Pssst

Drank my very first home brew tonight. (it's an IPA) It was not bad. Still a bit early to be drinking it but there was still pretty good carbonation. Made a nice sound when opened.

The big disappointment is that I kinda shot myself in the foot with this my first batch. When I bottled the beer I feared there was not enough yeast left in the beer after conditioning in the secondary. I could barely see any yeast on the bottom of the bottles. I panic-ed and shook up the bottles a lot to try and get what little yeast there was on the bottom back into solution. Well I now realize that there was always plenty of yeast in suspension even though I could not see them. However, what my excessive shaking did do was oxidize the beer. How do I know this? Well the beer has a slight cardboardy taste. Not too terrible but noticeable for sure. Lesson learnt.

As for the beer itself (taking into account the oxidation) it didn't taste bad at all. But then it didn't taste brilliant either. Most likely needs to age more. It will be interesting to see how it matures over the next few weeks.

But still, it was nice to finally drink my own home brew. I'm excited to improve my technique and my recipes so I end up with great beer.

BTW, You'll notice that beer is not clear. It was clear when it was conditioning in the bottle at room temperature. However, when it was put in the fridge it developed a "chill haze". This is due to certain proteins in the beer that cause hazing when the beer gets cold. There are ways to remove these proteins but that is a challenge for another day. For now I'll just enjoy the little incremental achievements.