Cherries in the Snow, and more

So I'm impatient, and decided to go ahead and try one bottle of my variation of Charlie Papazian's "Cherries in the Snow". It's only been a week or so since I bottled, but I'm impatient, what can I say. I stashed one in the fridge this morning, and tried it this afternoon. It obviously could use longer to condition, and I plan to let the rest do so. I bottle primarily in 22oz'ers, but I bottled a couple of 12 oz bottles as well, for purposes like this.

Poured a reddish-brown in color - much darker than I wanted, but after watching it brew, what I expected. If I make this recipe again, I will definitely use "extra-light" or "extra-pale" extract instead of regular pale or light. Poured with a decent head, and while the beer definitely tasted well-carbonated, the head wasn't particularly full. Hopefully this will correct itself with more time conditioning.

I couldn't entirely place the aroma. It was a sweetness, but not the kind I was expecting. I don't think the batch was contaminated - after my debacle with my Irish Stout, I'm *very* careful with contamination. It also doesn't smell like anything that could contaminate a beer, based on what I've read. It wasn't a bad smell either, just something I wasn't used to. Just couldn't place it.

The taste wasn't what I was expecting - good, but not what I was expecting. A hint of hops in the background, so the cherries could shine through...but I didn't really taste the cherries. I definitely tasted the tartness of the cherries, but it was more a generic tartness and not the cherries themselves. I think this could have been due to the fact that I used canned cherries (it's all I could find), and could have used something else (maybe mixed in some sweet/dark cherries?) to compensate. It definitely tasted like a Belgian beer, like Papazian's description stated, but I guess even knowing that it wasn't what I expected. The tartness was a little overpowering, so I'm hoping that will mellow with a few more weeks bottling, and more of the cherry flavor will come through. Either way, it's definitely a good brew. I'm happy with it so far. I'll see how it is in a few weeks.

I also racked my "Chocolate Thunder" porter to secondary. And I am VERY excited about this beer.

I took a whiff as I was racking, and the aroma of chocolate and...well, beer...filled the room. When I finished racking, I reserved a few spoonfuls to taste.

Wow.

A very strong chocolate/coffee aftertaste, but that's what I was looking for. You can definitely smell and taste the chocolate in the background. It's not as dark as I would have liked - ironically, I used "extra light" extract for this one, due to the high amount of dark malt. I think the addition of all of the chocolate actually helped lighten the color of the beer - it's a very milk-chocolate colored brown right now. Cleaning up all the trub/yeast cake wasn't so pleasant - but it smelled a lot better than it looked :)

The semester ends soon, which is a blessing in more ways than one. I'll be driving home for a few weeks, so the porter will have plenty of time to sit in secondary. It'll give me something else to look forward to when I come back down here.

I'm still trying to decide what I'm going to make next. I'm thinking about picking up another carboy so I can have two brews going at once. If I do that, then one of the ones I'll make is a Raspberry-Chocolate Stout, hopefully ready in time for Valentines Day. For the second beer, I think I'll try to make that pale ale/IPA I wrote about last time. I still want to make a "Thanksgiving Ale" at some point, but I figure that recipe will be a little more complicated, and it's not something that's pressing. I'll have plenty of time to formulate recipes when I'm at home :)

Well that's all for now. I'll be in New Jersey for the next few weeks, so if anyone there wants to talk homebrewing over a homebrew - or at a microbrew - let me know.