I brewed up an ESB a month ago. Last night we had a little family shindig at our place and I tapped into the keg. Served up 5 pitchers of this beer and everyone was really satisfied with the taste.

My impressions were satisfactory. I was really experimenting with this recipe and trying to shoot for something that was very malty and bready in flavor. My initial tasting of the beer made me think of soft pretzels like you get in the mall or at the fair. So I think my breadiness was on the money. The hop bitterness was a little weak but the hop flavor was good. Maybe I’d try a stronger bittering hop next time, I’ll have to research that.

The beer was for the most part clear, with minor haze to it. If I let it cold condition longer I could rack it over to another keg and probably have a crystal clear product. But I don’t think it will last that long.

I missed my terminal gravity though. I ended with a FG of 1.020! I thought it would taste sweet but it wasn’t bad. Probably right at the threshold of sweetness/dryness for my palate. I know what the problem was. It started fermenting at about 72F. That is a little worrisome of a temp for me as I usually ferment at 68F. However, the outside temps are not all that stable right now so my beer fridge doesn’t come in handy to hold a 68F ferment. So I had the fermentor in the basement of the house. I moved it from the 72F room and put it in a cooler corner of the basement. It drifted down to about 65F and continued to ferment. I think the yeast probably crapped out and went dormant before they were done. This is further supported by the presence of a slight diacetyl note in the beer; at least more than I am used to. Next time I should just let it run the course at 72 and see if that produces too many esters for my taste preference.

Regardless, it was a good beer. I think I have a third of a keg left. Maybe I’ll bottle some of it up and send it to a new comp. I think I missed the deadline for the December 1st competition. I’ll think about tweaking the recipe a bit and rebrew it in the future. Stay tuned!