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Originally Posted by dmoore714
Bottled my first batch of Mr Beer a week ago today. Too early to open, I know. I just couldn't resist. Had to open one and try it tonight. This was made with a single can of Englishman's Nut Brown HME plus the booster. I also added a cup of brown sugar and a teaspoon of cinnamon (not sure why). Bottled with priming sugar.
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It's good to open beers early, to get an idea of what's going on with them. I'm surprised you had much carbonation at all after only a week, though.
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First pour. Looking good so far.
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Looks kinda cloudy to me. Cold-conditioning in the fridge might clear that up for you, help the yeast flocculate better.
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Halfway through. good head. Not exactly the "nut brown" color I was hoping for though.
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That is pretty decent head for a one-week-old beer. Nut-brown color is usually achieved with specialty grains that impart color... which the HME should have had included in it, if you ask me.
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Finished pouring. Left the last little bit in the bottle cause there was some gnarly sediment in there. I need to learn how to bottle.
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Gnarly sediment is to be expected when bottle-carbing. A week in the fridge takes care of most of it, and also pouring the whole beer into a clean glass in a single, smooth motion, leaving about a half inch of beer behind. Without filtering you will never get a perfectly clear beer, IMO. (Others have gotten pretty close using cold conditioning and a bright tank.)
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Overall impression: Its definitely beer. Good head. Nicely carbonated. Decent color, I guess. I can taste a hint of cinnamon and a hint of alcohol. Just slightly bitter. Very watery. Honestly... it tasted like "beer tea" - something old women would drink while they knit and complain about their grandchildren. Needless to say, I'm underwhelmed. I know it will (hopefully) improve with age. I'm going to let this one stay in the closet for another week. Then throw it in the fridge for a week before I try another one.
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Cinnamon was an interesting decision. It's a strange flavor for a beer sometimes, though, so it was definitely a risk. The carbonation will improve the aroma, but I'm afraid with only a single can of malt it will always taste a bit thin. You can either use less water next time, or more malt, but if you follow the MrB recipes to the letter the beer is not what you would normally expect from craft beer.
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I have a batch in my 2gallon bucket now, and one more recipe left to brew (something like the Maple Wheat, but with different hops/yeast, and no maple syrup). Hopefully after that batch I'll have my midwest kit and the Autumn Amber to play with.
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I've bottled with brown sugar, and liked the result, so maple sounds kind of interesting. If you think brown sugar sounds too sweet, it's not -- it leaves a kind of caramelly, toasty flavor that's hard to describe. If the beer is too thin for your taste, though, leave out the booster (that dries the beer out -- the opposite of malty) and add more extract. All sugars that are not malt dry the beer out, except for lactose (milk sugar), which is unfermentable and does taste sweet.
Also, try to condition your next beer for at least a week in the fridge before you crack it open. You will be more satisfied with the results, I'd bet.
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