Burping Beer

Well, it's four days in and the Berry Bad Beer is very much under steam. If you would like some more detail on this and the mead that I bought (that is green) then you are welcome to read on. Otherwise, the page break is there to give you the chance to bail out now.

Someday I hope to find a place where these grow locally, we had such a place (by the railway bridge) where we used to live but nothing here yet. I mean, I can go to town (literally) more now, but there's something about trees and woodland that I miss. No doubt we'll find something as we live here.

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The instructions say to leave the brewing wort for 4-6 days before adding the flavour. Now, as I recall, it was about that time to add the hops last time and that was with the wort being in a precarious situation temperature wise. This time around we have a relatively constant 22 degrees, which is a mite hot, but at least it's not up and down. This means that, eventually, I'll have to fashion a cold water bath for the wort so that the yeast won't go mental like it did in a bottle I put aside to see what would happen. That bottle was strong enough that opening it instantly killed all micro-organisms in the room and pouring it down the drain acted as a cleanser and evapourated some of the lingering plant matter (I kid ye not). It was pretty close to pure ethanol and poison. No, I didn't taste it, I would have died. So, a cooling bath to prevent over fermentation would be a fine idea.

Right now, it's burping happily and constantly. Already this is better than the first time round and the darkness of the malt (it looks a little like Porter or Stout) is encouraging. I am almost tempted to go off piste and get in some hops anyway to make this into a dark brew. However, I am a stickler for the instructions and the point was to try a fruit beer, given my penchant for such things on some Department nights out back in the day so it would be a betrayal of sorts not to try that out. I am reasonably surprised by the apparent success so far.

I have also bought some green mead. I didn't know it was green, I assumed it was just in a brown bottle and thus a bit brown on the inside. No, it's green. Very nice though. It's Danish but has sections written in what appear to be Norse, but my lack of knowledge of Scandanavian languages limits my ability to make any great distinctions there. It was bought from the local micro-brewery, though why they have it escapes me, and it is lovely. I can heartily recommend mjod-laden therefore. It's 10% ABV and tastes very honeyed with the right syrupy texture. It is not as heavy and deep as the stuff I remember buying from Booths back in University, but it is nevertheless very much mead. It has reminded me how much I enjoy it, after a desultory and disappointing 'mead' from Morrison's back at Christmas in 2012, so I shall be back for more.