August 25, 2006

I stopped at Shoreline last night and picked up a few nice-to-haves.  First, they’ve never carried it before (that I’ve seen), but they had a few Chouffe selections on-hand.  I picked up the “Houblon Chouffe Dobbelen IPA Tripel”, sort of a tripel married to an IPA that sounds intriguing.  Also picked up a Fantôme Saison D’Erezée – Hiver (their “winter” offering from their seasonal line… this must be close to a year old at least!) and a Reissdorf Kölsch.  Also drank the Fuller’s London Porter last night, which was exemplary.  Now I’ve never really reviewed a beer, so don’t expect me to wax prosaic along the lines of “pours a dense black liquid beneath a fluffy brown cloud” cause I didn’t take notes or anything, just drank it and enjoyed it.  A very nice porter, indeed.

August 22, 2006

Finally got around to bottling the Rye IPA the other night (Aug 20), and boy is that sucker bitter!  I’m hoping it’ll mellow out a bit over the next couple weeks.  I was lower on bottles than I thought, so I had to mix it up pretty much.  Used 8 22oz bombers, 14 of my older, heavier, nicer 12oz bottles, and the rest the newer, lighter, cheaper, not as nice 12ozers.  Oh, and it did drop a couple more points in the three week secondary, so finished at 1.020.  Target was 1.018, so it’s close but no cigar.  From a start of 1.074, that gives… 73% attenuation.