Almigo brews a beer part 7 - Proud beer dad moment

Strike up the band and let fly the fanfare for the moment finally arrived - I got to open and rip into my very first brew from my very first batch.

But would it be be more watery than a rising tide or so on point that the major brewing industries couldn't help but stand up and take notice?

Now I have to admit that Friday night, just one day out from my very first home brew tasting session, I was salvating at the thought. It was the downward slope of a lean pay fortnite and the house is pretty hard up for booze at the moment. There's no beer, the scotch bottle is empty, the tasty bottle of red I bought a couple of weeks ago is long gone. So the thought of a beer, even a potentially nasty one depending on how fermention went was pretty tantilising I can tell you.

The want to get into this recycled bottle was very high

But I refrained. The brewing guide gave strict instructions of at least two days chilling time in the fridge and a busy work week be damned, I was sticking to it. And so another 18 hours later and I finally came face to face with my hard work. Make or break time Almigo, let's sink it and discover what we've concocted here..

(And in true Beers in My Backyard style, it gets the full review treatment too!)

HOME BREW CITRA WARRIOR IPA

So after the fun that was planning, brewing and bottling, then waiting for a couple of weeks and finally some chilling, what am I smelling here?: Beer with slight hops. Off to a cracking start.

Initial thoughts: Absolutely no concern with a lack of any head with this batch, there's plenty of it to go around. That carbonation drop really worked over time with this one!

The colour is a thick brown and a bit cloudy.

First sip gives a lovely medium buttery caramel note with a very solid mild bitter aftertaste. There is absolutely no watteryness in it whatsoever. There's a slight coppery tinge towards the end too but nothing that takes away from the fullness from start to finish.

It tastes like an IPA I'd usually drink from Dan Murpheys (probably closer to the Stone Go To IPA than a Fig Jam.)

I am impressed, a lot - even more so when I remember that I put this bloody thing together. It's a belter!

Overall: My first ever brew a resounding success. The best IPA I've had the pleasure of ingesting? No. It could be a bit smoother, clearer and a let less of the coppery tinge wouldn't go astray. Still I'm mighty proud of the fact that from a bunch of ingredients, I have crafted up my ever beer and can't wait to:

A) Work out what I'm going to brew next

B) Rip into it!

3.5 happy weekends of beer wonderment out of a 5.