So, a week ago I went ahead and bottled my beer.  I had cleaned and sanitized 2 cases of bottles for this endeavor and retaken the specific gravity reading.  Which was now 1.012.  I guess there was still a little fermenting going on.  Unfortunately, after I filled all 48 bottles, I still had some beer left in my bottling bucket.  What to do?  It’s alcohol abuse to just dump that out, right?  I did what any red-blooded Wisconsite would do.  I grabbed more bottles.

Now, all of my bottles get washed before I store them, but I always santize them before bottling.  You never know what might get in bottles that have been sitting around for a while.  But, I didn’t have the time to sanitize more bottles.  So, I rinsed out 4 bottles, filled them, and bottled them.

Usually I wait at least 2 weeks before opening a bottle.  It just takes a while for everything to get completely bottle conditioned.  But, after the day I had on Friday I was desperate for good news anywhere.  Plus, I have these 4 “extra” beers anyway.  So, grabbed one of them, popped the top and poured it out.

Ah-ha!  Finally some success.  What an interesting flavor.  Initial reaction is malty with a roasted flavor reminiscent of many stouts.  Then it has a crisp hoppy finish.  The beer has a chocolatey brown color to it.  Granted I hadn’t eaten anything in about 8 hours prior to driking it, but it had a pretty decent kick to it.  The Tumultuous Porter is a recipe worth keeping.  As the recipe says, it is hard to describe the flavor, but I’ve tried my best here.

Ol’ Charlie was right, “Relax.  Have a homebrew.”