The "Almost" Daily Beer and Bike Log June 26 2015

                                          
I am learning a lot through trail and error. As someone who as only started brewing beer, I have learned a lot in only a few months. You can take risks and hope for the best with recipes that you may think will knock it out of the park, and be disappointing in the final results. 

You can brew a batch that you find would have been great if maybe the carbonation was there (or a little less in some cases) or you may find that a batch of Bourbon Imperial IPA which may be too bitter alone is actually pretty good with some Orange in it. 

All in all though I think what drives at least myself is the anticipation of what that final result will be. 

I had a couple of not so good batches and was really getting disappointed, then I reached into the fridge one day and pulled out one of my (or our little brewers groups) very first big beer recipe an Imperial IPA (the actual base to that Bourbon IPA I mentioned earlier, but this had no extras in it) I poured it in a glass and said 

"Wow, that really was a great beer" in that single bottle of beer was the inspiration and confidence that had been knocked out of me in the last couple of small brews. I gathered myself up and went after it with a small batch Scotch Ale. (With it's own set of screw ups see Tales...............) I am excited again waiting for this beer to come out of secondary and into the bottles. I also just recently bottled my Cherry Wheat (not too excited with this one) and a Small batch of my Bitter Sweet IPA (very excited about this batch) And I can not wait for the next recipe to gather together and brew up another batch. The plus side of all this is I have learned that brewing these one gallon batches is a good learning experience when things go wrong and I only have about 8-10 beers. On the other hand when it hits the mark I only have 8-10 beers. But I think i am doing it the right way, the beers that work I am saving and scaling for bigger brew days. The beers that do not, I go back to the drawing board or abandon it completely and I am only out a small amount since the recipe was a gallon batch.