Bottling Day

DSCN0936I was sidelined from brewing earlier this year, due to an injury. Now I’ve recovered, and it’s time to get back in the saddle again. I’ve got a couple brewing sessions planned in the coming days, but first I wanted to clear some fermenter space. And so I bottled my porter, a cherry mead, and a berry wine.

 

Porter

The porter was my usual Colby House Porter. It was a 3.0-gallon (11-L) batch, so I decided to put it in 22-ounce (650 mL) bottles rather than kegging it. From a preliminary sample, I wasn’t sure if it was as hoppy as I like it. I also wondered if it turned out too dry this time around. Then again, the sample was warm and flat and I’ve learned not to start dissecting a beer until it’s carbonated and conditioned. I’ll let it bottle condition for a couple weeks before cracking one open.

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Cascadian Dark Ale

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A dark, hoppy ale.

As I discussed in a previous article, there are some relatively darkish, IPA-like thingys being brewed these days that are fairly popular. Some people call them black IPAs. Other people call them Cascadian dark ales. Still other people think they are two separate kinds of beers — either separate beer styles or substyles — and use both terms. And then of course, there are people who ask, “Why don’t you just call it a porter?”

In a separate article, I described how to brew an IPA-based beer with just enough debittered black malt to turn it dark, but not enough to give the beer a prominent roasted malt flavor. (The roasted flavor could vary from undetectable to faint.) I called those beers black IPAs simply because that’s what a lot of people are calling them.  [Read more…]