What are you drinking ?

[jt]

Ok, so What Are You Brewing was a hotty, as topics go.

Now I'm 15 pints into a keg I only filled on Tuesday and wondering if anyone else has a favourite at the moment ?

It's my second brown with US-Oh05 and it's better than the forst, maybe Ikept the temps down a bit during the scorcher we had in januray

[Barry]

nah got flowed a sneaky quart. damn it's good. is hallertau getting some?!

[JoKing]

Yeah - I think Steve got 4 kegs of the stuff... Thanks again for your great work on the graphics Barry.

[Ally Mcg]

Rugby - meh. I'm watching it with a Mild, which is bottled. There are more bottles mere steps away and the bottle opener is even more handy.

Once the mild is finished it'll be on to try some of the Hallertau beers in bottles. Possible yum awaits

[MrC]

Just dinking a glass of my Belgian Blonde. There's been something annoying me about this beer and I've finally figured it out. I've started using Citric Acid to acidify my mash and sparge water a little and the taste is coming through in the lighter beers. It's not offensive, just a little annoying. No more citric acid for Mr Cherry's beers from here on!

[Mike Neilson]

Acid rest or Lactic its the only way to go, considering mash ph is one of the most important things in the whole art.

[MrC]

How about Tartaric?

[Mike Neilson]

Yeah I actully had to use it on the weekend, After my wife chucked it out, she thought it was an empty power aid bottle, It had about 50mls of acid left in it or about 10 brews!! Its actually amazing how long 200mls can last!! I got it about this time last year!!

[Daniel Parker]

I have been giving this some thought lately.. What do you think of splitting this thread into one that relates to Home Brew, and the other to Commercial Beer?

My reasoning is basically I get bored with hearing 'Im trying my XYZ beer that I made and its awesome..' yet I have no way of trying said brew, so have no chance of having any input. With commercial beer, anyone that wants to can have an opinion.

Anyway, obviously I have a bias here, as I dont brew, but still have a love of beer.

[Barry]

Or even better, if any of you non-brewers feel hard done by, ask the brewer if you can give it a nudge. Most of us, especially those of us who keg, won't have any problem throwing some into a 750ml PET bottle and sending it over.

I would add to that, with commercial beer not everyone can have an opinion. For example, there's plenty of Wellingtonians who feel out of sorts everytime a Galbraiths seasonal gets on tap and they don't happen to have an Auckland trip planned.
Likewise for me, whenever there's a stray keg of anything Yeastie I get the call the whole 1 keg available is on tap "right now" at Galbraiths but I have no chance to make it up there within the 48 hour window.
And the two most notable Auckland brewers having a tendency to release their latest and greatest at the Malthouse, when Auckland might be lucky to get a solitary keg within that week on a Friday night at Hallertau but more realistically have to wait for bottle stock to hit the shelves which sells out within the week and there's no more to be seen in the entire country.

That and the fact that the Emersons Brewers Reserves that we only hear about when they get a run at Regional as fill-your-own will likely NEVER GET TO AUCKLAND AS LONG AS I'M ALIVE.

Anyways, anything I post about that I've brewed I'd be more than happy to send you some :)

[Daniel Parker]

I do agree with you about Emersons Brewers Reserves etc.. While they are sold I don't consider them commercial beers, rather experimental brews. Maybe I need to redefine what I meant in my original post.. maybe I really mean commercially bottled / canned beer.

[Barry]

Yeah that's probably my point more than anything. as with home brews, there's plenty of commercially sold beer that a majority percentage of people can't ever try. Where do you draw the line?
For me, I would hardly ever - once in a blue moon - post in "what are you drinking" about any beer I've made. So for any post I make there's at least one other person who benefits from the critique and the mention.

[Daniel Parker]

To reply to myself.. Maybe three threads, Home Brew, Commercial Kegged, and Bottled / Canned?