Scammonden Dark

[Talheedin]

Despite having seen everybody's enthusiam here and having read some articles and books evangelising the quality of home brew beer I suppose, deep down, I still held the belief that it would never quite measure up to a decent comercial beer.

Well, not any more!

I opened the first bottle of my second kit (Scammonden Dark, I'm sure I spell this wrong every time I write it) after it had had two weeks conditioning time and it was good with a very nice flavour but no head and very flat. I opened another one on Friday (after three weeks in the bottle) and wow! The flavour is even better, there's a decent amount of fizz and a decent head. It's one of the nicest beers I've ever had and this is from a kit. I can't wait to taste the results from extract and AG brews. Needless to say I opened more bottles after that.

I can also see why so many of you use kegs instead of bottles; it's not going to be around long enough to need bottles!

Just thought I'd share my enlightenment.

Talheedin

[prolix]

I had never been one to let my brews mature for more than a couple of weeks... ok I drank them all , But got around the problem by brewing more then it can mature for a bit longer. The results of an extra few weeks are well worth the wait, as long as you have something to drink.

someone (insert name here) mentioned a 1 week primary 2 weeks secondary 3 weeks conditioning. but my beer goes in the keg so now use roughly 1 week primary 5 weeks keg 3 weeks drinking 9 in total so new brew every 3 weeks. That and the odd TC keeps me going.