Saturday was another brew day. My beer supply is falling drastically low. I have less then 15 bottles left that are drinkable. I have 50 bottles of Strawberry Blonde Ale, but it is still conditioning, and I have no clue when it will be ready. For this reason I decided to do something simple. I also had a friend coming over to check out the home brewing process. He’s considering diving into the home brew world, but wanted to see what he was getting in to. This is another reason why a simple beer was a good idea. So a cream ale it is. It will be good for the summer. I had my ingredients and was trying to work out a date with my friend to brew. I continued to think of different things I could add to the cream ale to make it better and more complex. I had to continuously remind myself that I was making a simple beer with a quick turnover to have something to drink. I wanted to play around with it, I wanted to make it unique, but sometimes you just want a simple beer. I continued to fight with myself, thinking of orange peels and vanilla beans in the secondary. Even now that sounds so good, and I have to tell myself to shut up. It is apparent that I need to get another brew going soon. We’ll see what ideas the wife has for my next beer. She always has interesting, unique and challenging ideas.
So, Saturday I put together the Cream Ale, super simple. It was fun getting to go over the process with my friend. He was surprised at the simplicity, as I’m sure most people would be. Making beer does not need to be complicated. There are simple ways to do it.
The other week my wife decided she wanted to make cider, so I racked that into the secondary while we were brewing the cream ale. The cider smelled great. It had a great cinnamon apple smell. The clarity is horrific, but I knew this was going to be an issue from the beginning. My wife added a vanilla bean and cinnamon stick to the secondary, after adding cinnamon nutmeg and brown sugar when she boiled it. It will be interesting to see how this turns out.
So, we have some cream ale and cider coming up. I’m not sure what’s next, but making this has me itching to make more.
Oh, and it looks like we might have another new home brewer. My friend was excited to try it himself.
Jotham Brewing 