Bottle Day - 100% Brett IPA

I have been having some stomach issues which means no alcohol.  I have not done much with home brewing the past week or so but I did finally get around to bottling my 100% Brett IPA.  It was only supposed to be dry hopped for 3 days according to the recipe I was using but it ended up being a week.  Hope there is no bad side effects from this longer dry hopping.  I tasted it while going into the bottling bucket and my goodness!  Greatest tasting IPA I have made.  Very tropical and full of citrus flavors.  Pineapple juice flavors with bright grapefruit flavors.  Amazing.  Can only hope that the finished product tastes as good.

It seems like this 100% Brett Trois IPA could be a beer that I need to make more and more of.  Fingers crossed.

Flanders Red Sour Currant Ale - Tasting Day (Early)

So I wanted to test and see how carbonation worked with pitching new yeast prior to bottling.  The sour cherry version did not carb up well without any additional yeast added at bottling so the thought was if I put fresh yeast - in this case red wine yeast - in with my sugar solution it would carbonate a bit quicker and fall into the two week range.

This week was the two week mark so I opened up a bottle and only got a small "pffft" sound from the bottle.  Surely not carbonated to where it should be.

I tasted the beer and it is much better than the sour cherry version that was full of oak.  The currant version had a much more wine-like flavor going into the bottle and it seems to have held on to that much better.  Still a stronger oak presence than I wanted but keep in mind I am breaking in a smaller barrel that will impart its flavor much more quickly.

When I grabbed the bottle from my beer chamber (a small storage space under the stairs in my basement) I noticed the bottles were pretty cold already.  I am going to move the case upstairs for another two weeks and revisit.  More detailed notes at that time.

100% Brett Trois IPA - Follow Up

Just a quick follow up about the Brett Trois IPA.  After about 8 days in primary the gravity is down to 1.010 and possible even down to 1.009.  It smells like super ripe fruit and has a very over ripe fruit taste.  I get a pineapple juice flavor.  Maybe a hint of mango.  Hop flavor is still pretty strong and it will get even better once I dry hop with even more Citra, Centential and Chinook.

It is a very bright cloudy yellow with the yeast still in suspension.  Looks great.

Cant wait to bottle and taste the final product.