Bitter Sweet

Betting on the "sooner" end of the bitter recipe's line, "Excellent within 2 weeks, sometimes sooner," Nahum and I dipped into the batch of bitter just 1 week after bottling. It was a Sunday night, Mad Men was on TV, and we planned to join the show's characters with a tasty libation.



The first and easiest thing to notice was that this beer was fully, frothily carbonated. There was already a gathering head in the necks of the bottles immediately after popping the tops, and the pour showed our bitter to be actively bubbling with the energy of a freshly pulled tap beer.




The next thing to notice was the bouquet of this particular brew. The graduated hopping had given it a delightfully flowery aroma, but it wasn't overpowering or aggressive. Just a nicely bold set of notes on top of a light-colored body. This was clearly going to be good.



And lo and behold, it was. Really good. Nahum's first word after his first sip was "quenchy," and I agree. The light body made it go down smooth, the carefully complex hops gave it plenty of flavor and the energetic bubbling gave it a nice bite in the end.



Luckily we test-tasted this the night before Labor Day...which means we've got the perfect accompaniment to a sunny day off in the last waning moments of summer.