Triumphs and Travesties in Homebrewing

As you may recall, I had been brewing up a storm in preparation for my wedding which takes place this coming Saturday. I made two batches of Honey Duvel, two batches of Kolsch, and a Grand Cru. In the end, both Duvels turned out to be straight up Belgian dubbels, which is fine but not what I’d intended. One batch of kolsch was delicious and I “accidentally” consumed most of it by August. Oops! I figured I would be bailed out by the second batch of kolsch, but how wrong I was. For the first time ever my beer didn’t turn out at all right! I guess I didn’t rinse the santizer out of the carboy entirely, because each bottle of beer tastes vaguely of sanitizer, and that’s just no good. At least the Grand Cru is what it should be!

But the surprise of the month was finding that the mead I started in February had finally cleared and was ready to drink. And what a fine drink it is! Clear, crisp, honey-hued, sweet and delicious! So we’ll be serving that at the wedding for sure. I’ll post some photos later.

This, along with the availability of gorgeous local blackberries at the farmer’s market, inspired me to start a batch of blackberry mead this weekend. 15lbs of local honey, a half-flat of local blackberries, water, and yeast. Such delightful simplicity!