For the last time I’m back to continue the month-long series on homebrewing in honor of National Homebrew Day which was May 7th.  In previous posts we performed the actual brewing, and then after allowing the beer to complete its primary fermentation we transferred to to a secondary fermentation vessel to clean up after itself and begin the conditioning process.  We then bottled the beer and allowed it to finish conditioning for a suitable amount of time.

Now we can enjoy the product of all this work at last, and just in time for Memorial Day — a perfect pre-summer holiday to ignite the grill, visit with friends and family, and sit back and relax with a cold, delicious beer.

Certainly nobody needs to be instructed on how to drink a beer… that sort of process comes naturally.  But, since this particular brew was made at home rather than at a brewery, there are certain things to keep in mind regarding storage and serving.  Homebrew is a living product, and with that comes an extra step or two toward its enjoyment.

First, as instructed during bottling, store your beer in a dark, cool place — not the fridge, but not the garage — in a convenient closet, pantry or cabinet perhaps.  Even now that the beer is ready to consume, if allowed to remain at room temperatures, it will continue to condition and refine it’s character, so only chill what you intend to consume.

While the brew has been allowed to finish conditioning in the undisturbed bottles, the yeast have consumed the small amount of sugar we added at the end and produced enough CO2 to carbonate the beer.  They then expired, and along with many trace proteins that remained in suspension, have settled out to form a thin trub on the bottom of the bottles.  Refrigerating the beer for a minimum of 48 hours before serving will force more proteins to settle, and compact the trub into a denser mass, making it more difficult to disturb when pouring from the bottle.  This is not to say that it is impossible to disturb that trub, and in fact care should be taken when pouring to minimize how much you do.

Whenever possible, pour your brew into a glass to drink it.  First, by drinking from a glass rather than the bottle, you are engaging your sense of smell to contribute to the experience, and as any wine connoisseur will tell you being able to inhale the aroma of what you’re drinking will deliver a more rounded experience, expose more character and produce a slightly better taste.  Second, when you drink directly from the bottle, every time you tip it up and back to take a sip you swish the liquid back over the trub, disturbing it and mixing it back into the brew again.  This isn’t harmful in any way, but will contribute a yeasty taste to the beer.  There are some folks who rather enjoy the flavor of the yeast, but more often than not, that yeasty character is what has turned people off to homebrew in the past.

When pouring the beer into your glass, do so in one slow, smooth motion.  Avoid tipping the bottle back during the pour to prevent kicking up the yeast any more than is necessary.  Some yeast will inevitably be stirred up, but if you leave a little beer behind you should also leave that yeast behind as well — with practice you can get all but the last ¼” of beer out.  If you rinse your bottle out with a few vigorous shakes of clean water, you’ll have an easier time of cleaning and reusing it for the next batch.

Once your beer is poured… drink it!  Share with your friends and family while trying not to babble on and on about how it was made (a near-impossible task indeed for any homebrewer, as we’re all very excited and exceptionally proud of what we’ve made).  You can take this opportunity to try to recruit brewing partners from those who seem interested… interest in this case is displayed by not making excuses and escaping at a run.  *grins*

Cheers!