Monday, May 4, 2009

Drinking My First Home Brewed...Brew

So the day has finally arrived. Time to see if my hard work (if you want to call it that) paid off by trying a bottle of the first batch I ever made. Remember, the ingredients were sub-par, it was my first time (tee-hee), yadda yadda yadda, and whatever other excuses I can add in here. This bottle was bottled and left for carbonating in the basement at room temperate, ~66 deg. Fahrenheit, for two weeks, then put in the fridge overnight. I'll review it like any other beer, but I'm not expecting much. So I present to you....

Mikey's Pale Ale



Appearance: A very light golden yellow (the pic makes it look amber, but believe me, its yellow), extremely crisp and clear, about half a finger of head that disappears pretty quickly, hell I'm glad/relieved there is any carbonation whatsoever.

Smell: A very light and slight floral hop smell eminates from the brew, with a tinge of either citrus or something sour, I'm a little worried about the sour part...

Taste: Actually, it's not too bad, by that I mean I'm not vomitting, a light citrus hop flavor with almost no malts to speak of, which isn't surprising since if you can remember, the ingredients were the pale ale malt extract and the Booster, Sierra Nevada Pale Ale it isn't, but it's not embarrassingly bad.

Mouthfeel: Watery, light, thin, slightly carbonated, barely any alcohol sensation, but it is alcoholic at least.

Drinkability: Light, watery, thin, barely any noticeable hops, a little sour...hmmm...I've made Coors Light! All joking aside, it is somewhat drinkable in that someone might want to drink more than one to be nice to me, but I don't know how many I could have. The only difference between this beer and the mass produced light beers is a tinge of bitterness, different hop flavors, and a little sourness which I will attribute to sanitization issues, yet the sourness isn't that extreme. Actually I would almost compare this to alcoholic apple juice, like a cider. All in all, considering I had absolutely horrible expectations when sampling the fermenter, I'm pleasantly surprised it turned out ok. It also gives me hope for the batch Jimmy and I brewed. I give this a 3/10, but I'm a little biased because it's my baby! I'll have to give it to the other hopheads to sample and see what they say. Happy home brewing!

Glass type: Sam Adams glass
Serving type: Bottle

1 comment:

Jimmy said...

How dare you serve Coors light in a Sam Adams glass! But yes congrats to creating and drinking your first brew; a definite milestone in your career. I like your mouthfeel line: "...but it is alcoholic at least."