2010 RECAP

So I didnt brew that much in 2010, for a number of reasons. Hoping to get back into it this year, & therefore kinda revamping the blog a bit, a bit @ a time. Though I didnt brew, I did drink a good bit of homebrew as I had full batches of both Bilbo's Brandywine & Braddock's Defeat. I plan to post about the Braddock's Defeat brewing sometime this week, a Heavy Scottish Ale, kinda like a Wee Heavy. It came out well. Here's a picture of the final bit of it, from a growler.

As for Bilbo's, here is a shot of the next to last bottle that was cracked on the night of Christmas. It was super good, & beautifully carbonated, unlike a lot of the early bottles I drank, which were much more syrupy.

And speaking of carbonation, that was one of my main lessons for the year. Both of these beers were pretty heavy (Braddock's was 1.085 OG & Bilbo's 1.096 OG), the biggest beers I've done up to this point, so it took patience to let them sit until well carbonated. But for the bottles I did let sit, it was definitely worth it.

Also, I had to throw out a batch this year for the first time. I brewed up Trappe Door batch 3, but had a mishap, when cooling the wort, a floating thermometer broke, releasing a bunch of metal balls into the pot. Ends up, those bad boys werent sanitized, & though I filtered them out, after fermentation, the beer tasted a bit like nail polish remover. Dump.

Anyway, I brewed up Monticello Door batch 2 last weekend, so I plan to post about both that one, as well as Braddock's Defeat in the coming week, going from there.