I have a real love of Belgian beers, and I love what American brewers have done with Belgian inspiration.  One of my favorite stateside breweries is Allagash, in Portland, Maine.  Allagash not only makes excellent examples of the typical Belgian-style White, Double, Tripel and Grand Cru styles, but they also do some slightly more esoteric barrel aged beers and experimental brews.  One of my top picks from this Maine favorite is Allagash Black.  This Belgian-style stout has big roast flavors reminiscent of chocolate and coffee layered on top of the slightly tart dark fruits that Belgian yeasts can produce in spades.  In short, it's delicious. 

It's also expensive, and a prime candidate for a homebrew recipe!  Allagash gives a hint of the grain bill on their web site, mentioning 2 row German malt, torrefied wheat and oats.  Of course there has to be a healthy dose of dark roasted grains.  I wanted a bit more of the dark fruit flavor, so I added a bit of Special B to the mix.  Here's the grain bill:

12lb Pale 2 row malt - I used a Belgian, but any would do fine. 

1lb torrefied wheat

1lb Belgian chocolate malt

1lb roast barley

1lb Dingeman's Special B

2lb Munich

1lb Belgian Dark Candi syrup

One of my favorite adjuncts to add to a dark Belgian beer (especially in my Double) is a dark candi syrup.  Not to be confused with the dark rocks sold in many shops, this stuff is a pungent dark caramelized sugar syrup and lends a great flavor to the finished beers.  It's also an easy way to bump the gravity a touch.  The Belgians tend to make digestible beers, with a high degree of attenuation.  For this reason I mash at a pretty low temperature with a long mash.  Usually around 150F for 75 or 80 minutes does the trick.  I like a thick mash, around 1.25 qt/lb, and fly sparge until I have collected about 6 gallons.

Allagash Black doesn't have a ton of hop bitterness or aromatics.  It's definitely dominated by the dark grains.  I use the following hop additions:

1oz Galena (14.1%) - 60 mins

1oz East Kent Goldings (4.5%) - 30 mins

1oz East Kent Goldings (4.5%) - Flameout

On my relatively inefficient setup I end up with 5 gallons of wort with a starting gravity of 1.080 or so.  A Belgian-style beer calls for a Belgian yeast strain, and I usually use WLP530 here.  3 weeks in the fermenter in the mid 70s gets the gravity down to about 1.010, yielding a beer that comes out around 7.5%.  As is traditional, I like to bottle condition this beer instead of kegging.  6 oz of corn sugar gets the carbonation to 3 volumes at 75F.  To add a little extra complexity, use a fresh dose of a different Belgian yeast strain for the bottle fermentation.

Brew it up and enjoy!