Bubble Tea......?

Need another name, bubble tea it is not!

 

After mowing the lawns and fluffing around the house, I figured I deserved a taste. Cleverly I put a bottle in the fridge before I started doing anything this moring!

 

On a nice warm Manawatu day, watching Canterbury vs North Harbour in the ITM Cup, I popped a bottle. Sorry - no pics this time, I'll make sure I've got one for next time.

 

No carbonation. I'm not to worried for a couple of reasons:

1. You'll remember that I had some issues with bottling. This bottle was the bottle i was bottling when it happened, the bottle was pretty much full to the brim, so there wasn't any headroom for anything - silly me should have tipped some out.

2. Its only been a week since I bottled. Simillarly with the JD SMaSH it eventually took 3 weeks to carbonate. So I'll leave this one - again another reason to bottle with 500ml bottles, not really wasting that much beer.

 

Onto the beast itself....

Taste - very malty, the chocolate malt comes into its own now and its pretty good, decent roast there. Hops are not there really, might've needed more? Yeah, more, definately needs more HOPS! There is a slight hop after taste, similar actually to the I.R.A I brewed for my birthday. Not a bad taste.

 

Aroma - all but nothing there, there is a malt nose, not sure if it the buscuit or the chocolate malt thats doing it, but its surprinsingly pleasent. I'll lleave the rest of the notes for when it's carbonated, something tells me it might be different.

 

Look - Dark brown with a red hue. Obviously no lacing or head to speak of since its not carbonated.

 

Finally manged to get some Star San as well. Pretty stoked. I'll be honest, I was being lazy in not getting any, but after seeing the stuff in action on the Brewhemoth Brew Day I thought, bugger it, I'm getting some! Pretty cheap and should last me a long time!

 

Keep an eye out for more tasting notes!

Bubble Tea Mild Ale

Bubble Tea Mild chillin'

Its been just over a week since the Brewhemoth Brew Day and my failed attempt at a porter. Never fear though, I have decided it will now become an American Mild Ale. Its an American because it has more hops than an English version of the same style of beer. In staying with the name of the original, Bubble Tea Porter, I've now named it, Bubble Tea Mild.

Its currently siting at roughly 5.2% abv, which to me is a sessionable beer. The gravity samples I've tasted have been pretty good, hoppy nose, sweet front, hop bitter back and a velvet mouth feel. I guess the lactose and malto-dextrine have done their job.

Plan is to bottle on Saturday since I now have Saturdays back post rugby season, although the ITM Cup is staring this week and the All Blacks are playing Saturday night, maybe Sunday for bottling day. All going well in the bottle, in two weeks time, we'll have a taste.a

Side note - I have also decide the JD SMaSH is going to cellar over the summer and I'll see how it goes in the winter. I'm not sure if I'll keep it in the house or in the garage over summer, I think the house, since it'll be cooler.