Best Beer Ever!

Shock, horror, a new post at Fuggled!

Yes, it has been a while, but mitigating circumstances, I have been heads down writing my first book, which is due out in the autumn hopefully, oh and building A.I. type tools in my day job - yeah, it's been busy.

Just before things went a little wild though, I found time to brew a beer for my new fermentation and lagering chamber - yes, sir, I bought a small chest freezer and temperature control to allow me to brew lagers whenever I felt like it. It also means that I can now lager outside of my kegerator, so while I have a lager going in the in the freezer, I can have quicker to make top fermented beers on tap.

Anyway, that beer that I brewed for the first run of the lagering chamber was a Vienna lager. It was a very simple recipe, a SMaSH Vienna as I used just Murphy & Rude Vienna malt and Tettnang hops, the yeast was Wyeast 2308 - Munich Lager, oh and I made no changes to my water at all, because I never do - not even when this weekend I brew my first double decoction Czech style 10° pale lager.

The Vienna was my first double decoction brewday, and thankfully I hit my target gravity of 13° right on the nail. Sure, my calculated IBUs were a tad high at 32, but I wasn't all that bothered by that fact. Eventually, after 14 days in primary, 2 days for a diacetyl rest, 28 days lagering, and 7 additional days being gently carbonated, I got this delight:

And delightful it certainly was, given how quickly it flew out the tap. I didn't take any detailed notes, but my first beer after the keg kicked was Olde Mecklenburg's superb Munzler's Vienna Lager, and it was pretty similar, so was happy. It was definitely the best lager I have ever brewed at home, and would probably be somewhere in my top 3.

Of course, if I have a great brewday this weekend with my desítka, who knows where things will stand...