Wednesday, May 05, 2010

Deja Brew - bottling night - last week

The brew crew bottled our batch at Deja Brew last week (yes, I am behind and catching up).

Olde English Strong Ale - A very strong, dark & malty English Ale - O
A Great BOD - Our Version of Boddingtons’s Bitter. A nice Ale - B
Dublin’s Half - A light hopped Harp’s Style. The pale half of a black and tan. - D
Mile High Lager - A Coors style beer - M
Red Tail Ale - A medium bodied red ale, good hop bouquet but balanced in taste - R
Maple Stout - One of the best stouts you’ll ever taste. You provide the Maple Syrup - MS

The letter at the end of the beers indicates the designation on the bottle cap for the contents. The bottlers usually work in teams of two. One drawing into the bottle from the keg. The second capping the bottle. As the bottle is capped, it is put into a case. Two bottles into a case, and then the case is moved along to the next station. Six stations later the case is full of twelve bottles, two each kind of brew for the six kettles we made.

The brew crew was short handed due to schedule complications so we were mostly bottling and capping at the same time and putting six in a case. A share of the output is three cases so you still ended up with an equal mix of all the kettles but it was a little less work given the short-handed crew.

Other than the sampling (quality control measures for sure) on bottling night, I have been busy and unable to taste more than one of the output. No worries, I expect they will all be good. I am looking forward to enjoying them.