A New Era in Brewing

School's out, for the witner break, at least. Now I have nothing to do. When not working, and between episodes of Arrested Developement, I've been thinking about the Christmas present I'm going to buy for myself: A 5 gallon soda keg! With all the trimmings, of course. No more tedious bottling of beers. No more tedious sanitation of each individual bottle. No sir, I will be kegging from now on, except for bottling a few beers from each batch, for aging purposes. Someday, if I'm feeling ambitious enough and the wallet allows, I may try aging beer in oak barrels. Although expensive, it seems like it would be a really interesting, and hopefully rewarding, experience.

On a somewhat irrelevant side note, I'm thinking about celebrating Hanukkah this year. Seems like it would be fun, but I've got no idea where to start. And I want to try not to offend anybody or blaspheme anything. I do enough of that already.

Damn you, ever-changing ale!

The budget ale I last wrote of is toying with my emotions. After sitting in my room for over a month, the flavor profile has changed yet again. The honey malt is definately there. The hops, luckily, have been toned down a bit. Don't get me wrong, I love hops, but they seemed to be too much for the malt profile of this one. Not so, it seems. I was just getting ready to dump it, too. Maybe not.

This is learning. This is also great. If this turns out to be even the tiniest bit drinkable, I may not have to buy any beer for the week! Although, I like to experiment and may have to pick up something new anyways. I say "if" because I am currently drinking it at room temperature, which is probably somewhere around 70 degrees. I put one in the fridge, so when I get home from work tonight, we'll see how things go.

Cheers, and happy brewing!