Bottling Over the Weekend!

Seems like a good time for an an update.

We bottled on Saturday night, managing to get a case of the Hibernation clone (recipe #3) and about forty-eight 12 oz servings of the Winter Belgian into their own drinking vessels.

Things generally went smoothly during the process. Oxyclean was a big help in de-labeling the empty bottles, and I went through a soak and scrape process Friday and Saturday to prep enough bottles. We are already ahead of the game for the next bottling; I'd say there are about 20-30 bottles ready to go.

We tasted the Hibernation the other day, and thought it was a nice compliment, if maybe lighter bodied, to it's cousin. I'll be very curious to see them side by side, but we need to wait for carbonation.

The Winter Belgian was very pungent on the nose, but was surprised that the spice smell didn't really hit the flavor of the beer. It's a meaty style, I'd say, and probably not session-able, but I think it's going to be a big winner. Very impressed with how that one is going.

We need to get some things on the calendar...the Saison and the Pumpkin porter deserve to be racked this week, and we have all the ingredients to brew the small batch rye. That needs to happen this week.