American Ale and Guinness Clone
Sunday, February 03, 2008 - 07:17 PM
Well, this weekend I bottled an Amber Ale that I brewed a few weekends ago. This was just a Brewer’s Best kit - the American Ale (except I substituted liquid yeast for the dry yeast that comes in the kit). I tasted some during the bottling, and I have to say, this is a pretty damn good beer! Apart from not being carbonated, the beer already tastes “done”.
Before bottling I wasn’t too thrilled with this beer, just because I kept thinking that I should have done an original recipe instead of just falling back on a kit. After tasting it though, I’m really happy with it. I guess being “lazy” and just brewing a kit is better than not brewing at all!
Also, I racked my Guinness Clone to the secondary fermenter today. Not much to say about it, except I didn’t come close to getting maximum utilization from the yeast. That just means that it’ll be lower than expected alcohol content, and might taste a little sweet - which may actually be a good thing. (Imagine Guinness with just a touch of sweetness to it!)
I forgot to prep a wash for the yeast though, so I wasn’t able to harvest from this batch. I still have two bottles of yeast from the previous batch though, so I have enough to get through a couple more batches. I’ve yet to brew with yeast that I harvested from a previous batch, so we’ll see how it goes.
My New Obsession
Friday, February 01, 2008 - 10:21 AM
I have a new (musical) obsession. I found these guys through Call it Karma’s (former) percussionist, Jeremy (thanks, Jer):
They’ve been around for a while, but they’re just starting to get some recognition on the jam scene. (Or, maybe I’m a little behind the scene - hell, I didn’t discover Phish until ‘94, so what do I know?)
Anyways, I downloaded a bunch of their shows from the Internet Archive*, and eventually bought all of their studio albums from Amazon.com’s MP3 store. Needless to say, I’m really enjoying their music.
I could go on and on about what I like about these guys, but I’m not a rock critic, and not very eloquent. I just urge you to at least check out their music. (Especially if you’re into “jam bands” - but you don’t need to be to enjoy good song writing and solid musicianship. Seriously, if you’re not into jam bands don’t be scared off by that label.)
* If you’re not familiar with the Archive, go check it out. It full of public domain media - everything from books, old movies and TV shows, and old recordings to modern recordings that have been cleared “free to trade” or are otherwise in the public domain.