Smiles All Around

Today was the day that I took my Dirty Snowman Ale to the select Masses for a taste of an idea. And the over all was it was great! out of the 20 people I had taste this young beer. 50% said they would buy it out of a store, 20% said it wasn't too bad but not great, and the final 30 % said it wasn't to their liking.  I'll take this as a HUGE success! I had three people ask me when they could buy it in the market which is the highest compliment you can receive!  It really needs another week to mellow then I'll post another update :)

Dirty Little Snowman Ale is Bottled and ready to Carbonate!

 DLSA is in the bottle and awaiting it's fate around Christmas. The aroma is awesome and the flavor is Great! I'm the proud dad of 5 gallons of beer! It will probably mellow a little in the bottle but like an anxious father, I'm waiting to get the final grade card of their kid in the mail... Bottling took about an from cleaning out the first bottle to capping the last. I'm beginning to use more of the PET plastic bottles which I have has good success with so far. They are NOT dishwasher safe just in case you were curious. They turn shapes non-conducive to refilling with beer! I fill at least 1 bottle of each batch with them because they are a very easy great way to gauge how well a batch is conditioning once bottled. I also love my flip top bottles. They are easy to use and clean and they have a fun look to them. This will be the first batch that I've used my printable labels I mentioned in a previous blog. I'll post pictures and a review as soon as I have some bubbles!

I also had a primary fermenter malfunction and went ahead and moved the Choco-de-Bock-Ale into a Better Brew Bottle to insure that the seal is good. I look forward to buying a new Primary on Friday. Not sure where the air leak was but I'm confident that the amount of Co2 being produced in it's first days would have kept positive pressure in the primary until I moved it today. I went ahead and added 2 more ounces of the cocoa nibs since this is kinda sorta not really a secondary? But as far as color goes, it's chocolate through and through! And I just checked on it and it seems to be very happy with it's new home. It may blow out it's trap tonight....