As regular readers of this blog know by now, I’ve been trying to broaden my tastes in the Queen of Holy Brews (coffee’s king, you know :-)), and to that end have been both sampling from a wide array of commercially-available micro-brews and experimenting a bit on my own (the molasses beer based on a Geo. Washingtom recipe was pretty good).
Well, last night, along with Son & Heir, I sampled the first batch of beer from my lil Mr. Beer mini-micro-brewery. I used one of their ingredient kits–the “California Pale Ale” mix–and he and I agreed wholeheartedly: Good Beer.
Now, this beer had a week-and-a-half in the fermentation keg and a full two weeks conditioning in the bottle before I refrigerated it.
Lovely deep golden color. Nice head. Good “hopsiness”. Clean taste. A little more body and just a tad more robust than Grolsh, but not a nicely bitter IPA. IOW, it was just about right to accompany last night’s turkey sandwiches and leftover Thanksgiving fixin’s.
Either tonight or tomorrow, I will start a batch of Wiezenbier (wheat beer) using a Mr. Beer mix. As I become more and more at ease with the process, I’d like to make some cider, some cherry wiezenbier and a few other niche flavors–perhaps an apricot cider/beer, who knows?
Oh, I used the “trub” from the molasses beer to make some whole wheat bread rolls the other day. Delish! The yeasts in the trub livened up nicely and though the bread was a tad heavy, that wasn’t all that bad; my whole wheat breads frequently are.
I wonder if The Random Spouse would let me have a microbrewery for Christmas. Thanks for the tip about the bread. TRS doesn’t like beer much, but I might be able to work the cider and bread angle… (“see? it’s not JUST for me…”)
RY, I know I e-ed you about this, but here’s a bottom line approach you might take:
The brew keg and ingredients to make eight gallons of beer only set me back a little under $70, counting shipping. Of course, bottles cost more, BUT at about $8 for a four-pack of Grolsch swingtops (16-oz bottles), 16 bottles to bottle 2 gallons of beer are less WITH the nice MOR Grolsch lager in ’em than buying the bottles alone and paying for shipping…
All told, 2 gallons of Grolsch (in preparation for bottle use with my own beer) weren’t exactly wasted while I waited on the beer to make… (Yes, I got started early on bottle collecting :-)). Oh, and now I have enough swingtops to bottle five gallons… another couple of “interim purchases” to tide me over til the next batch is brewed, and then I’ll have enough for 6 gallons…
Let’s see… one batch every three weeks or so. Yep, I think that’ll do me, since I don’t drink but about a bottle a day of these 16 oz bottles.
Still, including equipment purchased up front, the eight gallons I’ll make out of the first purchase will pay for themselves in savings… if the beer quality holds up well.
Only real drawback: I’m having to set $ back to buy a (small, very small) fridge just for the beer. Hmmm… moving the network closet soon. It’s just outside my office and already fixed for power and ventilation… Need to measure and get a small fridge to fit, I guess. *heh*
Getting toys for my toys.
Davido,
Ya been talking beer so much lately, ya finally dragged this ‘un out of the “memory bank.”
Q: Why did the two “old maids” NOT drink beer on the beach?
A: They didn’t wanna git sand in their Schlitz.
NEXT?
Uh oh.
Wonder how much time it will take for all this beer humor to come to a head?