On Friday afternoon, after 18 months of waiting, I dipped a tasting straw into the carboy. It was the moment of truth. Would this be my brewing masterpiece or would it taste like rotten cat urine? A year and a half ago I started this journey and shared a little bit about my attempt at this epic beer as well as a peek at how Beer has saved and changed the world over history.
Two of my many goals in living this life outside the maze have been:
- #1 always have a home brew on tap
- #2 some day brew my favorite beer style, which is usually only attempted by Belgian monks and master brewers.
So far my cup has runneth over with time and means. I’ve always had a home brew of some sort available to taste. With gratitude, I can call that a win on my list of adventures. As far as my attempt at a brewing masterpiece, it has been a long road…
I Remember My First Beer
The first batch of beer I ever made was in a dorm room when I was 19. I opened a can of extract, added it to water, and pitched in some yeast. A month later I had my first home brew. It tasted like wet cardboard mixed with rotten bread. Still to my friends it was “free beer!”…and no one went blind so hey that’s a win.
Beer Capital
Today, by some strange stroke of luck, I live in the greatest place for beer in the USA. Across town, Coors pumps out 682 million gallons of beer every year. That same “Rocky Mountain water” comes right out of my faucet. A few miles East of my backdoor, The Great American Beer Festival is held every year. In fact, Colorado has more microbreweries per capita than any other state. The contemporary craft beer revolution and American Homebrewers Association were started right here in the 70s. Heck, our Governor started Colorado’s first brewpub which has even made beer out of bull testicles (sorry but it is true).
Something Crazy Is Brewing
A far cry from that first beer I made back in that college dorm, my all grain beer involved mashing 6 types of malted grains, a couple different hops strains, and brewing it all together for a primary and then secondary fermentation with roasted oak chips for cask type conditioning. After waiting one year, I repeated the whole process and made a 2nd identical batch. Waiting 6 more months, both carboys had a pellicle of growth over the top (this is normal). Tasting was not for the faint of heart:
Did I keep the airlocks full for all 18 months? Did I make any sanitizing mistakes in either batch during the making or the transfers to secondary? I half expected one or both to taste like malt vinegar. It was a huge relief when the taste was true to the style and there were no off flavors. I guess it’s like building a house of cards. It’s always amazing that the final product stands when any mistake could have toppled it. In the end, all it took was being careful during each step of building. The flavor is a little lighter and less sweet than most Flemish reds that I have tasted. However, it has the full complexity with layers of oak, cherry, maltiness, and bitterness. It’s more than any brewing dilettante could expect out of his kitchen and basement mad scientist lab.
I mixed the 2 batches 50/50, primed, and pitched more bottling yeast. I filled bottles with a huge smile on my face:
Beer and Life
When I first started this beer I was just at the beginning of putting together the first ten posts that would become Life Outside The Maze. I think of all the changes that have happened over the last year and a half. I also think about the use of process to get results. Whether it is beer, finances, or life, results often come with diligence and commitment over longer periods of time than many of us would prefer…but the results do come. Now to crack into a bull testicle stout while I wait another month for my brew to carbonate and settle…
