Day 1 at 62F: No signs of fermentation, no big deal, it's a little cool for Belgian yeast, I'll see something tomorrow. Swirled the carboy to rouse up the yeast.

Day 2 at 63F: No signs of fermentation, ok, this is weird, I've never had a beer not show signs of fermentation after 48 hours, even lagers at 50F. Swirled the carboy again to rouse up the yeast.

Day 3 at 64F: No signs of fermentation, how the hell did I kill my yeast? Should I go run and pick some more up? Hey at least this tells me my technique is good and I don't have any infection after 72 hours, got to find that silver lining. Swirl it!

Day 4 at 65F: Giant krausen about 5 hours after increasing temp. Relief...but what if it's just all wild yeast and bacteria finally taking off? I'll just turn it into a wild ale, it'll still be beer and it may even be good.

Day 5 at 66F: Activity already slowing, grabbed a quick sample just to make myself feel better. No sourness, good flavor already, guess I made beer.

After finishing the ramp up to 70F and letting it sit there for 1 week, I bottled 1 gallon of it to 3.3 volumes of CO2 in thick walled 12oz bottles. My local homebrew club is having a competition with this style in November and I wanted to make sure my beer would be carbed to style guideline. The rest of the beer was kegged and carbed.

It doesn't quite have the fruit esters I wanted, but the spice notes from the phenols are spot on. I was really glad to not have bubblegum notes, I was worried that the yeast could have been stressed from the long lag time and would give me a bubblegum bomb. The bitterness and flavors from the hops are great, I think adding a late charge of either Mandarina Bavaria or Haulertau Blanc would be an interesting way to get some more fruit notes in there without having to fuss with yeast temps. The FG was higher than I would have expected, but the beer definitely doesn't come across as sweet and finishes quite dry. I imagine that a bigger/healthier starter would have chewed through more sugars to finish a few points lower. When I brew this again, I'll start at 64F and ramp up to the mid 70s, with a starter I'm more confident in. I've since read that WLP500 can be a bit fickle at lower temps, and I'm guessing that's what I saw with both my starter and beer.

Overall, I really like this beer, it goes down easy, tantalizes the taste buds into wanting more, and as it warms to room temp, you get to taste new layers of flavor.