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Sadly, most of the amber ales I’ve opened over the past week have been horribly under-carbonated. I’m not sure why. I shorted the corn sugar during priming just a small tad, so I doubt that could be it. Some of them are just fine, but others are almost as flat as when they went into the bottles. Others have been somewhere between. Maybe the earthquake we had earlier tonight will shake them up, eh?

Oh, and about that quake, it wasn’t that bad at my house. It shook the house up a bit, but nothing even budged on the shelves, and I live only a few miles away from the epicenter. 5.6 though. Pretty decent.

I just popped an IPA into the freezer to cool it down. I need to get to bed, but after opening yet another flat amber, I feel the need to check in on the IPA. Tonight is 16 days, so it should be carbed up pretty good right about now.

Ug. I’m running out of beer. I have five gallons of an IPA/Amber hybrid - my apple goulash - in a carboy ready to bottle this weekend. That’s the end of the line unless you count the vanilla (?) porter that’s been in the carboy for about two months. Time to brew this weekend. I’m going to do another of those pale ales that went over so well. Then it will be a bunch of batches with one ingredient changed in each. A line of test brews to see what the different ingredients really do to beer. It should hopefully help me improve my recipe writing skills.

I may just have to go pick up a bunch of Firestone Walker Pale Ales in the mean time. I love that stuff. Oh, and it won a gold medal at the GABF this year! Hooray for good beer!. The very tasty Piranha Pale Ale over at BJ’s took second. Two of my very favorites placing 1-2. Well done.

UPDATE: I’m drinking the IPA right now. Not bad at all. It’s definitely green and needs a couple more weeks to age, but it is coming along nicely. It’s a bit darker than I’d hoped, but that’s fine. Carbonation is light at the moment, but it should be a bit light at 16 days. By the weekend it should be carbed up pretty well. I’ll try another on Friday night or Saturday to make sure it’s good enough for sharing. I’m planning to include it in a homebrew swap along with my ESB. That one at least is a real winner.

I’m really looking forward to brewing up some simple recipes during my test batch brewing sessions. I’ll be including only one grain along with the base malts. I bet I’ll learn i don’t need to get all fancy to brew really good beer. At least I hope so:)

Oh, and it seems this IPA packs a wallop!