Keg Is King

As time goes on, I am noticing that home brew loses it's hoppiness. No preservatives, and over time, I guess, even beer gets old.

Some observations.

I spent some time collecting bottles. First it was getting larger bottles to reduce the amount of work for bottling. Then it was swing tops. I found some clear 33.8 oz bottles. I found brown 33 oz bottles. I even found a half-gallon bottle that held some German winterbrew.

I have come to the conclusion that when it comes to bottling, size counts. against you. I posted earlier that the flavor in the 25.4oz Martinelli's bottles was not crisp. My theory was that the green glass was letting in light that was spoiling the beer.

So what happens when you use the larger brown bottles? Same thing. The taste is just not there like it is in the smaller bottles.

Conclusion: Go with 12- 20 oz bottles. The crisp flavor is worth the extra cleaning bottling and capping.

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My neighbor down the street brews as well, and he came by and invited me over the following Sunday. He and his buddies were gathering for the opening day of the Formula One series in Australia, and they were kicking things off with their first attempt at kegging.

I like the idea of kegging, but my concerns are: (1) How long will the beer keep once you've cracked the seal, (2) It's spendy for the gear and (3) It can be hard to keep track of how much you drink.

Sunday came around, and I swung by. We exchanged some brewing experiences and best practices. It was nice to know I shared some common challenges with other brewers.

As I tried to glean what knowledge I could about F1 racing before the start of the race, they cracked open the keg. What came out of the tap was a resolution to keg.

My neighbor had brewed an IPA with a full fruity body behind it. But equally impressive was the freshness. You really can't beat draft beer. I tried the same beer in a 12 oz bottle, and it still had all the flavor, but that draft freshness really elevated the experience.

So apparently you can keep the beer in decent shape for about a month. But of course, I will have to research it myself, before posting it as ipso facto on "My Brewed".

I am in the process of pulling coins out of the furniture and my wife is amazed at my sudden interest in laundry. I will slowly amass my fortune in spare change and turn it into pure amber gold.

I have resolved to keg.

It will cost me about $185 plus cooling to start. This will give me the refurbished soda keg (5 gallons), regulator, Co2 tank, tubing and spigot. For cooling, the plan is to get a mini-fridge I can use to keep kegs cold (no room in the fridge without massive reconfigs, and I actually do eat more than just beer). Should be able to find one on the cheap on Craig's List. And then when the time comes, with a few more bucks, I can convert it into a full kegerator. With two towers.