Summit Beer Review…and BREW DAY!

There's a special feeling in the air…the wife and kids are getting out of the house…it all adds up to one thing: BREW DAY! Like the proverbial ant, toiling away to prepare for a long winter, we're brewing 10 gallons of our flagship Bearded Man APA today, and 5 gallons of Christmas Milk Stout (a first for us). Cross your fingers.

And Ben is back from the land of cheese (congratulations, Sean and Holly Kitchell) and brought the family over last night, bearing gifts from New Glarus and Summit Brewery. Here's my takedown:

• Summit Octoberfest: Good. A little hoppy, bouncy with a fruit flavor I couldn't quite identify (citrusy, I guess). Good for a fall session beer.
• Summit Kolsh: Nice, but not crazy good–the Guild's kolsh is better, in my humble opinion. But not bad, light with a slightly spicy finish. Reminds me a lot of Schlafly's Kolsh.
• New Glarus Pils: Very good Pilsner, smooth and full-bodied enough that you know you're not drinking light beer. Superior to Boulevard's Pils in terms of flavor and body, and that's saying something.

Follow-up to last weekend: The Scottish Ale is much improved, keeps a head and has a very nice smoky taste, though I still think it could be a bit more substantial. The Stout is as good as it's going to get, which isn't to say it's not good, but it came out more like a porter than a stout, IMO (but drinkable, certainly). And the Hefe–you'll recall it was split into two batches–drew mixed reactions. Batch 1 is perfect, exactly what a hefeweizen should be, and Batch 2 is potentially contaminated, so if you hear the sounds of a man crying when you pass my house, it's me pouring a case of bad hefeweizen down the drain.

All told, it's nice to have Ben back, nice to be brewing again, and nice that I still have a six-pack of New Glarus offerings in my fridge. Next review will discuss NG Spotted Cow and Alt Bier.

M&B Brew Review—Late Summer Brewing Session

Once again, I've jumped the gun. After bottling on the 24th and 25th, I pulled out one each from our batches of Stout, Scottish Ale, Hefeweizen (carboy 1) and super-Hefeweizen (carboy 2)*. The results are as follows:

1. Stout: Not ready
2. Scottish Ale: Shows promise, but not ready
3. Hefe: Ready enough, but I think it will improve
4. Super-Hefe: Not ready.

I told wifey I'd had enough—I was just going to forget all about this beer for about three months. She took that to mean I wouldn't be drinking ANY beer for three months. We had a good laugh sorting all THAT out (by which I mean, I laughed and she did not). Patience is critical to good brewing, and that's always been a challenge for me. So I'm finding comfort in the knowledge that in several weeks, I'll have a lot of REALLY good beer to enjoy.

* We split the hefeweizen between two carboys, and carboy 2 had more yeast in it, so it carbonated a lot faster, seems to have some subtle flavor differences, etc. Hence "hefe" and "super-hefe."

250 Years Young

Here's a birthday celebration we can ALL get excited about: Guinness Stout celebrated its 250th birthday this year. First brewed in Dublin in 1759, Guinness has done as much as any beer to perpetuate the stereotype of Irishmen (like me) as drunken roustabouts. Let's celebrate with a Guinness–who's with me?