had one of those ahhhaaaa moments today as i poured a glass of my irish red that is 3-months old now. about a week ago, i poured a glass and thought…hmmm, not bad. today i poured a glass and said…wow, what a beer! sometimes you forget what time can do for a beer - at some point each beer reaches its peak, and sometimes we miss it - but sometimes we catch it and remember that home brewing is a wonderful and rewarding hobby.
wondering if you have a story to share about a good beer that caught you by surprise and became great?
I had a BDSA that didn’t finish dry enough for me (1.028). So I pitched a smack pack of Brett Lambicus. For a while it tasted like a leather glove. No joke! Now it is one of my best beers - cherry pies and the whole bit. ;D
I had an AIPA that was cloudy as all get out and had some pretty severe “yeast bite”. I left it in the keg for about a month at 38F. After the first two pints poured cloudy again, I figured there was no hope. Pint 3-40 were awesome though, and the hoppiness held up pretty well. I brew that recipe roughly every three months. (Without the cloudiness now) I still leave it in the keg to cold condition for a while before I drink it.
I had this happen with an Apricot Pale Ale I did. I think part of the problem with things like this is we have an expectation of one result and get another. I set the beer aside for 4 months and now I really like it. I also put in a home brew club competition for pale ales and it took 3rd place. Sometimes time will help beer try a bottle every 2 weeks or so and sometime I think we may not like the beer because it didn’t come out how we wanted it too.
It gets me all the time. I often do not possess the patience I know is necessary…and I am always disappointed by a green beer…of course the elation of a few weeks later more than makes up for that!!!
My first kit when I got back into brewing was an Oktoberfest style ale. Even after a three week primary it had acetaldehyde undertones after I kegged it. About a week later it started fading, a week after that it was just plain good. Of course, the keg blew shortly thereafter… :
I’m wondering if this is what’s going on with my black IPA right now. It’s not the same as it usually is. Of course, there are a couple factors that make it not as good as normal. I used a hop bag in the boil because I fermented it in a keg. It also is almost a percent higher (7.7% versus 6.8%) than normal. So, I feel the beer is overly bitter, and not as much hop aroma and flavor as normal. I’m thinking some time will help it, but I’m questioning using hop bag now. I’m not worried about utilization in terms of bitterness, but more towards aroma/flavor. The beer got 5oz of hops at flame out and did a hop stand for 30 minutes. It’s also a 3 gallon batch. So, I’m not wild about it…kind of a bummer. Maybe it’s yeast bite because it’s still pretty young for a 7.7% beer, maybe it’s because I used a hop bag…don’t know. But maybe a month in the keg will do it a lot of justice.
I’m thinking about using one of these for straining into the keg for fermenting. This would probably work pretty well…hope it wouldn’t clog too much on the higher hopped beers. The cone shape would fit right into the opening of the keg. Pour carefully enough, it would also act as my funnel.
Every summer I go on a one-week sailing trip with family and friends on the Salish Sea. Last year I set myself the challenge of brewing a beer on the boat on day one and serving it on the last night out. I picked a low gravity (~1.038 IIRC) bitter and brewed about 1.25 gallons. 3 days for ferm, 3 days for conditioning and carb in a mini-keg.
When we first tasted it on the boat, it wasn’t great. Thin, barely carbonated, yeasty, and no character. I took the remainder of the mini-keg home, stuck it in the fridge and ignored it, thinking it was a failure. When I got around to trying it again several weeks later it was good. Not great, but pretty darn good for a session beer, especially after the yeast layer had been sucked out.
I remember a long time ago I brewed my 1st Tripel. I hit all my target numbers very closely and was totally psyched about it. When I tried it @ 6 weeks it was good but had a sharpness around the edges, and seemed overly phenolic (I used 3787). Granted, it was an 8.5% brew. But 6 more weeks later, the phenolic edge and alcohol edge had mellowed out quite a bit and the beer was excellent. Obviously it got better with more time.Today I take it for granted, but at the time, the last thing I wanted to hear was “Leave it alone for awhile”.
I brewed a pale ale, essentially an ESB years ago. I tried drinking the first keg but couldn’t finish it. I turned the last 4 gallons into excellent malt vinegar. A year later I was looking in my carbonating fridge and saw the second keg of that batch. Before I poured it in the yard I tasted it and it was excellent, apparently a year of lagering was all it needed. Several years later I fgured out the problem with the first keg was the WLP 007 I used, I really hate the flavor of that yeast,
I’ve done this a few times with a lager or kolsch. If its a little edgy, has some fruitiness or yeastiness to it, I’ll shove it in the corner of the kegorator and wait 6-8 weeks. Usually turns the beer around.
And with sour beers - if they aren’t “ready”, just stick 'em in the corner 'till Jesus comes back. You never know when they’ll turn a corner!
This is why I have a small army of kegs and carboys…
i use a very fine mesh pampered chef strainer that i usually have to rinse 1-2 times and i just dump my kettle through it whole hops and all. works great. however i think it may be a little big for a keg funnel.
