So,
We bottled this past weekend, on halloween!! (ooooh, spooky! Haunted Beer!). Perhaps I shall try and incorporate that idea into the names of the beer.
Regardless, the bottling went well. As always, I was running around trying to do a million things at once, and although the bottling of the first batch was slightly chaotic, it was fun to get it done. With the help of my beautiful, charming, and endlessly witty assistant Deyana, bottling went along swimmingly.
Of course, I took small samples of each beer, and they tasted really good. The Ginger Pale Ale had a bit of 'bite' to it, the hops came out real nice, but the slight Ginger taste mellowed it a bit, and I think it will turn out really tasty after time to carb/condition in the bottles (only 2.5 more weeks!!). We used normal priming sugar with this batch and things seemed to go really smoothly. I'm really excited to try this one when it's all done because I am a bit of a hop-head, and like those beers with a lot of bite.
The Dunkelweisen I was also rather impressed with. After our debacle with the Maltodextrin I was curious as to how it would affect it. As Ean (from Blue Tape Black Marker) mentioned, it didn't have the familiar mouthfeel of a darker beer, but the flavor seemed there. It definitely had a lot of roasty notes on the end, and with a good burst of malty goodness to get things started. All it seemed to be lacking was a little 'fullness' in mouthfeel. We did a little something different with the priming sugar used for this however. We went with brown sugar. After some reading online (because, I had forgot to pickup more priming sugar) I had read that brown sugar worked as an alternative, and actually was preferred in some darker beers. Enjoying the flavor of the dunkel already, I decided to give it a go and see what it gave us. I will probably give this one a good 4 weeks plus in bottles to fully condition/carb, as I read sometimes brown sugar takes a little longer to reach it's peak conditioning (same with dark beers I guess). Regardless, I think it will turn out to be a nice early December beer to sip on when the chill really starts to hit home.
All in all, it was a successfull day! Couldn't ask for much more! My lovely assistant was charming and witty the whole time, which made the process that much better.
I am considering getting a 'homebrewing club' together for the local area. A good friend of mine (and long time brewer) who lives out of state started one in his area, and they have a really good time. He said it's not too hard to do, but you can get a lot out of it, especially once you get really interested people joining up. So if you know anyone who'd be interested, or you are interested, let me know!
ALSO (final note, I promise) - This saturday is "Teach a Friend to Homebrew Day", so all of you homebrewers - grab one of your non-brewing friends, grab a few bottles of some of your existing delicious homebrew, and show 'em how it's done! I will probably be brewing with a friend of mine on Sunday (he's an all-grain purist!) so I'm really excited to take some notes/hints from him and give some of that information a try in my next batch (but not all grain, yet). I had hoped to brew Saturday, but unfortunately have a wedding that takes precedence (doh!).
Thanks all, and remember - keep brewing !
(Pictures will be added later!)
