Old Honey Cream Ale Kit Brewed -- Survey Says...

My various Craigslist adventures led me to a purchase that included three old extract kits, including this Home Brewery Honey Cream Ale kit.



Note the production date ipe::



Originally, I had no desire to brew these; however, I had two infected batches in a row, so my daughter and I thought we would brew this up to determine whether a scratch in the bucket was the source of the problem.

I basically used only the DME & the honey from the kit. I ditched the original yeast, steeping grains and the hops and added 1 lb. Crystal 20L and used some cascade I had on hand for both the bittering & aroma additions. Jade at Hoptech in Dublin, CA suggested Coopers Brewing Yeast for the experiment.

My daughter and I just bottled it this evening after 2 weeks in the primary. Dang stuff tastes really good! It certainly is not infected (supporting my theory that it was my water filter and not a scratch in the bucket).



I'll let y'all know how it comes along after some conditioning. The trouble is, if this turns out really great, I can never duplicate it unless I age another kit for 8 years!! LOL!

So I chilled and drank the first one tonight. Turned out just fine. Even SWMBO nodded approval after a sip. Only 52 more bottles to go...

That's not the production date, it's the copyright date for the label. The little c in a circle is a dead giveaway.

retread2 said:

That's not the production date, it's the copyright date for the label. The little c in a circle is a dead giveaway.

Click to expand...

Quite right. Didn't notice that. I wonder how old the kit was. The DME was rock hard and had to be pulverized.

Well it could be 2005, or newer but DME keeps well.
I found a can of LME about that age in my garage. It looked more like a tin football than a can. I didn't have the courage to open it, i donated it to the landfill.