Homebrewed Updates - May 2011

* I and a couple of friends have had the Hopnog. It lives up to its name... LOTS of hops. It's pretty damn good, though. People who like hoppy beers said that it was, to quote "fucking delicious". So there's that. I'd give it a 7 of 10. I like the vaguely citrus-y flavor, and the hops do kick it, but it's a little on the thick side for my taste.

* We made a Red Ale after the Hopnog, and I've also had that (as have all family members and several friends). Among the lighter beer drinkers, this one was extremely popular. When we were making it, we added an extra half cup of brown sugar, which gave the ale a nice caramelized aftertaste. One of my friends decreed this "the best beer he's ever had" (full disclosure: he's 22 and has generally to this point in his life subsisted on Michelob Golden Light). I'd give this one an 8. It's not particularly bitey, hop-wise (my brother suggested as much, but he was mocked for the rest of the week as hating smooth things), but tt certainly is smooth, and at 5.7% ABV, it's got a bit of potency. The brown sugar really made this one. I can't imagine this one being half as good without that aftertaste.

* I just put a batch of Wisconsin Spring Porter in the fermenter. We used sap instead of water as the base, as per the recipe. I'm interested to see how this one turns out. It looks dark. I'm actually going to try racking this one this weekend, to try and cut down on a bit of the sediment.

* This is a terrible time to be on a diet. A terrible time.

Hopnog Bottling Day

...was yesterday. The Hopnog is now residing in our guest bath, where it will stay undisturbed, dark, and at a consistantly warmish temperature. The alcohol content is a little on the lowish side (I think I measured it at 4.3%), and it got a little bit of sediment in a couple of the bottles when my father-in-law insisted on getting "just a little more" out of the bottling bucket, but I'm excited. The beer should be ready to drink in time for the Twins home opener, so I've got multiple reasons to be pumped for that.

I wasn't a big fan of the "just drop the pellets in a be careful later" method. My FiL mentioned that he generally steeped the hops in a mesh bag instead of of just dropping them in. In any home-brewers happen by this blog, by all means let me know what some good ways of accomplishing this are.

Still, even with a little extra sediment and a lowish ABV number, I made 46 bottles of beer, now I just have to wait.