Remember when I was going to bottle that EPA/IPA that I brewed when summer was still in its infancy? Nor, do I my friend, nor do I. It was two days shy of a month ago when I said I would be bottling my Leftover EPA. Well, today I finally accomplished that extremely arduous (i.e. 15 minute) task.

If you remember, this beer was made from leftover malt from my Old Speckled Hen Clone, and only took up 1 gallon of space in my primary. I brewed on 6/12/08 and bottled on 8/4/08. That puts the fermentation time at 54 days or just under 8 weeks. Tack on the 10 days for bottle conditioning and we’ll be at 9+ weeks.

The beer seemed to be doing just fine for sitting through that summer heat. There was a very large amount of trub from the loose leaf hops I used. This, and there being only a gallon of beer in a five gallon fermentor made it quite a task to get the beer into the bottling bucket. I managed to avoid most of the trub but the beer is still pretty cloudy. Hopefully, storing the beer cold and proper decanting will keep it clear in the glass. The smell was amazing–bright hop aroma all over the place. The color was quite a bit darker than I had expected, but will probably lighten after being decanted. It tasted a little green. The beer was definitely hoppy, with a solid bitterness, but it also tasted noticeably sweet. I only tried the beer after adding the priming sugar, so I am hoping bottle conditioning will mellow the sweetness out a touch.

After all was said and done I had five 22oz. bombers of the Leftover E.P.A. I actually only anticipated having enough for four (I hate english volumes) so one bottle was only sanitized for a short time. I marked that bottle with and “X” on the cap; if that one stinks, I know why.

Check back for the tasting in less than two weeks time.

P.S. – I took my Karate Monkey out to Theo Worth Park for the second time this summer and had a blast, again. I would have mentioned this earlier, except that I took a nasty bruise to my ego and a sweet scar to the elbow. I’ll try to squeeze one more ride in before summer ends.