Wednesday, October 26, 2011

The coming of Adams

So happy to have my keg system back!
And no, this isn't Sam Adams we're talking about here, it's my long-anticipated first Princeton batch of homebrew, a SMaSH Yorkshire bitter made with Maris Otter malt and Willamette hops.  Last week after cleaning and sanitizing my kegs and tap system, I finally got the beer flowing here at Yorkshire Meadows.  Even got to test it out on some friends, who officially praised it as "a great EPA"...will unleash it on a few more this weekend at the Gervin Manor Halloween extravaganza.

Here's the basic rundown so those tasting it--or those who might not get to--know what to expect from it.  As you can see from the picture, it is a nice golden beer with a brilliant white head that is rather thick and frothy.  Head dissipates into a ring of foam but leaves some de-lovely lacing.  Aroma is lovely Willamette hops...but I wish it were a little bit stronger...oh well, we'll do some dry/keg hops next time.  Flavor is earthy and floral, with the Willamette hops dominating a lot of the profile.  I really like their character; it's like if hops of the delicious East Kent Golding variety had just a touch of that American Northwest pine/citrus hop flavor and aroma, which is really quite nice.  Hop flavor gives way to a nice biscuity malt flavor that comes only from Maris Otter, no specialty malts.  Yeast profile is damn near perfect and leaves a nice residual sweetness that balances out the hop bitterness very well.  At just around 4% ABV, this is a great session beer, too.  Easy drinking for sure.  Anyway, that was just a quick rundown...I'll post a real review sometime in the near future, near because I don't see this batch lasting long.

Stairs make for great gravitational siphoning into kegs!

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Back in the game!

This weekend, with my car getting fixed and WCC having a day off on Monday, I was finally able to go home to Andover, MA and get my kegerator and C02 stuff, along with my kegs.  This means that I finally get to drink up my first Princeton batch of beer, the Maris Otter/Willamette SMaSH bitter that I brewed way back in late August/early September.  It tastes great, and I originally wanted to naturally carbonate it with some malt extract for some semblance of "real ale" authenticity, but I really want to start drinking this guy now, so I'm probably going to force carbonate it.  Depending on how I like the flavor, I may throw in a bag of whole keg hops for a little English hop freshness (gotta stick with Willamette to keep this beer Single Malt and Single Hop!).  I can't wait to finally be drinking this stuff, though.  I'll probably keg it tomorrow and that will put it ready to drink this weekend!

Since I finally have my lovely car back, I'll be brewing at a much higher rate again.  I'm really liking the idea of an amber-pumpkin-spice-autumnal-Franco-Belgian-saison-thing...so that's probably what I'll go for next.  It'll be a great cold weather/Thanksgiving/etc beer!  Stay tuned!