My inactivity on the blog seems to be a recurring theme, and this time I’ve been both abroad and busy at work. The brewing of the recipe mentioned in the previous post went quite well, but had a minor hiccup during the mash, when the BIAB-bag scorched slightly against the element. We tasted and evaluated the wort throughout the rest of the brewday, and concluded that we couldn’t detect any burnt or smokey flavors, so hopefully the beer will turn out fine! We ended up with around 21 liters of 1.091 wort instead of the planned 17 liters of ~1.105 wort, which would have required some more boiling, but in retrospect I think a slightly lower OG will do the beer good. We also had some fantastic beers during the evening (Alesmith Speedway Stout, Braufaktum Palor, Brewdog San Diego Scotch Ale, Cervesa Espiga Bruna, Dougall’s Leyenda, Great Divide Chocolate Oak Aged Yeti, Great Divide Espresso Oak Aged Yeti, Great Divide Yeti Imperial Stout, Hopfenstopfer Christmas Ale, Nómada Humala IPA, Poppelmans Nya Världens IPA, Popaire Tinta De Pop, Slottskällan Double IPA, Stone Imperial Russian Stout, Strömsholms Brygghus Gråskägg, Uncommon Golden State Ale, Homebrew Amarillo Hefeweizen, Homebrew Eubayanus Blond, Homebrew BSDA, and Homebrew Black Lodge Imperial Stout). My favorites of the evening were the Yeti trio, with the chocolate-aged being number one, Slottskällans Double IPA and surprisingly the Eubayanus Blond. Today I also transferred the Summer Pale Ale to two kegs, and gravity had fallen from 1.055 to 1.009 giving an ABV of 5.7%. The small taste sample I had was quite earthy and maybe slightly even smokey, but that was most likely because it was from the bottom of the fermenting vessel, containing mostly yeast and dry hop trub. Hopefully the next sample will be better! Right now I’m sipping on a Firestone Walker Double Jack and just enjoying the fact that I’m officially a Master of Science. The beer is simply amazing and will try to brew some kind of clone of it next.