Aged Belgian beers - Antwerp

[mr hoppy]

Try Rochefort 6, 8 or 10 - I used their yeast and they are amazing beers. St Bernardus Abt or Pater are really good as well.

[johnrm]

I'm sure there is a thread here about making candi sugar.
If not, try googling it, this is doable.
Oh, heres a link... (spotted on Beoir)
http://ryanbrews.blogspot.ie/2012/02/candy-syrup-right-way-hint-weve-been.html

I'm not sure about bringing back a load of this stuff from BE if its available in HBC.

[mr hoppy]

Don't get me wrong I'm just recommending a product I like - I think I've 5 kilos of it lying around at home and I've been very happy with the stuff: plus it's dirt cheap over there (about 2.50 a kilo) readily available (baking section in any supermarket) and it's the actual brand used by the various trappist breweries. There's a granulated product called Cassonade Brune as well which is supposed to the same although I've not tried it.

Will D is spot on when he mentions sugar beets. Candico's product is a by-product of producing beet sugar, and particularly considering the very distinctive flavour profile it gives the beers it's used in as compared to simple sugars, I'd be skeptical of simple stove processes that start with refined sugar. They are pretty finicky, and there's no consensus that they are effective at replicating the flavours in commercial Belgian dark strongs.

I see the Brewferm product says it's the real deal although it's colour is 180 - 220 EBC whereas the Candico product doesn't actually add that much colour in my experience - Belgian homebrewers say about 32 EBC (from memory) so I'd be curious about a side by side.