Finally...it's bottled!

Earlier this year I brewed an India Pale Ale when my dad was up an visiting. That was on September 25th. I racked it to secondary, and dry-hopped with with about an ounce of Fuggles about 3 weeks later. Just this past weekend I bottled it. It's a little over-due for bottling, but bulk-aging in the basement certainly didn't hurt it. :)

All I have to say about it right now is: WOW! This is a lot better than I was expecting. I wish I had my notes here, as I'd describe how it tasted when I was bottling it.

It's great when warm, flat beer tastes this good. It usually means it's only going to taste better once it's carbonated and slightly chilled. (Hmm, by "warm, flat beer", I mean un-finished, un-bottled beer, not beer that's been sitting out overnight...)

Speaking of carbonation, if you saw my post over at ThePolls, you might have caught the part where I said I brough some of my Raspberry Wheat beer to Noah's friend's 1st birthday party. I did something wrong with that beer. Don't get me wrong, it tastes great, the taste isn't the problem. The problem is, I must have misweighed the corn sugar when I was bottling because it's _COMPLETELY_ over carbonated. It's not to the point of being a 'gusher', nor is it a batch of bottle-bombs, but you literally need a large pitcher just to pour a 12oz glass. When you pop the cap, you have about 5 seconds before it starts pouring foam out of the bottle. An impressive, if not messy, display.

Oh! This weekend I stopped by a friends how to drop off a Zymurgy magazine he'd let me borrow, and he sent me home with a bottle of his recently brewed pale ale, which uses his newly-acquired Burton Ale yeast. It's supposed to be an interesting yeast. I haven't had the chance to try the beer yet, unfortunately. I think I'll try to harvest a sample of the yeast when I do open the bottle.