Hi there!
I know so many of you have been impatiently waiting for a new blog post talking about the recent beers we've brewed and how they turned out. Don't worry baby birds...
Grommet:
This beer is probably my favorite beer we have brewed so far. Not that the list is that extensive, but it's definitely a solid beer. It has great color, a nice head on it, and doesn’t have a medicinal cherry taste. In the interest of full disclosure, it doesn’t have that much of a cherry taste at all, but it is pleasantly fruity and light and in my humble opinion makes for a delicious, spring beer. In fact, while taking breaks between Guinesses this St. Paddy's day, we were sure to enjoy a few of these (and those of you in the DC area know how amazing the weather was!)
The beer itself didn't have any major mechanical or flavor flaws (i.e. over-carbonation, flat head, etc.) With each beer, we learn something new. When we started trying Grommet, the head was lacking. Some quick research indicated that such a problem could be caused by a multitude of factors. For instance, did you know that dishwasher soap residue in the bottles could affect the head of a beer? Who knew?!
Excelsior Altbier:
This beer was the inaugural brew of the 'home-brew-kit-of-the-month' subscription we've signed up for. It works exactly like it sounds...each month we get a pre-determined beer making kit in the mail (on-deck is an "Octane IPA"). This works nicely for us condo-brewers because the ingredients are all pre-measured and each kit comes with everything you needs (grains, hops, yeast and even the bottle caps).
This was also the first time we used our new yeast culturing system, WHICH, if you're a science dork like me, gets you oddly excited. It’s basically a small magnet, the shape of a pill that goes inside of a beaker. Then, the beaker gets placed on a magnetic stir plate, causing the yeasty, liquid mixture to stir itself. This action agitates the yeast, allowing it to reproduce. It’s basically the scientific equivalent to one of those vibrating motel beds.
In action, it looks something like this:
But I digress...(I told you science and chemistry toys get me excited!)
We skipped the second rack stage, which upon opening the beer, we immediately regretted. It doesn’t taste bad (it tastes rather good in fact), but there is a bit too much sediment floating around in the bottle. We've also discovered that we are still fine tuning the corn-sugaring process, because when we went to open the bottle, it was like a bottle of bubbly in a rap video.
Be sure to open this one over the sink kids
Once we mopped up, we were able to enjoy the beer and see that it was very tasty. Two thumbs up!
Here is the label we created for the beer:
So that's all we have for now. We'll have Octane IPA updates and maybe even another Brewery tour on deck for you soon!
