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A post on beer

Costco trip count for January (final): 24
Costco trip rate for January: 1 trip per 1.29 days
Costco trip count for February: 2

Bottled my beer last night, and ended up with 24 22oz bottles plus 6 12oz bottles. Should be ready in 2-3 weeks. I took a sip of extra beer after I had filled all of the bottles, and at the very least it wasn't horrid. It tasted like beer anyway, though a lot more watery than I would like. I don't know if that's common for this stage or not; maybe the carbonation process will beef it up.

One thing I did somewhat incorrectly in the initial brewing process was when I added the hops - as I understand it now, the longer they're in the water the more you get the hop flavor, while the shorter they're in the water the more they contribute to aroma. Well, I added all of my hops fairly early, didn't save any for a late aroma addition, and I think it shows. Smells like beer, but not much.

I decided to take some pictures of the beers I've been drinking in the last few week. To some extent, "needing more bottles" was a good excuse. ;-) These are all 22oz beers, available from the local BevMo. If you go to my gallery, I've added the text on each bottle as a caption to the image.

First up, Wipeout IPA by Port Brewing. I had this one fairly recently, and I thought it was great. Really hoppy aroma, but not unpleasant by any means. I thought it was pretty smooth compared to some other IPAs I've tried, but then, I had several beers before this one, so maybe that's not the best time for evaluation. :-P Would definitely buy again.

From Beer bottles

Maximus by Lagunita Brewing. Another IPA, but this one just didn't do anything for me. It was definitely super-hoppy (as the name might imply), but I don't know enough to pinpoint just what I think was wrong with it. Don't think I'll be picking this up again.

From Beer bottles

Chocolate Stout by Rogue. I don't buy this one to drink so much as I buy it for waffles. :-D I didn't think it tasted all that chocolatey when I did drink it (can't waste leftovers from the waffle recipe), but in the waffles themselves, it seemed to help bring a somewhat chocolately flavor through the whole waffle. I tried another batch of waffles with a different company's chocolate stout and it wasn't nearly as good, so apparently it makes a difference.

From Beer bottles

Trippel by Green Flash Brewing. I don't really know what to say here, but I have yet to drink a Belgian Trippel that I didn't like, and this is no exception. In fact, this is one of the better examples I've tried, imo. Would definitely buy again.

From Beer bottles

Brother David's Triple by Anderson Valley Brewing. Yet another good triple, but with a different spelling. At a massive 10% ABV, one bottle is typically all you need. :-P My only annoyance with this bottle is that the cap is covered in gold wax, and it was kind of hard to get a bottle opener through that.

From Beer bottles

Red Rocket Ale by Bear Republic Brewing. I tend to like red ales, so it wasn't much of a surprise that I liked this one as well. I wish I had written about it sooner, as I don't remember many specifics about this one, but I would definitely buy another bottle. Oh well.

From Beer bottles

Posted by Ben at February 2, 2007 12:35 PM