Well, despite what the last review said, I was really impressed with the clarity of the beer. It's really, really clear - crystal clear one might say, as the photos show. That's where the good points end though, I'm afraid to say.
The top came off the bottle with a nice pop and a decent head formed upon pouring. However, there just wasn't much body - the beer was rather thin and the head dissipated pretty quickly. The colour was too dark for a pale ale, being a mid-amber hue more than anything.
There was a strong fruity smell, which I think was estery. I'll readily admit that I'm not experienced enough to be 100% certain but from the various guides to beer off-flavours that are available online (like this one), estery smells and flavours are my best bet for what was going on. Beyond the fruity tastes, there wasn't really much else going on, with no discernible hop character at all.
Looking back at my notes for this one, I don't think the fermenting temperature was too high, being 18-19C all the way through. I'm more inclined to think that the fruity taste was both an inherent product of the English yeast used and also due to the long ferment time. I racked this on day 19, after a really slow ferment.
My latest thinking is to use cleaner-tasting American yeast and more of it. I used 2 packets of US-05 for the latest batch and it was finished in about 5 days, with really encouraging results so far. I talked to a pro brewer about this last week and his beers stay in the FV for 7 days before racking so I hope I'm on the right lines here.
I'm currently planning to use 2 packs of US-05 for my next 2 brews, to keep this variable the same, before moving to reused or harvested yeast from then on.
So to sum up, Hedgehog Down wasn't great but it was another step along the learning curve.
No comments:
Post a Comment