My first home brew is in the fermenting bucket!

[BowlingGreenUKGrad]

So after serveral months of indecision, I finally decided to go ahead and buy a home brewing setup. I'd been thinking about it for a while, but when my brother found this great home brewing company In Goodlettsville, Tenn. (just north of Nashville on I-65 for those that don't know where it is) we decided to go in together and get a kit.

The company is www.rebelbrewer.com and it's really mostly an internet company, but their warehouse/business is really close and they have a very small "storefront" to their place with regular (but somewhat limited) hours they are open. We drove down on Saturday after checking out the site and the folks there were SUPER nice. We already knew basically what we wanted/needed, but the staff told us a couple things we could probably get away without and a couple things we should really get to make our first time go smoothly.

They have a wide variety of recipes that they make when you order them. We decided on an extra-hoppy American IPA for our first batch, because that's my favorite kind of beer. The instructions they gave us were super easy and we got everything done without any problem. Now, we just gotta wait a couple weeks for it to ferment in the bucket, then we'll bottle it and should be enjoying it by Thanksgiving weekend!

While they were crushing our grains for our recipe, the manager even took us in the back and gave us a tour of their whole operation. It was really cool and it smelled SO GOOD in there! They have been around about 3 years. When they started, they'd do around 9 orders per day and now they are doing about 100 orders per day. The cool thing is that if you live close, you can just put your order in online, pay for it and let them know when you'll be down and you can just drive in and pick up all your ingrediants right there without having to worry about shipping.

If you've ever thought about brewing your own beer (or, if you already do and want to try some new recipes) I can't recommend these guys enough!

[BowlingGreenUKGrad]

Well, my brew went into bottles yesterday. My brother and I sampled a little of it, and it's already pretty darn tasty. It smells even better than it tastes at this point.

[matt colvin]

Very cool I, too, love IPA's. Stone IPA is currently my favorite!

[BowlingGreenUKGrad]

I brewed my third batch yesterday. It's an apricot IPA. Should be interesting. Brew No. 2 (an ESB) will be bottled next weekend. I did both of these on my own.

My half original batch is almost gone. It's really, really tasty. I have been amazed at how good it turned out. Maybe it's just because I brewed it myself and there's a certain pride to that, but I really think it's one of the best beers I've every had.

[Rockober]

Very cool I, too, love IPA's. Stone IPA is currently my favorite!

Love Stone but Two Hearted Pale Ale gets my nod but its damn close.

[Rockober]

I am interested to hear how the beer turns out.

[BowlingGreenUKGrad]

Update to my homebrew adventure:

I have now bottled four brews.

Brew No. 1 - Hop Blaster IPA turned out great. I brewed this together with my brother and despite a mistake while bottling, it tasted great! I only have one bottle left and everyone who tried it, loved it. It was pretty close to an Imperial IPA, but not quite there. Very fruity nose and lots of hops when you tasted it.

Brew No. 2 - Rebel English Special Bitters...the jury is still out. It's been in the bottle close to a month and it is way over-carbonated. I think I should have let it ferment another week or so before bottling. Once the massive head dies down though, it's fairly tasty. Like a slightly more bitter Boddington's. It's not my favorite style, but my wife likes it, which is why I made it. She likes this beer more than me.

Brew No. 3 - Magic Hat #9 clone. This one has turned out very nice. It's been in bottles a little over two weeks and is very tasty and easy-drinking. It has more of an apricot taste and smell than Magic Hat though.

Brew No. 4 - Green Valley IPA. This is going to be another very hoppy IPA, but not as much alcohol. The Hop Blaster had about 7.5 abv and this one came in around 5.5 when I bottled it on Christmas day. Should be ready for drinking in a couple of weeks.

Brew No. 5 - "Bourbon Bowl" Old Ale. This has been fermenting for about three weeks now. We throw an annual "Bourbon Bowl" every August to celebrate my best friend's birthday. It's just a huge night of drinking - which ended last year with several of us driving golf carts around my neighborhood before jumping into the country club pool fully clothed. Anyway, I brewed this old ale for the occasion. Old ales are meant to be aged several months before drinking. This weekend, I'll be moving it to a secondary fermenter. When I do that, I'll be adding some oak cubes I've had soaking in Knobb Creek bourbon for about a month. This thing should be VERY tasty when it's finished in August.

Brew No. 6 - "The Standard" American Pale Ale. Brewed this up on Christmas Eve. I used a special yeast strain with it that is supposed to be really good in APAs. The target is a Sierra Nevada pale ale. If it's close to that, it'll be a tasty brew.

I've also got a hard cider fermenting right now too. It should be ready to bottle either tonight or tomorrow. I'm hoping to have it ready for New Year's Eve. The good thing about cider is that when it's done fermenting, it's pretty much ready to drink. I checked the gravity on it last night and it wasn't quite done. When I tasted it, it was really good, just a little too sweet. The yeast will take care of that in the next day or two though.

[BowlingGreenUKGrad]

I'm not sure if anyone actually cares or not, but I'm going to keep updating this thread whenever I feel like I have something new to add.

Brew No. 1 - Hop Blaster IPA turned out great. This one is all gone now. RIP, this was a great brew.

Brew No. 2 - Rebel English Special Bitters. After 4-5 weeks in the bottle I was pretty disappointed with this one. It had been about 3 weeks since I tried one and I popped one open Sunday evening. Wow. I have read about how a lot of times, a homebrewer will make a beer and not like it at all, then let it sit on the shelf for a while and come back to find it greatly improved. I was skeptical about this, but now it's happened to me. This beer was way over-carbonated, but now it's just about right. The flavor has really smoothed out a lot too, making it a VERY enjoyable beer.

Brew No. 3 - Magic Hat #9 clone. Finally got around to trying one of these side-by-side with an actual Magic Hat #9. I was surprised at how similar they were. Mine tasted a little better, but I'm not sure if that was just because I knew I had made it, or if it was because it was fresher. Probably a little of both.

Brew No. 4 - Green Valley IPA. Not as good as my hop blaster. More hop bitterness and not as much of a fruity flavor. This isn't a bad beer by any means, but it's in third place among the three I am currently drinking.

Brew No. 5 - "Bourbon Bowl" Old Ale. Moved this to a secondary glass fermenter on New Year's Eve. It tasted okay when I sampled it. Now, it gets to sit on top of those bourbon-soaked oak cubes for another 5-6 months.

Brew No. 6 - "The Standard" American Pale Ale. I've gotten lazy and this one is still in the primary fermentation bucket. If I get really industrious, I might get around to bottling this on Wednesday night. But, it'll probably have to wait until the weekend.

Brew No. 7 - Vanilla Milk Stout. I tried a Left Hand Milk Stout about a month ago and loved it. So, I decided to try an make one myself. I brewed mine up on Jan. 14, so it's fermenting away right now. After another week or two, I plan to transfer it to a secondary fermenter an will be adding two vanilla beans to give it the vanilla flavor. I'll probably let it sit on those for a week or two before bottling

Cider No. 1 - I'm really happy with the way it turned out. It's deceptively strong when it comes to ABV, but still retained a really nice apple flavor. I took it to a poker gathering this past weekend and a guy who is a big-wig with one of the local beer distributors really liked it a lot. That was probably the best compliment I have gotten from one of my brews yet.

[CATHYnKY]

I read your updates