Sunday, August 24, 2008

Phase II....Brown Ale...and other ramblings

Friday morning, the primary fermentation of the Brown Ale was still going strong. By the time I got home Friday afternoon, we had gone from bubbles every 8 seconds, to 40 seconds. I became optimistic that there might be something to do with it this weekend. On Saturday afternoon, I took a sample and the specific gravity was right where it should be, 1.012. The starting gravity was 1.042, giving a respectable 3.9-4.2% ABV. I had spoke with a homebrewer at work who recently did a brown ale from a kit and commented that it was really yeasty, and would benefit from a week or two in secondary fermentation. Well, since I did have a couple of extra carboys just sitting around I did go ahead and get that done today. With the long holiday weekend next weekend it will be bottling time. I did taste the sample and if first impressions are a good sign I will be happy once we start drinking it.

On the drinking side of the beer front, Marcie and I along with some homebrewing friends got together for a beer tasting party last night. The night was started out with a wheat ale from Granite City Food and Brewery which went over great. Unfortunately it will be another year before we can drink it again, as they were almost out of it when I filled the growler on Tuesday night. We followed with a belgian wheat, scottish ale from the Olde Town Brewing Company in Ames IA, and then finished up with a 9% ABV tripple, and the kolsch that we had brewed. We did get some great comments on it, so that does give us something to be proud of.

It was then on to the dark beers, and we all agreed that cocoa porter from the Tommyknocker brewig company was great. The biggest hit of the dark beers was by far the Rasputin's Imperial Stout. Pick some up if you see it.

The calendar is our friend. Cubs have a 5 game lead in the NL Central with just over a month to go.

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