Annoyingly Boring?

Super Bowl Sunday was the first public unveiling of the product of my attempt at home brewing. I received a Mr. Beer Home Brewing Kit for Christmas. Sort of an EZ-Bake oven for home brewing. Seriously though, it is a starter kit that comes with everything you need to brew and bottle 2 gallons of beer. This is not from scratch brewing, but more like making a cake from a Betty Crocker mix.

Well, I started the process on December 31. My oldest helped me brew the batch and the next two helped by labeling the bottles that came in the kit.  I let it ferment for a couple of weeks and then bottled on January 14.  So when I popped one open Friday night it had almost 3 weeks to carbonate and condition in the bottle. I brewed the Bewitched Red Ale and it came out looking like this:

I gave it a try and it was pretty good.  I am terrible at trying to describe beers, but I will give it a shot. It had a pleasant malty/yeasty/toasty aroma, think warm bread.  The color as you can see was a reddish brown/amber.  Taste was pretty even a hint of sweetness pretty smooth, think Killian’s.  It could have had more body, it was a bit thin, not a ton of mouth feel.  I don’t know if more time in the ferment or in the bottle will help that.  I have a few bottles still aging and will give them a couple more weeks to see if there is any discernible difference.

A handful of people gave it a try at the Super Bowl party and either they were being kind, or they liked it.  My father-in-law even had a second mug of it.

All in all it was an enjoyable process and I look forward to my next batch.