Beer Tasting: Part 1 and Part 2
09:57:59 MST on Tuesday November 8 2005 #Part 1:
Two Fridays ago, the day Brooke and Jamie got in, we popped open the first of the "nmcfarl Espaņola IPA". It was unfortunately ungood. Jamie liked the "smoothness", he felt was inherent in all the homebrews he had tasted. Other than that not a lot of compliments. It did taste like beer. But it tasted like a VERY hoppy American Style IPA, which it was supposed to be, so that was good. The bad was that it had heavy fruit notes, that clash with the style badly. And it had an odd chemical after taste. On the whole not so good. It was also cloudy like a Hefewisen, indicating to me an insufficient cold break on brewing day -- something I had suspected at the time.
Part 2:
This last Friday, November 4th, I popped open another bottle. It had been 2 weeks since bottling and this was the recommended date to pop them open, according to my brewing book. This was good advise, and the beer tastes considerably better now. The fruitiness has mellowed considerably, and now there is only a mild cherry note, which adds to the complexity and doesn't detract as before. The hops have perhaps mellowed a little, and the whole thing tastes much more balanced. The chemical notes linger, which is unfortunate, but the beer is quite drinkable - more so than a number of IPA's which I've had in the past, and this is a good thing - cause I have 40 some odd bottles to drink :)
