All Bottled Up

I bottled what I'm going to call the ESB on Saturday afternoon. Owing to a bit of imprecision over how much equals five gallons in the new glass carboy, I only had about four gallons and change of liquid which translated to 40 bottles. Actually, there was a bit more in the bottling bucket, but I had only sterilized 40 bottles, so that was all that went in. What to do with about a glass and a half of fermented, yet uncarbonated beer? Why, drink it, of course. I remain rather pleased and optimistic. Can't recall the color precisely off hand, but I do know that I tasted a bit of blackberry and raisin. This is similar to what I get from Fuller's bottled version of ESB, so I think I'm safe in dubbing it such.

Meanwhile, I'm having a glass of the Hefeweizen. It's been in the bottle long enough that it ought to have conditioned properly and I was quite pleased to see it pour with a nice full, rich head. It still tastes way too thick and underfermented, but it's good enough that it can be called a noble failure at worst.

Going to cook up some porter this weekend. In my head, I keep thinking of that as one of my favorite styles and yet I rarely drink it. I'm going to take one liberty with the instructions (still brewing from a kit). They have me putting the Cluster hops in for a full 60 minutes and then adding some Cascade at the end of the boil. I'm going to stagger the boiling hops in 15 minute increments. I'm hoping this gives the hop a bit more dimension. I'm also going to try that the next time I make Weissbier. That's one of the cool things about making beer: there's always room for improvement and always plenty of incentive. I'm not that big of a weissbier fan and yet, now that I've made some, I'd sort of like to make it as good as I can. Left to my own devices, I wouldn't go combing the world looking for the best weissbier I could find, but if I can make something lovely in my kitchen; well, that's worth the effort, isn't it?