Saturday, January 9, 2010

Good things come to those who wait

A break from my reviews of beers from my recent trip to Durango, CO. But instead a lesson learned from home brewing.

As you may remember, I've been experimenting with brewing my own beer with a Mr. Beer home brew kit. Back in July I brewed up a batch of German Hefeweizein.  It was an interesting experiment because it uses a mix of some standard Mr. Beer recipes but also adds some hops pellets during the fermentation.  The instructions for this recipe also recommend lagering the beer for at least a month.

So I dutifully let it ferment the proper amount of time (I generally go a week longer than any given recipe recommends), bottled it and let it lager for the one month recommended period.  And when the day came to open it and savor my labors I was ..... underwhelmed.

Flavor was bleah... flat... limited.... nothin'.   It was the first batch I'd brewed that I really didn't want to drink.

So I remembered back to my reading about lagering improving the flavor and let it sit.  Each time I walked by I was thought about giving it another chance but decided against it.

Last night, after letting it lager for 4+ months I figured it was time to give it a shot.  And you know what?  IT ROCKED!   It didn't pour like a standard hefeweizen (with the unfiltered cloud) and looked almost like an amber in the glass.  But it not only tasted like a full hefeweizen but also finished off with enough hint of hop that it had a very pleasant aftertaste.

And the lesson learned?  Have patience.  Not every batch/beer/project is going to be perfect right off the bat.  But it's okay to experiment and give things a chance.  And now I'm really looking forward to the rest of this batch.

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