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Hello everyone, I am planning on brewing a Belgian Pale ale sometime soon and have been contemplating loads of different yeast and I really like the sound of WLP515 Antwerp..however its seasonal from Nov-Dec…

Can anyone recommend a good belgian yeast strain that might substitute that? Keep in mind I have no prior experience with WLP515 so I'm just going off reviews. If anyone has experience brewing Belgian Pale Ale's and used a yeast that liked please let me know.

Want to have some pear-orange flavour with a nice spice. But something that backs the malt sweetness.

PS.. Was thinking of using NZ hops in this. Pacifica, Pacific Jade and Gem. Any thoughts?

This is my second attempt at the Belgian style beer so would really love some tips on fermentation temp, pitch rates, and other factors that would cause over exaggerated yeast esters and phenols.

Sounds to me like Wyeast 3522 might be good for what you are looking for, although I'm not sure if you will be able to get it locally without a special order. Read some reviews/descriptions and see what you think.

You have probably read this before, but the fermentation temperature for many Belgian beers starts low (~18C) for a couple of days and then is allowed to rise quite high (~25C+) as fermentation finishes. On my last Belgian I started a little bit higher (~20C) and I ended up with more banana esters than I wanted.

Making a good Belgian beer is a balancing act - you want to ensure a complete fermentation but you also want to stress the yeast out just a little bit to get the interesting byproducts like phenols. Since the beers are usually high in gravity, you want your pitching rate to be fairly high to match. However, if you want esters then the lag phase is your friend - you don't want to overpitch too much and skip it altogether.

Brewing Belgian-style beer is hard, and although I've taken a few whacks it at, I don't know that I've brewed a really great one yet. Whatever you do, take lots of notes during fermentation. You will be thankful for them the next time you use the same yeast.

I know this is no help, but I've recently had an intense urge to brew and drink Belgian beers. I blame watching Brewdogs...

I can't give a great answer but I can say that at least when fermented at 70f ambient WLP500 has no noticeable spice character - just fruit (a blend of banana and other fruity esters which I imagine a lot of people would call too much banana but I don't mind at all in my first belgian blond - I will probably do the next batch in a ferm chamber to try and tame the banana a bit more though... The banana may age out. It's only been in bottles for a week)