Rumcake and the brown ale

I bottled the Rumcake Ale last weekend. Yes, "Bottle". What a pain in the ass. I started about 6:30 and finished at about 9. I'd forgotten what a lot of work bottling is. Wash bottles, sanitize bottles, drain bottles, clean bottling bucket, sanitize bottling bucket, sanitize caps, sanitize siphon. Arg! If I did the math right (I've got a masters degree in math, but I can still screw up simple arithmetic, so I may have made a mistake here (5 gallons = 5 x 128 oz = 500 + 5 x 28 = 500 + 100 + 40 = 640 / 22 = 2 x 10 + 200 / 22 = 20 + 9 point something = 29, I did that in my head)), I should have got 29 22oz bottles out of 5 gallons. I got 23. I lost 6 x 22 = 132 ounces (I did that in my head too -- 6 x 20 = 120 + 6 x 2 = 132) which is over a gallon lost somewhere. Well, I can account for about a pint, since I'm drinking that. On the other hand, that is a quite joyous pint! When I racked this from primary to secondary, I thought the hydrometer sample tasted odd. I'm looking at boxes, and that 23rd bottle is in jeopardy, 22 bottles fit nicely in available boxes. On the other hand, the first pint has toasted me quite nicely, another 22 oz might be dangerous. I think I'll go for it.

The Rumcake is tasty now, so I expect it'll be tastier later. I put the brown ale on tap 2 days ago. It's brown. It's cloudy. It's beer. It's strange. I'll drink it anyway. It's definitely a session beer, but it really needs to sit a little longer than 2 days to be good. I expect that in a week or so, it'll clear up and be a nice, quaffable, after work drink 3 or 4 sort of beer.