I have to admit, I was nervous...

I am now two batches into my brewing career, and both are all-grain batches. However, I am a week out from my first batch being "done" (three weeks in the bottle).

Nevertheless... when I was bottling I had some leftovers/dregs in the bottling bucket that I was able to fill about 6-8 ounces of a bottle. While milling around in my brew area on Saturday I figured "hell, it's been two weeks, let's try that mini bottle" So, I threw it in the freezer for about 2 hours, and the fridge for about an hour.

Long story short- it is beer!

Popped the top and got a nice "pffft" sound. Poured a nice ruby red, with about a 1/2" creamy head. Some bubbles were noticeable coming from the bottom of the glass, but not tons.

First thing on tasting is a stinging on the tip of the tongue-- I am attributing this to the co2 not being fully absorbed back into solution yet.

The spices were still present in the nose, but not as pronounced in the taste (most likely due to missing the last bk spice addition). However, if the character does not change over time, I do not think I would use Northern Brewers spice mixture again- I am not sure if it is the cardamom, the allspice, the clove... but it just lends something that isn't bad, but isn't personally appealing.

Otherwise, it was nice and malty with just a slight bittering at the end.

One more week and I will hopefully be tasting properly carbed and tasty homebrew crafted by me!

The thing is though- I was not nervous about doing all-grain for my first batch, was not nervous about sanitization, etc. I really felt very prepared from my fastidiousness in regards to study, research, preparation, and execution.

However, I have to admit I have been QUITE nervous to see what my concoctions tasted like! Not stressing mind you, but nervous nonetheless. I guess I was/am still suffering from "can I really make good beer?!?"

I am sure that question will always haunt me, and I will always want to be striving to create even better beer. But it was a relief to know that I have created something that is at least quaffable; maybe not mind-blowing or something that will have people talking, but an enjoyable beverage that people won't be talking about for the wrong reasons either though!

Anyone else been in the same/similar boat? Fine about everything until you start to actually think about what it might TASTE like! I guess I did because that is what we are in it for-- the Taste (everything else is gravy IMO).

When everything goes right, I'm not too concerned about the beer.

When things go wrong, OTOH, is when I'm concerned about how it will taste. Had my first stuck sparge on a batch of Oatmeal Stout and all the monkeying with it to get the sparge running again made me really worry about aeration.

Can hardly tell the difference between this and a previous batch that went flawlessly and that difference could/would be attributed to hop substitution.

It's not hard to make beer, but the devil is in the details. While your beer might be fine to start with, it will get better as you let it sit (IF you can let it sit).

After that, you will read up on the techniques and try different things and still get the little tingle of excitement on each batch.