Blood, Sweat & Beers: From Boil to Bottle

Wednesday night, Rena and I got a taste of what we boiled and strained and placed in a closet two and a half weeks ago. Despite its flatness and unfinished character and worrisome dark amber hue in the carboy, that green aroma was there. The hop bite was there. The unfinished-yeast-business sweetness of my only previous brew, 10 years back, was not there. And neither were apple, bubble gum, or any other funky flavors. It tasted like an incomplete IPA—exactly what it was. And we smiled.

Stirring hops into the wort

The IPA-ness of the noncarbonated beer wasn’t just heartening because it indicated we’d done at least some things right on brew day; it proved (hopefully) that bacteria hadn’t invaded the fermenter after it blew its airlock top two days in and sat there, open and vulnerable, for at least six hours. Nor had any Clint-bacteria jumped down the carboy’s neck as I re-sanitized and re-inserted  both stopper and airlock in an awkward, nervous crouch.

We may have ruined everything, however, by introducing oxygen into the brew while bottling.

That’s what happens when you’re not adept at siphon-wielding. And when you fill several screw-top bottles, attempt to cap them with crowns, freak out and curse and accuse not one but two cap crimpers of being suddenly broken, snap off a glass thread in overeager frustration, slice open your knuckles, and finally realize you’re a moron and have no choice but to dump the beer back into the bottling bucket.

When all of our bottles—save one third-full taster—were filled, capped, checked, and tidily grouped like a boot camp regiment on the closet floor, it was time to giddily reflect on how we’d gotten to that point.

There was the six-hour brew day, of course. The savoring of authentic brewhouse aromas saturating the house. The yeast pitching and carboy shaking. But one of the best parts of our quest to create our own beer was prepping bottles.

No, not de-labeling and washing and sanitizing bottles. Those were three separate and distinct headaches. (Literally—I crashed my skull into a wall while completing phase three. Blood spilled for a noble cause.) I mean imbibing the liquid in the bottles; emptying those suckers with a twofold purpose. For business (of sorts) and pleasure.

Be sure to wear proper beer-logo attire on brew day

No, we couldn’t have bottled our beer without the help of, among others, the New Belgium folks (Ranger IPA), Sierra Nevada (Tumbler and Torpedo), Widmer (Deadlift) and a host of NW craft brewers for their 22oz offerings. Of all our unknowing glass suppliers, though, West Seattle’s own Schooner EXACT brewing and new-ish bottle shop The Beer Junction get the most elaborate tip of our caps. If Morgan at the Junction didn’t host a Schooner tasting during which one could purchase 32oz flip-tops of the brewery’s offerings—their new, limited Black IPA and Wee Heavy are simply superb—I’d have had many more bottles to clean and cap. (And now, when our brew is gone, we can refill the big bombers for under $5, right at the Junction.)

We’ll re-crack the first (and likely the second, third, fourth …) of these bottles in about two weeks.

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