat. Add extract, honey and candi sugar and return to boil. Add hops and Irish moss and boil 60 min. Add spices for the last 10 min. of the boil. Add wort to 2 gal. (7.6 L) of cool water in a fermenter and top off with cool water to 5.5 gal. (20.9 L). Cool the wort to 80 °F (26.7 °C), heavily aerate and pitch yeast. Allow the beer to cool to 68-70 °F (20-21 °C), and hold at this temperature until the yeast has completely fermented. Bottle and age for a month.

All-grain option: Replace the light powder with 11.75 lbs. (5.3 kg) Belgian pale malt. Mash grain at 154 °F (67.8 °C) for 60 min. Collect enough wort to boil for 90 min. and have a 5.5 gal. (20.9 L) yield, accounting for the 2 lbs. (0.9 kg) of honey in liquid form. Lower the amount of the boiling hops to 1.75 oz. (49 g) to account for higher extraction ratio of a full boil. The remainder of the recipe is the same as the extract.