I think a lot of new brewers stress this out too much.
I mean, I sort of understand, you want to drink your beers, now.
But honestly, the difference between good beer, and great beer, is simply a few more weeks.
When you brew a lot, and start to build a pipeline, you are used to waiting, because you have batches at different stages, fermenting, secondarying, lagering, bottle conditioning and drinking.
And you can't drink everything at once anyway.
For example right now I have a red and an ipa that I am drinking currently. I have a chocolate mole porter that is sort of coming into it's own, that I am entering in a contest the first week of Feb.
I have a few bottles of my year old Belgian Strong Dark, that is still aging, and I pull one out every now and then.
I Have a vienna lager in a secondary lagering for at least another two weeks, if not more.
I am going to probably bottle my Belgian wit this weekend, or I may give it another week to clear, but more than likely I will bottle sooner rather than later since it's coming up on a month in Primary, and I'm on a wit kick right now (in fact I've been buying wits lately rather than drink my red and ipa.)
I also have a 2.5 gallon barelywine that I partigyle brewed on New Years eve which more than likely will get racked to a secondary for a few months, and then bottle conditioned for a few more.
The second runnings, which is sort of a dark amber ale, I will more than likely bottle soon, I'm not sure. I really haven't looked at it and the barelywine since I brewed it.
And I am thinking about brewing something this weekend, maybe another lager.....
As you cansee I have beers at all stages or fermentation, so if something needs a few extra weeks to carb, or condition, I'm not going to sweat it. I'm about quality beer anyway. If nothings not to my liking/readiness, then I go buy some.
I've only ever made one mild, most of my beers are 1.060 or higher, so they're going to take longer.
I'm not out to win any races, I'm out to make tasty beer.
Hell I once found a bottle in the back of my fridge that had been there 3 months. It was pretty amazing; crystal clear and the cake in the bottom was so tight that you could upend the bottle over the glass and not one drop of yeast fell in the glass.
I think I'll open one tonight just to see how things are going.
