There’s nothing more glorious than waking up to have your bathroom smell like hops.
Last night, I bottled roughly 10 gallons of beer. This will be the final time I bottle beer in my Dayton rental home. Next week, I am saying goodbye to the Midwest and making my way to the coastal state of Maryland, just outside of Baltimore.
A little more than two weeks ago, I brewed my “Parting Is Such Sweet Sorrow” IPA. Last week, around this time, I dry-hopped that batch with a ton of Centennial. I didn’t bother to weigh; I dumped hops into a 2oz measuring glass. Therefore, I have no idea what the actual weight is. When I removed the lid on the bucket, though, to dry-hop, the entire lid was just covered in beautiful mountains of hops. This sucker fermented vigorously. The end result was 48 bottles, which include 5-6 bombers, which are much bigger bottles than your normal size. A massive yield that will tide my need for IPAs over for a long while.
The second batch…well, I am not proud to admit this. Like with gardening and other outdoor-related hobbies, when it got cold, I got lazy and forgetful. So, this pilsner-based lager that I mixed up at the end of October has sat in my basement for… 6 months, unopened and unmolested. I thought, for sure, that it was going to be just absolutely infested with a bacterial colony unlike any other.
Nope. She was good to go. So, I bottled the pils-lager, and it produced about 2 cases. A good yield for a beer that was sitting around for half a year. I was a little weary on sampling, but I have to say, this beer went down smooth and was flavorful. No hint of infection or off-flavoring. So, I’ll try to drink this batch quickly. Since I’ll have a much larger fridge, the likelihood of this happening has significantly increased.
Oh, and why did my bathroom smell like hops? Because that is where I cleaned my two fermentors and bottling bucket before bed. All that trub got flushed, but there was some minute splash-damage that I was too tired to try to clean up. Totally worth it.
