William the Bastard – Label and two week tasting
Here is the (simplistic) label we designed for this batch:
It is a little bit on the “long” side but it should still fit on our bottles nicely. Next batch I hope to get into color labels and I will just have them printed at the local print shop.
Yesterday (Monday, February 1, 2011) we cracked the last 1 liter bottle of beer that we had filled. It was not completely filled like the others so it makes a good choice for the first taste test. We popped it open – and I mean popped. I pushed the swing top lid and a very loud pop resulted. Good sign that we got it carbonated.
The beer poured beautifully with just over one finger of head. So far so good.
As we took our initial smells we both agreed that there was a bit of a funky aroma going on with this beer. I am too inexperienced at home brewing to know exactly what or why this is. I have a suspicion that it is just because our beer is still so green and needs to bottle condition a few more weeks.
It has been in the bottle for about 2 weeks and our understanding is that it is thought to be best to wait 1 month before drinking it. Hopefully over the next little while the aroma mellows out to something more pleasing.
As for the taste…it was green but very good. The weird smell was definitely not in the taste of the beer. It is still young but was quite tasty. I can already see that our adaptation of this kit from a Cream Ale to a Northern English Brown Ale has been successful. I hope some more complexity develops in the flavors but as it is now it is already clearly the style we were going for.
We each downed just under a pints worth and were left satisfied with our efforts and hopeful for the remaining 21 liters.
I’ll post pictures next time I open one up.
beerisseur 