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Tonight’s the night. For this brew review I’m going to critique my own damn beer. This beer is a German Oktoberfest recipe kit that I bought online from HighGravityBrew.com for a total of about $38.00. This was the fourth batch of homebrew that I’ve made and this one was guaranteed to be special because it was brewed from start to finish, from boil to bottle, by me and my wife with no outside “assistance” from kids or friends. Check out the .pdf of the included instructions and my notes.

First, a little background: all of the gear, the equipment, the hardware was a Christmas present last year from #1 son. We’ve since brewed 4 batches of beer, the first one as you may recall was a German Oktoberfest recipe kit that came with all the hardware. That very first batch of homebrew was the one I fretted over and lost sleep over and almost gave up on. That was the first Frabekurji Octobrew named after the four guys who brewed it (Frank, Ben, Kurt and Jim).

The second batch I called Sweet Georgia Brown, a brown English ale that didn’t last too long in the bottle. Maybe it was the half jar of honey we added at the end of the boil. After about three weeks in the bottle after conditioning, it started to taste bitter, not from the hops, but from the malts. Or maybe it was the honey.

The third batch was the one my son Jim concocted and he bought all the ingredients. He wanted a wheat beer. He’s a fan of Sam Adams’ Cherry Wheat beer and wanted to brew something along those lines, only with a different fruit, peaches. Things didn’t turn out so well. Maybe there was too much wheat flakes added or we added in the peaches too late (or early or the wrong kind). After maturity, some bottles, when uncapped, spewed foam like a champagne bottle while others were flat as a crewcut. Some had chunks of stuff floating around in ‘em. We still have a few left and they’re ok to drink, as long as you leave an inch of the dregs in the bottle.

At last we have our 4th batch, another Oktoberfest kit, but things were different in the kitchen. I had the knowledge of the beer ingredients and boil temps and overall procedures, but my wife had the finesse when it came to the stove and boiling liquids and proper use of proper kitchen utensils. I was surprised how smoothly it went and how much fun we had in her workshop.

But things were different this time. The boil wasn’t as violent as the previous batches. She had the handle on the “gentle rolling boil” as specified in the instructions. Steeping the grains was different as well. She had me look up the definition of steep in the dictionary to prove that I didn’t have to stand there for 20 minutes dipping and dunking the grain sock endlessly. We just let it sit there and float around… and steep. She “proofed” the yeast. Woke it up and got it going. From step one to the final step of drinking, it was she and I. I think I’ll use her for my next batch. And, she’s good company.

We fermented (primary) in the bucket with an airlock for two weeks in our bedroom which is the coolest (temperature-wise) room in the house. For the first four days, I fell asleep with the pit, pit, pid-dit sound of the airlock bubbling away. Then the transfer to the secondary fermenter (glass carboy) for another two weeks. Bottling and waiting another two weeks. Jeeze, all this waiting just for a beer. BUT… it’s our beer. We made it and it will taste great in spite of what it really tastes like. The bottle labels were printed on my inkjet using just plain milk as an adhesive. All told, we have a monetary investment of 38 bucks, labor (not including clean-up) of about 9 kitchen hours and 6 weeks of waiting.

I’ve reserved today as the day that I finally drink more than one of these Frabekurji home-brews in a sitting. I think a sixpack will do nicely. Let us begin.

The cap popped with a familiar and relieving “tsst” and into the glass it went. The liquid was a nice amber color with gazillions of micro-bubbles slowly rising. The head only yielded about a half-inch’s worth and the liquid was just a little cloudy. The aroma was slight and had that familiar beer wort smell to it. Let’s have a sip or two.

The beer had a big middle flavor and a nice zing to it going down. We’ll wait on the sweetness; it’s almost guaranteed to come forward as we get closer to the bottom of the glass. So far the beer tasted full-bodied and delicious and went down the hatch easily. The minuscule head remained short but thick throughout the first glass.

The sweetness finally came to me about halfway into the first glass. The maltiness reminded me of a maple syrup sort of taste, but the hoppiness seemed to take center stage in this beer opera. The bitterness was not overwhelming but it was present right from the start. It and the maltiness coalesced into the primary flavor of this beer. That fact got me thinking that I really should learn more about hop characteristics and their alpha acids. That and the knowledge of the science of fermentation (zymurgy) would better allow me to pick and choose the best ingredients for future beer batches.

The second glassful poured crystal clear with a really nice copper color to it. The head came up a little taller and sat there nice and thick and creamy with a beige tint. The carbonation was a little less, the bubble population less dense, but the taste was the same. Aha! I had left about a half an ounce in the bottle. When I added it to the glass, it clouded up. Oh, yeah. This was the yeast residue that’s unavoidable. That’s leftovers from the yeast and the bottle conditioning.

I believe that this beer tasted as good as if not better than any of the other Oktoberfest beers I’ve tried. I’m trying to be honest here, but I just can’t get over this taste. I don’t remember any other marzen style or O-brew tasting this flavorful. This was truly a beer to be drunk for the taste and not for the buzz.

I’m surprised and quite pleased at how this beer turned out. However, there were inconsistencies from bottle to bottle. Last week I tried one and it had a distinctive aroma of yeast. Hmm. Obviously it sat in the primary fermenter too long and picked up some taste flavors of the spent yeast. I now know to trust the hydrometer. If I get the same specific gravity for two days in a row, then the fermentation is done and it’s time to transfer to the secondary.

I gave a bottle to a coworker who later said that the beer poured flat, no carbonation at all. But he did like the taste. My heart sank. It was a freak inconsistency during the transfer to the bottling bucket when the priming sugar was added, I’m sure.

I have since decided that the next batch of homebrew will be bottle conditioned using Cooper’s Carbonation Drops, little coughdrop-like sugar pellets. Add one cube to each bottle before filling and capping. That should eliminate or at least mitigate the foamless head issue.

Here I am, halfway into the third glass and I have that satisfying feeling one gets after they’ve finished a building project out in the garage. You know, buy some parts, assemble them in a creative fashion to accomplish an end result, and sit back and admire the fruits of your labors. I have a nice feeling inside about this beer. I think we did pretty good.

The SixPackTech ratings for Frabekurji Octobrew are:

Taste: B+ > Nice medley of flavors right in the middle.
Smoothness: B > Slick as a palmful of sneeze.
Drinkability: B+ > I better put some more in the fridge right now.
Bang for the buck: A > Less than a buck a beer is golden. The fun involved… gold-pressed Latinum.
ABV: 5.25%