Kevin's lemon: Bottled

I always forget to take FG before I add the priming sugar. Today's bottling of Kevin's lemon was no different.

Then I always start out to rationalize my forgetfulness with the following internal monologue.

"That's OK, you can just take it from the sample bottle, or from a bottle you don't finish."

"You always say that, but never do"

"I will this time, I promise!"

"I don't believe you."

"I know, I don't believe me either."

The beer was 'very beery!' according to Esther, as I was bottling. She's right, its particularly spicy (both from the yeast and spices) and phenolic smelling. I'm looking forward to see how the mouthfeel of the oats plays against what I think was good attenuation. Bottled the 5.5 gallons with 7oz of cane sugar for a ~3.0volumes CO2.

I decided this would be a good time to try the Bruery's Orchard White, a lower abv version of what I was shooting for in this beer. Theirs: a spiced Belgian wit, brewed with oats and wheat, 5.8%abv. Poured a very thin looking and spritzy hazy witbier. Smells very spicy, soft and wheaty. Tastes...carbonated! prickly on the tongue, and apparently a very low FG, I would have expected more silky mouthfeel from the use of oats. This beer is VERY low. Almost as though they added bugs and dropped the FG to near nothing. To me, though, still a session beer, it could have used some remaining body, given the wheat and oats. Nope, nothing. And perhaps a bit too spiced (hard for me to discern between the added spices and contributed yeast flavors, which is nice, actually).

Huh, I'm sure some people will love this beer, but I'll look elsewhere when I want a nice summer spiced Belgian wit and I don't want to drop 9.50 on a 750ml.

Anyway, back to the post: Kevin's lemon. This one will hopefully have a bit more of that oaty silk in the mouth, be a little more subtley spiced. But, most of all, I hope it is something that Kevin will appreciate and enjoy.

Very much looking forward to raising a glass to my good friend Kevin.