Recent content by alliemackie

I've been lazy posting. Here's our newest two. Extra Hard Mode ESB. Our final extract brew and it turned out superbly for an extract brew. Really nice hop/malt balance. We finally tapped our video game nerd selves to make this label. First all-grain brew: Brown Mage Ale! A really...

Thanks! Haha I already do illustration & graphic design work for a living, I'm a self-employed contractor. If folks want labels, I'll do them for a fee. Though if a brewery wanted to pick me up part-time, that would be a-mazing.

Newest beer: Bog Beast Brown Porter. I was inspired when we opened our fermentation bucket on bottling day and found that the layer of krausen crud along the edge of the bucket was much greener and boggier than usual. Probably the hops, I dunno. Tasty, tasty porter. Nice and simple. Not much...

I already made a post for our first label, but since designing labels is going to be a big factor of our brewing (I love designing them) I figured I would just make a master thread for them all. So, to start things off right, here's a re-post of the first label. We did a variation of John...

I usually find the taste between end of fermentation and end of bottling to be night and day. Fermentation tasting does give you a very rough idea of a flavour profile, but carbonation and clarification do wonders for the taste.

Cheers folks. :) My next one should be ready soon...

Oh hey, more female brewers. Brewsters. Whatever. Represent. I brew with my SO, but I'm every bit as involved as him - we compliment one another's skillsets. He's numerical, I'm artistic. We both love the entire brewing process and we're huge beer nerds. Tomorrow night I'm going to my first...

Welcome fellow Ontarian! Glad to see you've been bitten by the brewing bug. There's a TON of amazing craft brews in Ontario. Toronto and Ottawa boast the most, but a lot of that stuff is available across the board in LCBOs. I don't find myself longing for American craft beer when there's so...

Great advice! Our first beer had lower ABV than projected (3.8% as opposed to 5%) but it was still a delicious beer coming out of the fermenter AND out of the bottle. Granted that we still wanted to learn why it didn't work (and I think we did because our next beer was fab) but really, in...

Thanks guys, kind words! I'm pleased with it. I had a friend from Cincy help me with ideas for the label, since I've only visited there once. I wanted something a little esoteric to those familiar with Cincinnati, plus the interior of the terminal is just beautiful.

Finally labeled the bottled and tried the beer on Sunday. We brought a bunch of bottles over for family Thanksgiving and tested it at the same time as everyone else! Nerve-wracking for our first homebrew, but it was great. Lots of compliments on the label, excited to paint up my next one.

Nice job! We tried our very first homebrew on Saturday. The old homebrewing adage rings true: patience is key, and sure enough our beer was delicious. I bet yours is too, it looks great. Congrats! Welcome to the rabbit hole!

That's good to know, thanks! (same goes for other posters after him). I'm still very much learning, so it's interesting to know what pumpkin truly imparts to brewing. Though canned pumpkin can come in several varieties. At our local supermarket there's plain canned pumpkin, spiced pumpkin...

I've heard almost across the board that real pumpkin won't actually add any pumpkin flavour to a pumpkin beer. Just a sort of vegetable-like taste. All the flavour is in the spices. Someone with more experience may correct me on this, but that's what I've read everywhere.

Congrats dude. We're cracking open our first homebrew this weekend and I can't hold in my excitement. It tasted great out of the fermenter, can't wait to see what three weeks of bottle conditioning/chilling has done to it.