MARK I – Brewer’s Best American Ale

For our first recipe, we chose a “kit” (like making a cake from a box) from Brewer’s Best – and American Ale. This was a good call. Though it turns out that you can essentially completely make up a recipe, starting with a kit built confidence to develop our own brews.

The first batch, brewed from a Brewer’s Best kit. Produced a beautiful copper orange ale with a solid finger of head. Carbonation was fairly good. Flavors and aroma slightly off, aroma worsened with age.

The beer was ok, though some of the flavors were a little off. We suspect this was caused by pouring the hot wort directly over commercial ice to cool it down. In subsequent batches, we have cooled the wort with an ice bath, and have had favorable flavors.