And We're Back

I had a fun, though not exactly relaxing weekend away. Planes, road trips, and sleeping in a different place every night can take a toll. It was also not a very good beer-drinking weekend. With the exception of one trip to 1311 in Pittsburgh, which has a very decent selection of craft beers and imports, it was a strictly mixed-drink kind of trip.

On top of that, I came home to find my husband had exhausted the limited selection we had at home. Looks like it will be a wine night for me.

The good news is that my first two brews are just about ready for bottling. The Pils has been conditioning at 35 degrees for just about a month, and the cream ale looks like it's done just about all the fermenting it can do. I have quite the bottling adventure coming up.

Serendipitously, today's post over at Mike's Brew Review is all about cleaning bottles. This is a great blog for beginning brewers. He's just gotten into brewing himself, so everything is written from the perspective of someone who's still experimenting with their process. On top of that, Mike is a web designer by day, so the site is beautiful. I love his illustrations.

I'm not gonna lie, bottling is a process that has intimidated me since I first cracked open my copy of How to Brew.  But according to Mike, it's not going to be as hard as I think. Thank God for that.