Woo-hoo! After many years of wishing and pondering on making beer, and after many weeks of first brewing, then doing all the necessary follow up work (tasting, nibs/vanilla bean additions, kegging, etc.), the 4-year veteran of homebrewing and friend of mine, Jeff Patterson, who helped me brew my first beer in Pleasant Hill, CA and myself finished up the process and bottled a Robust Chocolate Porter (with hints of vanilla). The whole process has been amazing, and has taught me firsthand that making beer is mostly about sanitation (think: "Glorified Janitor" as job description), with a generous dose of waiting, sprinkled with as liberal-as-practical amounts of beer drinking and rapping about our favorite beers and breweries, and then somewhere in there is a light fairy dusting of actual brewing and fermenting the beer itself..(oh, and the shopping for ingredients! Much fun in and of itself-like when you were a kid planning your big adventures on paper..).
So how did it turn out? We were pleased. It was a beer that I would want to drink myself, and that's what I wished for at the beginning. It was as good, if not better, than I expected. Ten gallons were brewed, and we each took half. Jeff will be bringing the beer to the 34th Annual National Homebrewers Conference (www.ahaconference.org/) June 21-23rd in Seattle, WA; wish Jeff the best with it! As for public reaction so far, I've sampled it for my co-workers at my restaurant (Mankas Corner in Suisun Valley, where I'm behind the bar), as well as for my partner Lynn, and the response has been very solid and positive. It's rich, dark, chocolatey and tastes great by itself, and with some good dark chocolate! We look forward to brewing this beer again soon, but first will be tackling an organic, caramel-amber Rye, with some mild aromatic hops to it. Looking forward to that. Cheers!
So how did it turn out? We were pleased. It was a beer that I would want to drink myself, and that's what I wished for at the beginning. It was as good, if not better, than I expected. Ten gallons were brewed, and we each took half. Jeff will be bringing the beer to the 34th Annual National Homebrewers Conference (www.ahaconference.org/) June 21-23rd in Seattle, WA; wish Jeff the best with it! As for public reaction so far, I've sampled it for my co-workers at my restaurant (Mankas Corner in Suisun Valley, where I'm behind the bar), as well as for my partner Lynn, and the response has been very solid and positive. It's rich, dark, chocolatey and tastes great by itself, and with some good dark chocolate! We look forward to brewing this beer again soon, but first will be tackling an organic, caramel-amber Rye, with some mild aromatic hops to it. Looking forward to that. Cheers!
RSS Feed
