Experiment in Brewing #1: Czech Pilsner

First, I want to apologize to my friend Wolf Lindell (@barleywolf) for this extremely long overdue blog post about beer. Wolf was good enough to take a blog challenge back in the fall about his journey to work; after documenting his daily adventure, he challenged me to write a post about beer... Months passed and I never got around to it and then just when I was thinking about doing the post, I started brewing my own beer. There is a group of gents from KIS who live in my apartment complex and all brew, so I joined in on the experimenting. In my mind I thought, why write about a beer I purchased at a store, when I could wait a little longer and write about my own beer. Which brings us to today, my first attempt at beer is ready to drink!

The photos are proof that the experiment worked, but what about the taste? The pilsner is a little darker than I expected; it has the reddish tint of an amber rather than the pilsner; but, I admit a fair amount of ignorance about Czech Pilsners, so perhaps this is normal. I bottled my beer in 1.5L bottles and the recipe was for 1L bottles, so I naturally added more sugar than was called for, but it must have been a bit of an overkill, because when I opened the first bottle -- foam came rolling out of it. And, it continued to foam for quite some time; and, the foam failed to stop -- I finally tipped the bottle and poured Aysem (@Aysem_bray) and myself a glass each. The beer isn't clear, but there is no visible sentiments or impurities to be seen either. The aroma is heavy with hops and malt. The taste is between an amber and pilsner, with the clean after taste of the amber and the simple fore taste of a pilsner; plus, the beer is wonderfully bubbly. Delightful! It has been worth the month long wait to taste it. Hopefully Wolf will think this blog post is worth the six month he has been waiting.

The Woomi Squirrel Brewery has produced another successful beer and another brewer has been born. I will put my beer to the test on Cinco de Mayo, when the brewers and their supporters will have a BBQ and taste test in the park behind the Woomi Apartment complex. It should be a fun afternoon with colleagues and friends. Today JP picked up the fermenter and is planning to begin his first batch as well. Thanks to Ben (@bensummerton), Lloyd, Jeff, and Kevin for the encouragement. It is time for you guys to taste the latest brew.

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