A Tuesday Bottle and Brew

We are amassing quite the backstock of beer these days. That's what happens when you have one beer carbonating quite slowly (Red Ale II), you brew a mid-cycle half batch (Half Batch Bitter), and another brew sneaks up from behind for bottling (For No One Stout). It all adds up to about 100 amber label-less bottles of beer encroaching on everyday use items in the kitchen cupboards. Yes, a party is in short order.

Yesterday we brewed our eighth beer, a light crisp European lager. If you would have told me we would be on beer #8 by mid-June when the first Red Ale was hitting our lips I wouldn't have believed you, but here we are. This lager falls in the Charlie Papazian category of "if you can't ferment at colder lager temperatures, this lager can be fermented at room temp." So that's what we will do. We have yet to pitch the yeast 24 hours later, as it remains above the required 70-75 degree range needed to create the right environment for the yeast to take. Going back to the Marzen (Beer #2), liquid lager yeast is the only type we have had trouble pitching in the past; that beer required us to pitch a second time using dry yeast. This time we are hoping for a better result.

Coming soon:

-Beer Goes Camping
-Red Ale II Profile
-Potluck Party Details
-Tasting thoughts on Half Batch Bitter and For No One Stout

-jk