It’s the moment you’ve all been waiting for!

The verdict is in. And, according the jury (consisting of me, my boyfriend James and bestie Stewart), my first attempt at home brewing – aka The Wandering Badger – is “not thaaaat bad”. In fact, not only is it not “thaaat bad”, it’s actually drinkable!

Over the past month you’ve joined me along the brewing process, including brewing and bottling day, waiting in suspense with a bottle of your favourite craft beer in hand.

So how did my American Style Brown Ale end up?  Although I was fearing fermentation was slowed by the late addition of yeast into a hostile hot wort, The Wandering Badger definitely produced alcohol. The actual strength of the Brown Ale however is still up for debate. Since I neglected to use my hydrometer to measure the gravity of the Wandering Badger, I had no way of telling just how much alcohol was produced.  Like density, gravity describes the concentration of sugars in the wort (typical worts range from 1.035 to 1.055 before fermentation, this measurement is called “original gravity”).  As the yeast turns the sugar into alcohol and CO2, the sugar content of the wort lowers and brings the gravity along with it (this is called “final gravity”). If you’re the science or math type, the calculations are quite interesting. However if you just want to know how strong your beer is, simply follow the hydrometer’s instruction manual.

More importantly, what were the sensory expressions of The Wandering Badger?  Upon opening the bottle, we could certainly hear and see the home brew’s carbonation taking shape.  If you remember, I bottled conditioned The Wandering Badger with local Ontario honey to both bring out the malt and hop flavors and give the yeast a little extra juice to carbonate the beer.

Right away, we were bombarded with the aggressive aroma of the citrusy Cascade Hops followed by a lingering appeal of apples and carmel-like sweetness.  The taste closely resembled the aroma, however it was slightly sour which leads me to believe that a wild yeast strain or two snuck into the fermentation barrel.  As this was my first attempt I was not too terribly saddened by the possibility of wild yeast fermenting my beer since it’s still quite drinkable.  (Did you know the Belgians actually purposely brewed sour beers or Lambics using what ever yeast happened to be floating in the air? This is often called “farmhouse fermentation”).

All in all – I’m winding up this adventure feeling encouraged and eager to start The Wandering Badger, style deux.  If any one has any style suggestions OR would like to help me drink my hopped-up Brown Ale, I invite you to pull up a chair.