Bathroom Brown Ale

The name started out entirely as a joke.  The brewing setup that Dan and I have is basic to say the least, and we haven't gotten into the temperature controlled areas and such that some more experienced brewers use.  Consequently, when we needed a temperature stable area to ferment our beer in that was out of direct sunlight, but still close to the kitchen, Dan's bathroom seemed like the best option.  It actually turned out to be a pretty good place to ferment the beer.  Somehow the name just popped up while thinking about what to call it and it stuck.

In any case, we ended up with a pretty good beer for our first attempt.  It poured a nice reddish brown color, although with almost no head.  With a vigorous enough pour there's an almost one finger head with a light creamy caramel color.  Of course the head dissipated pretty quickly and left no lacing on the glass.  It seems like there are certain types of grains that promote head renention, so in the future we may try using that.  It's also a bit cloudy from being bottled with the yeast, but it wasn't unattractive and there weren't any large clumps.

The aroma wasn't terribly strong.  You actually have to get pretty close to it to notice the smell at all.  What there is had a floral quality, reminiscent of wildflowers or clover.  It's a pleasant and sweet smell, but there's not really a lot going on with it.

The taste was tangy and sweet, with a slight rounded bitterness in the back of the mouth.  It's not the strongest flavor ever but it's pretty smooth.  The one thing we didn't like was the hop choice.  They included Williamette hops because the normal hop for the kit was out due to the recent hop shortage.  Despite the fact that they said it was a suitable hop for the style, we really didn't think it fit as well as it could have.

The body of the beer was moderately light.  It had a tingly carbonation that wasn't strong at all, just a bit of prickling on the tongue.  I personally thought it was a good level of carbonation for the beer but Dan wanted it to be a little more carbonated.  There was just a little bit of coating on the mouth from the beer.

Overall the beer was incredibly drinkable.  We went through most of the 47 bottles we made very quickly.  It was very easy to get down, in fact one of the most drinkable beers I think we've ever had.  We got a lot of compliments for the beer even though it was from a kit, so we were pretty happy.

I'm a bit more excited to see how our next 2 batches are going to work out.  The cherry wheat is in the secondary now, and about ready to go to bottles, and we just made a fairly substantial looking stout that's in the fermenter right now.  Neither one is from a kit, so who knows what it will end up tasting like.

- Adam