Sorry for not posting on Monday but it was a holiday and I was distracted by important things, mainly Mass Effect 2 (That game is soo good!)
You can see the first two parts of this series below:
Wherein I attempt to brew an Ale
Wherein I attempt to brew an Ale Pt. 2
last night marked two weeks since I bottled my ale; which meant that they were fair game for consumption. I opened the chilled bottle with some trepidation, my wife was convinced that my sanitization regimen was lacking and that the beer would be tainted. The beer passed the sniff test and so I moved on to the next step pouring the beer. With the exception of some sediment the beer appeared fine, it had good carbonation and a nice foamy head.
Well, there it was nothing left today but taste the fruits of my labor. The beer turned out pretty good! Darker than an amber ale but lighter than a stout. The beer had a subtle floral smell, much like the hint of green apples, and nice roasted malty taste to it.
I was sure when I started this process the beer was going to be terrible but I have to say, I’ve paid money for worse tasting beer. I have a few bottles and if local friends want to give it a try and let me know what they think they’re welcome to come by and give it a taste.
Things I learned from this whole experience:
- Beer is not that difficult to make
- Gravity and physics are crappy things to count on when bottling. Next time I use an auto-siphon.
- Make sure your bottles are not screw-top!
- Have a place you can go to ask questions of more experience users. I was lucky enough to have the fine folks at Talking Time to answer my questions.
- Get something to filter out sediment. It doesn’t seem to hurt anything but is kinda gross
- Get a second big metal pot for the sparge.
I’m happy enough with my results to try this again. I’m not ready enough to start making my own recipes yet, so I’ll still be buying mixes, maybe a nice gingerbread ale or tripel?
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