Batch #1: A first taste...

I have made beer, and it is... not bad.

After a week to the day in the bottles, I decided that it was worth taking a taste. So I chilled one down (though not to cold... I wasn't that patient... just being honest...), and poured it out.

I was excited to hear the hiss as I pulled off the cap... it meant it WORKED. This whole time I've been fairly convinced that some part of it was going to go wrong and the batch wouldn't turn out. Apparently not. And this makes me happy.

So initial thoughts:

* on the look - definitely a nice, dark looking brown. Not dark enough to be completely opaque though. It isn't too clear either, has a nice visible texture, though no real sediment to speak of. No real head to speak of either, though what head is there is very light colored and thin.

* on the nose - honestly sort of odd... fairly mild. Sort of sour... I can definitely smell the hops, which is odd for a brown (particularly an all malt brown), although since it sat in the hops for two weeks, it's not too surprising. I don't pick too much up beyond this, but then, I'm pretty amateur when it comes to this part (well... all parts... but this in particular).

* on the initial taste - the carbonation has a nice bite to it. There's a malty sweetness to the very first split second, that is quickly overtaken by a mild sour flavor that lays on top of hops. Again, a hoppy brown is kind of interesting to me - I'm used to sweet, almost syrupy browns, this is not one of those.

* on the aftertaste - the sour lingers a bit, but fades to a great hoppy bitterness. It's kind of dry on the palate, and leaves a little hint of malty sweetness underneath the hops in the finish.

OK - that's what I got. I'm no good at this, really, and may have made half of that up. I really don't know. Anyway, we shall see. Two weeks I'll compare to this review and see if there are any changes.

I'm still kind of thrown by the sour, but since it's far from overpowering, I'm not really worried about it. Maybe some kind of wild yeast got into the mix? No idea. We shall see.

Cheers!

Batch #1: Bottling

OK, so admittedly, I'm just not all that good at getting on posting right away. Bottling day was last Friday evening. The kids went to bed, and my buddy Charles came by to assist and to give me a "tour" of his own homemade brews (which, admittedly, in spite of seeing him often, I hadn't tried until then, but more on the tour later).

I spent much of the earlier part of the day delabeling and cleaning some empty bottles prior to Charles's arrival. Some things I learned - some labels are MUCH easier to remove than others. I soak the bottles in warm water to loosen up the labels, and it seems that some beers use some sort of at least semi-water soluble glue, so the labels peel right off, and the remaining glue comes off with just a bit of scrubbing. Others, not so much (note to self, don't bother with Sapporo bottles again). Anyway, I peeled and cleaned 49 12oz bottles and one 22oz bottle for the evening. I figured that should be enough, as 5 gallon recipes usually net 48 12oz bottles.

The gear was cleaned up just as Charles got there, and I was otherwise ready to roll. Last thing needed was to get the priming sugar ready in some boiling water. I was itching to use brown sugar to spruce this thing up a bit, but again, I wanted to play by the books for this one. So we used the priming sugar that it came with. With his suggestion and my own learning experience, for simplifying the siphoning process (from the carboy into the bottling bucket) I pulled the carboy out of the cabinet and very carefully (in order to avoid sloshing and thus stirring up the settled sediment) placed it on the table. We put the bottling bucket on the floor beneath it so that gravity could assist the siphon. We poured the cooled priming sugar solution into the bottom of the bucket and got the siphon going. Thanks to gravity, this siphoning process went MUCH quicker.

However, there was an oops. I guess it was inevitable.

When we started moving the beer over into the bottling bucket (on top of the priming sugar solution), we realized a little too late that we left the spigot opened... and about maybe 8 oz. poured out onto the floor... I think there was a fair amount of priming sugar in there too... We didn't add any more, and hopefully that won't end up being TOO big of a problem.

But, past that hiccup, we got it all into the bucket, which we then moved up to the counter. Charles attached the hose and bottling wand (or whatever it's called) hooked up, and we started bottling.

BEEEEEEER!!!!

This was an interesting process... the wand thing is a pretty simple but smart tool. There's a little trigger stopper on the bottom so that when you push it into the bottom of a bottle, it opens and fills the bottle. When it gets to the top of the bottle, when you pull it up and out to stop it, the wand itself displaces just the right amount of liquid so that there's the right amount of airspace at the top of the bottle (for the carbonation process). Very cool. Charles did a couple and I capped them, and then we switched off and I filled the majority of the bottles while he capped. It would have taken FOREVER to do so alone; we both agreed that in the future, on either of our bottling days, we are having the other over to help with the process.

All told, we wound up with 47 12oz bottles and 1 22oz bottle, all filled and capped.

It's... beautiful...

There was enough left in the bucket/one half filled bottle for the both of us to taste a little. Charles hit the nail on the head by noting that it tasted a bit like Newcastle Brown... I think that's what I'll end up with.

BUT: it wasn't skunked or ruined. Hooray! Beer.

Hooray! Beer.

Three weeks in the bottle for conditioning and carbonation, and we're a go! I'll be cracking one open to test this coming weekend, I'll come back to add a note then. I'll do a quick review of Charles's beers then too, I think. Enough for now.

Cheers!