This beer was my second step down the wonderful path of addiction. I brewed this beer on 2/26/2012, around a week after my first brew. At this point, I still didn’t have a brew kit apart from two carboys and enough tools to rack and bottle beer (which originally came in the Midwest kit). I brewed this beer with the tall, aluminum pot that my father used to deep-fry turkeys for Thanksgiving. I was a little brewing junkie getting hooked.
My second beer ended up being a kit that I received for free with my brew set from Midwest. They have several common types of beers you can choose from when purchasing a kit at the time including an amber, blonde, etc… Still being relatively new to different types of beer, I ended up choosing what I felt as the most exciting of the standard brew kit choices offered by Midwest. My only other experience with an Irish Red at this point was Killians. I felt pretty optimistic I could do better than that.
Grains
12oz Caramel 40
2oz Special B
2oz Roasted Barley
Hops
1oz Cascade (6.6%AA) @ 60min
1oz Fuggle (5.3%AA) @5min
Malt
6lbs Gold LME
SG: All I wrote down was 54 (7.0%?). Good job, Grant.
1wk: 118 (2.5%-3%) Again, I read the wrong numbers on the hydrometer.
FG(2wk): Forgot. Again.
I have few notes on this beer and remember it mostly as just a better Irish Red than Killians. My naive notes read that there is a strong flavor of red ale. This beer also benefited from some time in bottles. I recommend at least 3-4 weeks in bottles as I thought the flavor was a little odd at first until it settled down with some bottle conditioning. My last note was that I really enjoyed this beer after about a month or two in bottles. I would love to try this beer fresh again and see what I think of it, although I don’t think it’s worth it to brew a whole batch of it.