I love walking into the beer cellar and seeing four carboys quietly (or not so quietly) fermenting away. I love it even more when I know that one or more of those beers are heavy hitters, special beers that need that extra time to develop the superpowers that they will one day yield. Examples, you say? Well, there is the baltic porter that I racked a few weeks ago. It was strongly alcoholic in flavor. It needs lots of time for the alcohol to mellow and the malt to assert itself. It said to me, "Check back in a few months, I'm comfortable right here for now." And then last weekend I brewed my yearly barleywine, hopefully to be bottled at the new year. That gives it a few months in the fermenter, which it will definitely need. This beer is going to be the strongest I have ever made, I believe. It could hit 12%. I am excited to drink it - but it will be a good six months at least until I even dare open up a bottle. While these big beers are time and money intensive, they are just too much fun to ignore. Rounding out the cellar collection, I have a crystalweizen that is coming along nicely, likely to be kegged this weekend, and of course Nate's fig wine. I don't even know what to expect from that. If all goes well and we get some freshly pressed grape juice from Toni's family's vineyard this weekend, we can add a few carboys of cabernet to the cellar as well. We are very very very fond of our alcohol at our house, if you didn't notice.
Posted by hobo_pappe at October 22, 2003 10:28 AM