So today is a momentous occasion, full of brew-significance. We have beer in (or soon to be in) all four stages of the homebrewing life-cycle.
First off, our 10 gallon batch of Amber ale is ready to make the move from secondary into bottles. I’m a bit wary of this batch, as it turned out unusually light. I don’t want to make no weak beer! But we’ll see how it comes out. One of our other “weaker” brews as the Wit, and lots of other people liked it even if it wasn’t Andrew and my favorite.
Making the jump from primary to secondary is the Thai Pale, put down by my lovely wife Amber and I a couple weeks ago. This is a 5 gallon experiment, spiked with a massive amount of ginger (think head-sized), lemongrass and some spicy chiles that hopefully won’t bite back too much. Those little Thai chiles can be really hot if you’re not careful.
The third beer that’s happening is a porter we’re going to brew. We’re aiming for something with a little more chocolaty notes this time. I know, that’s normally a stout sort of thing, but we don’t like playing by the rulebook here.
So what about the fourth? Well, Amber’s out of town so I’ve invited tons of the guys I know over for a day of brewing, video games (MARIOKART WII!) and chili. And of course, what would a guys’ brewing day be with consuming some beer? Just doesn’t seem like it should be allowed.
There you have it, the four stages of homebrewing, all in one 24 hour period. Life is good.