My brother keeps begging me to make a nut brown. So I did.

A beer-lover friend of mine wanted to start homebrewing again, so we decided to combine a brewing session with socializing. I packed my car and headed south to brew. We both chose 20-minute kits from my favorite supplier. The nut brown looked really easy! In fact, 20-minute kits are so horribly easy that everyone should brew. We brewed two batches in the amount of time it normally takes me to do a grain/extract batch.

One new thing to which he introduced me was the use of a hop bag- not only did it reduce the trub I had to keep out of the carboy, it allowed complete control over hop contact time; I could remove the hops all at once when the boil was over. Initial specific gravity: 1.046 (finally, a batch in the range!!) As always, I tasted the wort to see what the flavors were like before fermentation. Sweet, nutty, with a hoppiness that will balance perfectly with the alcohol to come.

I was totally exhausted from being on my feet to brew, even though I took breaks and sat on a stool. I’m going to the doctor this week to see what I can do to remedy the problem.

BTW, I racked and tested my Belgian earlier this week- SG is 1.018 already- that’s about 6.5% alcohol! Four months to go before it’s aged well enough for drinking. Uh oh…