While we were waiting for our Bare Bones Amber Ale to condition to the point where it would be practical to brew a second batch, we threw around ideas regarding what we might want to make. We came to the conclusion that, to properly see the summer to a close, we should brew something wheat-based with fruit. But not just any fruit. Something
exotic. The shortlist, as you may assume, is how we got the result for the poll we have had running.for the past couple of weeks. It came down to Dragonfruit, Gooseberry, Blood Orange, Asian Pear, and Starfruit. Blood Orange was the runaway winner, and thus it was decided.
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| Gooooop. |
On Friday the 13th, we three brewers congregated for the first time. Previous endeavors had been either myself and Dana or myself and Lauren, whether it was brewing, bottling, or shopping for supplies, and it was nice to have the entire core group together in the same place. Lauren and I picked up the ingredients during the afternoon, and Dana came over when he got out of work, and it was brew time.
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| Would you look at those! |
We got things boiling, and first steeped our grains. Next we poured our liquid malt extract, and our various dry malts into the boiling water and began the relatively uninteresting process of stirring it all together and removing from heat as necessary. We nearly had a boilover, but Lauren noticed and we kept things under control. We added our three hops as necessary, and had ourselves a big pot of green-yellow wort. It didn't look or smell all that pretty, but then again, neither did the last one.
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| We got ourselves a stew. |
As with the Bare Bones Amber, we lacked an immersion chiller for the wort, so we again positioned the bucket squarely in front of the air conditioner. This time, however, we placed it so that it was essentially touching the vent, and it proved to be much more effective at cooling it. We pitched our yeast, and threw a lid on it. It now rests comfortably in the basement, where it will stay until we infuse the blood oranges, in a fanciful glass carboy, this Friday. Then it's another week and we bottle.
While we sat and watched the Red Sox, Dana, on a whim, called his dad, who has brewed in the past, to talk about the beer. Somehow the topic of the Amber Ale came up, and Dana's dad said that it's probably been conditioning long enough for us to try it. "The worst that's gonna happen is you drinking some flat beer," he told us.
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| The very first Bare Bones Amber Ale. |
So we grabbed ourselves a bottle of our Amber Ale and cracked it open. What did we find? Carbonation! The one worry I had had since we bottled was instantly made baseless and irrelevant. We took three iced glasses from the freezer, and split the 12 oz bottle three ways. Enough to get a taste, but not enough to waste much if it wasn't ready. It poured quite nicely, with a nice solid head and a relatively amber taste. It wasn't particularly clear, but from my understanding, most homebrews aren't, unless they incorporate some kind of finings.
All in all, it looked great, very encouraging. The real question of course, was the taste. Did it taste like a quality brew, or had we made five gallons of piss? We clinked our glasses together, took a sniff, and then sipped... And hot damn, was it good. A wonderful beer, in my estimation. A real full beer flavor, but nothing overwhelming in any direction. Incredibly smooth. Didn't bite at all. It was so good, in fact, that we went and grabbed one of the 22oz bottles and split that three ways as well.
Delicious.
