Appearance: Brilliant. I used my gelatin procedure. The color is dead on.Aroma: Malty as expected for a Scottish ale. I would like a bit more of that sweet honey/caramel smell but on a low gravity beer it is about where it can be expected.
Taste: The taste starts out fantastically with rich sweet malt. I was very pleased with the amount of flavor and caramel flavor. But then the taste finished with a bit of chalk or mineral taste. Maybe salty, but felt more "minerally". See my thoughts on my water profile below. This taste was fading over the course of a week until Diacetyl hit, I would have loved to see where this beer was going. (see my homebrewtalk thread for more info)
Mouthfeel: Medium-light. I think this is where it should be. The low carbonation helps give it a touch more body. These small beers are tough because they are not the norm. Everyone that tried it thought it was easy to drink.
Drinkability: To me this is by far one of the easiest to drink beers. And I believe this is also one of those "Universal" beers. What this means is when I served this beer to a group of people (they had very different tastes) everyone liked this beer enough that their glass was empty in less than 5 minutes. This beer went quickly.
Notes:
1. I think this beer is getting very close. Using the Scottish yeast did provide a bit of an earthy or almost smoky taste, but for the most part was very clean. It really let the malt shine through.
2. I will next time not use gelatin and let the beer sit in the keg a bit longer. I may even change over to priming in the keg then pushing to smaller kegs for the fridge.
3. For my water profile, I will dilute even more with distilled water to really get some soft water and then I will add my chloride salts after fermentation.
No comments:
Post a Comment