Beer, Beer and More Beer

So, it's been a few weeks and I haven't posted much at all.  However, I have a good excuse:  I've been brewing beer!  Lots of beer.

My first batch, Witty Monk Witbier, fermented nicely for two weeks.  I bottled it and let it carbonate an condition for two weeks before shoving it all in the fridge.  Honestly, I should have only put a few in, but I was too excited to try and share it with friends.  My dad and I cracked open the first one and the finished product is viewable in the picture on the right.  Was it good?  No.  It was awesome!  I'm sure a little bit more time in the bottle would have done it some good, but it was quite an experience to sample the finished product.  I now know I'm addicted to this hobby and am more excited than ever to try everything I've got brewing!  Which, by the way, is quite a bit.

I've now got four fermenting kegs, and they're all occupied.  Two of them are brewing Mr. Beer recipes: 1776 Ale (which I'm pretty excited about) and American Premium Lager (should be something to slam back after a long day).  The other two are brewing my first "custom brews."  I have what I like to call Duffy's Summer Lager (a little out of season, but it should still be fun to sample).  This brew hopefully will be a light lager with a little taste of citrus, more specifically grapefruit.  The other I like to call Duffy's Centennial Wheat.  It's a wheat beer with centennial hops for just a little bitterness and hopefully some good flavor and aroma.  I'm pretty excited for the last two just to see how they turn out.  I'm trying to learn as much as I can about the brewing process, and I think this will help immensely.

I'll be sure to post more updates as the weeks go by.  I have my American Devil IPA conditioning in the bottle right now.  I'm going to let it sit a couple of weeks longer than my first batch for optimum taste!

The beer just keeps coming!

Strange Brew

Very recently, I was with the family knocking back a few beers.  We started a conversation about domestic brewers and how most of them seemed to be foreignly owned.  One thing led to another and my dad and I got crazy enough to decide that we were going to start brewing our own beer.  After all, craft beer are undeniably better than what Budweiser/Coors/Miller can turn out.

Several years ago for Christmas, we all bought dad a Mr. Beer micro-brew kit.  He tired it out, and let’s just say the end result wasn’t all that great.  However, doing the research soon led to the realization that we probably screwed it up somewhere along the way.  Review after review said this kit made great beer.  They couldn’t all be liars or lack taste-buds, right?  Well, we promptly ordered a refill for the kit, and I ordered a kit of my own.  We were going to do this together and produce enough home-brewed beer to wet the whistle of every man and woman in the neighborhood!

My dad ordered a doppel bock refill and my kits came with two brews: a wheat beer (from the description, a brew that would be similar to Blue Moon) and an IPA.  Two weeks ago we got to work.  We started with his batch and traveled back to my apartment to get mine brewing.  In that two weeks we’ve stayed excited about every step.  We’ve been ordering more and more refills and equipment.  I currently have to batched fermenting, while he has three!  That’s 12 and a half gallons of beer!

I’ll be bottling mine this evening.  Once bottled, it has to sit for another 1-2 weeks to carbonate.  Then it’s in the fridge to cool down and it’s ready to be poured.  I’m going to post more when the first one is ready to be cracked open along with pictures of the end result.  I’m also going to try and write a post for every new brew I’m able to try.

Our goal is to never buy beer from the store again!  …I think we’re off to a good start!