Friday, April 6, 2007

Tapped Out

In other brewing news, I took twelve of our pint bottles home from Marco's, so that I could bring some of my "Rocky Raccoon's Crystal Honey Lager" (p.210) to my niece's first birthday party tomorrow. No, I'm not giving beer to babies, but we have some family from out of town coming in for the party who haven't had the opportunity to try it.

I'd intended to bring all twelve bottles, but there was only enough left in the keg to fill ten of them, plus a small taste (maybe 4oz) for me. Still, that's about 160oz of beer (depending on how close to one pint each is filled), compared with 144oz for a standard twelve-pack.

Incidentally, a cobra tap will work for moving beer from keg to bottle, but if you try it be prepared for a lot of filling, waiting for foam to subside, and re-filling. Growlers are much nicer in this respect, since you have a large volume to fill, and fewer bottles to mess with. Of course, if you have any suggestions for making this go more smoothly in the future, feel free to post them in the comments.

This marks a bittersweet point in my brewing. The honey lager was the first batch I brewed in my new house, and finishing it is an occasion of sorts. On the other hand, my philosophy had been, to paraphrase Gen. "Buck" Turgidson from "Dr. Strangelove": we cannot allow a homebrew gap! I haven't had the chance to start a second batch, however, so now I do, indeed, have a homebrew gap. At least, it's a gap in terms of what's available in my own home. Marco and I still have a bottle or two of non-archival Märzen, and there are the Dunkel and IPA conditioning.

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