batch 59

Yes this was my very first dark lager and it only took me 58 batches before doing it, but who counts, right?

I was thinking what I should do for Christmas, continue with the tradition of making a lighter porter (stroll porter) like I always do, or make something new I’ve never tested before. While updating the website with content, I realized that I had nothing in the dark lager category so why not do a dark lager for Christmas? I’ve always enjoyed the sweet, roasty and malty lagers for Christmas so why not make my own.

The funny or problematic thing, if you will, is that the lager I brewed is not sweet and not heavy on the alcohol so what happened? Well, I decided I wanted to make my own recipe and the fact is, it fermented way better than I anticipated but because I also screwed up the efficiency combined with the amount of liters in the fermenter, the ABV turned out according to recipe, or close enough to the 4.9% I wanted. That is a big lesson learned because going with a lower ABV beer for Christmas was not a success, at least if you ask me. The first thing I thought about when testing it was that I wanted something stronger and thicker, this was way too light in my opinion.

The beer is no way bad but it’s not good either. Regardless the low ABV, malt and roasty tones are good but there’s a sense of flatness, not necessarily because there’s not enough carbonation but the beer itself. It’s difficult to explain but because there’s enough carbonation (at least I think so) it’s got to be something else leaving this aftertaste.

I think I need to work on my ability to taste off-flavors. It can of course become very difficult as well when I try out new yeast strains, malts and hops but it will make it easier if I can successfully identify off-flavors.

Next time I do this kind of beer, make sure to raise the ABV level and don’t be shy to add even more Munich 1 malt!