Homebrew Tension

Listen, my children, and you shall hear, the marvelous story of Marty's beer.

Okay, so I totally ripped off Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. For my Canadian friends, the joke involves a poem written in 1860. It can be found here: http://www.legallanguage.com/resources/poems/midnightride/ if you are so inclined to make the connection. But this is only connected to it by the famous opening line, and nothing more.

So much for culture. I can't stand too much of that anyway.

So anyway, to the important stuff. This evening I entered my latest brews into their secondary fermentation phase. The first beer, a stout, I can hardly wait to try. The dregs at the bottom of the primary fermentation keg (I do so love beer related terms) smelled so wonderfully chocolately that I almost drank it. The aroma was, simply, marvelous, hence the above reference. Chocolate, stout, I mean, the smells so wonderfully mix that it is difficult to put it into words. The one to two week secondary fermentation period will simply be unbearable.

But, of course, you can't drink the dregs. That would make you a drunk, and worse, a drunk with the runs. I can't imagine a worse kind of drunk, and I would be extremely grateful if you would not make comment upon that. Just trust me. Don't drink the dregs. Or comment about me.

But man oh man, I am so looking forward to that stout. Please do not disappoint me, beer gods!

The other brew, an American Red Ale (so said the directions of the recipe I followed; I was not aware that there was such a thing as an American Red Ale) I am not so anxious about. I had grown impatient (imagine that) and decanted it into plastic one liter bottles because placing beer into glass bottles for secondary fermentation, since I have nothing larger than 12 ounce glass bottles otherwise. It had taken me around 45 minutes to decant the stout into 24 twelve ounce bottles and I simply didn't want to take 45 minutes with the red ale. Hey, I told you I was impatient. Besides, I only really care about the stout.

Still, I did use four twelve ounce glass bottles as a sort of control group. Maybe it's just me, but beer from plastic bottles taste plastic. This way, I can try the ale from the plastic and the glass and see which tastes better. Yes, I am a scientist at heart. If beer is involved.

Thus, the story of Marty's beer is not over yet. The denouement is to come. But never fear, friends, beer mavens, and those suckered into reading this blog. I'll let you know the result.

You may even hear it from Canada. Just turn your ears northward (Yanks, we are north of Canada here in Detroit) for the cries of delight or disappointment.