A New Arrival

25 and I are happy to announce that we're . . .

brewing.

For any of you sillies who thought I was announcing a pregnancy, shame on you.  You obviously don't know me at all! Haven't you read my rants about children, and everyone having children, and posting about their children, and blah blah blah children?

We took the plunge a couple months ago and started homebrewing.  Much like a pregnancy, we didn't want to tell anyone until we were sure that we wouldn't lose the batch. It's been a slow process of telling friends and family.  Introducing them to what we made.  Talking about the techniques and ingredients.

Weiz was from a Brewer's Best kit. She was all Amber LME (liquid Malt Extract) and Hallertau hops pellets.

Our first beer was a Weizenbier.  She was a beautiful 4.6% amber colored wheat beer with a slight cloudiness that one wants in a wheat beer.  She has great fruity esters of peach/apricot/pit fruits and some nicely complicated flavors. Not much sediment in the bottles and great clarity.

Just like any first born,  we made some mistakes. It's possible that the fruity esters came from contamination (more than one great beer has been created by accident).  After bottling her, we put the bottles in boxes, in the garage, protected from light as we'd read was important.  Just about the time we did that, the weather started cooling off.  We didn't know that below about 62 degrees, the yeast becomes inactive and won't carbonate the beer.  In conclusion, we have great tasting flat beer. My take is that I'd rather have a great beer with no bubbles than a crappy bear with lots of bubbles.  25 on the other hand tends to like highly carbonated beers with lots of little bubbles so he was a bit disappointed.

The feedback from friends who are drinker and non-beer drinkers has been pretty good.  They all like the fruity complicated flavor thing.  They acknowledge that it's flat but seem to echo my sentiments about good beer-no bubbles as the bettern option.

While we drink our way through the 22 12oz and 9 22oz bottles that were the Weizenbier, we brewed again.  Our second is an English Pale Ale.  She was from a kit as well and she's made of Fuggles and Goldings hop pellets, LME plus some Dry Malt Extract and even Caramel Malt to steep. EPA was bottled last week Wednesday.  It should be roughly the same ABV.  Slightly darker in color and a tiny bit less cloudy. She still need another week of bottle aging before we open a test bottle. We were more efficient and drew 25 12oz and 10 22oz bottles.

Batch three is an Irish Stout we've named Mick, after a character in Hell on Wheels. He's still in secondary fermentation and will probably be bottled next week, then three plus weeks of bottle conditioning.  He was some LME, roasted barley, flaked barley, Northern Brewer hops (not pellets a first for us), two packets of liquid yeast (another first).  He's pristine and the last of the yeast is settling out now.

Like any proud creator, photos to follow. The biggest question at the moment is what to brew next?