Day 27: Homebrewing

As I mentioned in my Hobbies post, Bryann and I have recently taken up brewing our own beer.  Thanks to Annie and Aaron, their gear, and their know-how, we made a successful batch of our very first brew - Apricot Cream Ale.  I wrote a bit about it in my October Month in Review, but we went to the Portland U-Brew & Pub in Sellwood to get grains, malt, yeast, and hops.  They have super reasonable prices and the guy that runs the store was really helpful - he gave us a basic recipe for Cream Ale and walked us around the shop, giving us explanations on what stuff was and how different types of malt affects the taste of the beer.  We added Apricot puree to the cream ale to make it our own.

We started another beer on Sunday - "Hoppy Holidays IPA".  We went back to the U-Brew store, picked up supplies, told the guy what we were thinking of doing, and he gave us a basic IPA recipe that we just tweaked with some different hops and added spices to the boil.  It's currently fermenting in a carboy on our kitchen counter, and will be ready in a few weeks.

As we've discovered with the Apricot Cream Ale, the beer gets better with age.  It's been a few weeks since we started drinking the Cream Ale, and it's noticeably better and more flavorful since it's been aging in the keg.

I'm looking forward to tasting the new brew!  We won't know if it's any good until it's ready, so here's hoping!!

"Hoppy Holidays IPA" fermenting on our kitchen counter

Selection of malts

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