A little while ago I linked to a nice discussion of session beer on a blog that is obvious a better beer blog than this one is. Continuing in the tradition of better blogs: here's one. Well, that's actually a link to his article on nearly puking some bad danish lager into which he put some spoiled hop extract. Well, he thinks it might have been hop extract. I'm not sure from what he says that he's confident that it was really hop extract. The blog, anyway, appears far more worth reading than this one.

The recent pale ale blasted its way through fermentation and it ready to keg. I'm leaving town early tomorrow for my mother's 60th birthday and won't have time to keg it until I return, which is too bad because it would be nice to come home to some ready-to-drink pale ale. (What I tasted when I racked this beer was incredible.--More on making incredible beer in a moment.)

The blond will also be ready to keg soon, likely I will keg that along with the pale ale on Tuesday. I'm looking forward to the blond, but I can't say too much about it yet because when I rack it has some sulfur flavors that will no doubt dissipate during conditioning. (Sulfur smells and tastes, I have found, unlike all the other undesirable smells and tastes I've accidentally brewed up, actually disspate during conditioning.)

There's that IPA that underattenuated and I got going again. I'm sorta worried about that beer because I dumped so much yeast on it to get it to continue fermenting. The future of that beer: probably re-rack it, dry-hop it and add some fining to remove the yeast. I wasn't planning originally to dry hop it, but since I'll have two other beers ready around the time I return, I think I will.

And there's that damned old ale that I haven't done anything about since I racked it, except move it to a keg so that i can beer-gun it into bottles.

In case your counting, that makes 25 gallons--5 batches--of beer sitting around and waiting to be packaged...

Back to the topic of making incredible beer. If what I've tasted while racking is any indication, I've been rewarded for having made two funny-yeast beers in a row. The Old Ale that I moved to a corney keg has amazing potential. And the recent Pale Ale may be the best pale ale I've ever made. I suspect that carastan malt is the secret to great pale. The IPA, though underattenuated, was full of promise. The amber ferments and when I get back I'll find out how good it is.