I got geisha...

Okay, so my reference is less to do with beer and more to do with a lager advert from my youth, and the link is less to do with taste or anything actually connected to beer and more to do with the thing that the oil workers are attempting to cap, but what the hey.

Today is the day I moved the barrel from the kitchen to the pantry and sampled it. Hoka hey, it's beer tasting day!

Would you like to know more?

What can I say, my beer loves being my beer. The barrel was so nice and warm and lovely and, oh, darling, you have got to tell me where you got such a lovely foaming white head! I know this beautiful place where we can find a decent glass to hang out and bubble away to our heart's content! Yes, it turns out that my beer is gushing somewhat. Test glass was half full of frothy and slightly mad head creation that does dissipate but it takes its time. The S.G. reading is 18. I have no clue what that means or whether I'm expecting it to go down or up. Bottling is at 1.008. I don't know, is the new reading good or bad?

Anyway, the liquid (not sure I can call it beer) is most definitely golden, slightly opaque, and translucent. There's quite a vigorous head (like I said) and the flow is punctuated by bursts of energy followed by dribbles, probably because I didn't dare open the tap fully given the alarming froth that came first. It smells like something that may be beer, difficult to say, there's less of a horrid yeasty smell and there is a hint of some citrus hops hanging around - cascade will do that. Tasting it so far, unconditioned and unbottled, is... interesting. Texture is a tad on the watery side, puts me in mind of small beer and some of the lighter ales that I've tried in the past. Definite taste to it, but there's something that isn't quite right yet. Can't put my finger on it. I guess it's a bit thin like some of the essays on Russia I've been reading and marking. The difference between having a supported point to create a valid argument and referring generally to some vague notion of the question with detailed (and quite pointless) knowledge. That is how I'm seeing actual real beer compared to my rather golden liquid.

Mind you, has a decent aftertaste, though that also has something... I don't know, odd about it. No idea about alcohol content nor how I can work that out (there's a complicated formula on the side of the SG monitor that loses me when it asks me to divide ounces of sugar by litres of beer - the mix of measurements does not bode well for whatever the result is).

It does rather mean that I'm going to be waiting for a while longer yet to get this stuff into bottles safely enough to cart it northwards for guest blogging and tasting. Just... don't expect much mmkay?