Why I’m Cranky

So real quick here.

Before I start, let me say that WOW, the maple lager, is ready to be enjoyed, and it’s delicious. The smoke aspect is restrained and measured (balanced, one of my favorite beer words), the maple shines, the color is lovely. It’s a good beer to sip, and to sip with those whose company you enjoy.

That said, I’m still cranky. WOW, as a beer, turned out mostly the way I wanted it to. It brewed fine, fermented fine, lagered fine, canned fine, and then? The carbonation is not where I want it. It’s carbonated, but it’s light.

Sometimes this happens. Since I can condition, I lean pretty heavily on the yeast still in the beer and my own math skills. So I either messed up a yeast count somewhere, or some math somewhere else, or maybe the beer gods just decided that this one was going to be less than what it was planned to be (it’s not that). Either way, it’s important to own. Improvement is a key piece of the process, of any process, but it only works when one is willing to talk about the things close to target, the things that were almost exactly right.

Without critique, there is no movement.

I wanted to touch on this a little bit. There are a lot of things this beer gets right, but it’s also not where I wanted it to be. You’ll see it’s a little cheaper than is usual for a beer that ate up two months of tank time and 4 gallons of maple syrup. There’s a reason for that, and it’s my own silly sense of being responsible for my beer, of all things.

The Jericho Historical Society will still get the full $1, of course. I’m not a jerk.

Best,

Jesse