December Samples

A brew day is always a great chance to rack the fermenting beers, get beers into kegs and of course to sample them.   We have two beers headed to keg right now and one other that, well, we’ll see what happens with it.

Eggnog Stout – The first beer that I got a taste of was our Eggnog Stout.  The beer of course isn’t finished yet as it hasn’t gone through carbonation, but the taste was a great smooth flavor that starts nice a mellow with a hint of eggnog spices, then a nice malty roasty stout.  This beer is headed to keg right now and it’ll be a great winter ale.

Maple Porter – Second up was our porter.  This is also headed to keg shortly but isn’t yet carbonated.  The first sip of this wasn’t quite what I expected.  It starts with a somewhat strong alcoholic taste then mellows into the roastyness of the porter and finally finishes with a lingering maple taste.  I’m hoping that the carbonation and getting the beer to serving temperature will help cut the alcoholic taste and balance out the beer.

Chardonnay/Apple Cider – Well this one was an experiment from the start and I haven’t given up on it at all, but it’s certainly not what I was hoping for it to be.  There is a bit of a sulphur taste that comes across on the nose and follows a bit on the taste.  It’s fermented very dry but has a background flavor that I do like.  I’m going to leave it alone for a while longer and see if the flavors mellow out a bit.  We might need to do some back sweetening or other gimmickry to it before we are ready to serve it but I hope we will at some point.