Getting good feedback...

After getting your opinions on here, as well as my friends opinions, and including the owner of my LHBS, I've decided to enter two of my best beers in the National Homebrew Competition. I have some preparation time which will give me a chance to create my labels, and decide which two I want to enter.

To be clear, I'm not entering for competition sake as much as I'm interested in getting some feedback and I'm just interested to see how well it holds up against the other beers entered. It's certainly cheap enough to enter and I want to get into this more deeply, but one has to walk before they can crawl.

I'm really looking forward to this and I will keep you all posted on progress and labels, etc. The only downside I could possibly see to entering these competitions is that if you do somewhat decently, you have to submit your recipe for publishing... which, if it's an award winning recipe, it may not be something you'd want to publicize.

This weekend, amidst the St. Patrick's insanity and the open bar that I'm attending at Philadelphia famous Chickie & Pete's, I will be trying to work on my labels and making sure I've got all the rules down and really focus on getting the most out of this experience.

Feel free to leave comments, I will be updating soon. Any tips, suggestions, or comments about the process are encouraged. I need all the help I can get at this point!

Thanks for reading!

Keepin' on Brewin'

We now have 4 beers in the making... I've written about the Gold Ale, and the Honey Amber Ale... but have since brewed a Chocolate Stout 1.5 and a Hefeweizen.

The Gold Ale has been in bottles for nearly a month now. We tasted a bottle last week and it is coming along very nicely. If I were to do this beer again, I would most likely lighten up on the finishing hops as it has a rather bitter after taste. This is all personal preference, however, because I know plenty of hop heads that would thoroughly enjoy this beer... but I am no self-proclaimed hophead.

The Honey Amber Ale, my brainchild, is also coming along well. The honey added a fantastic touch to this beer. We tasted a bottle of this last week also, however it's only been in bottles for two weeks. It's not quite done yet, as it has a higher sugar content. The gravity of this beer will ring in at about 6.5% when all is said and done.

We are trying to get prepared for the warmer weather with the Hefeweizen. It has been racked into our new 6.5 gallon primary fermenter. We are going to try something different with this one and leave it in the primary for about 3 weeks, and skip secondary all together. Our past two batches we have used a two step fermentation process, but according to many at The Brewing Network, our method is rather old-school and unnecessary so we're going to try it this way. I am also thinking of adding a bit of orange zest to the carboy soon to add some extra flavor to the beer. I think the fruit will be a nice touch.

I know what you're thinking.... adding fruit to beer violates man laws. Well, the Belgians have been doing it for years and have created some fantastic beers, and the group that came up with such man laws was Miller Brewing Co. I think I'll take my instruction from someone who knows how to make a beer with flavor.

The Chocolate Stout 1.5 has been in the plastic 6.5 gallon fermenter, and we're going to transfer it to the glass 5 gallon. This way we have the opportunity to brew another beer and rack to primary, as well as have the plastic bucket ready for bottling when the time comes.

More to come soon... please leave comments!

Keep on Brewin'