3.01.2008

Cherry Sparkles Bottled

I did end up bottling Cherry Sparkles on the 26th, just a day after PostNatal IPA. I added a bit of cherry flavoring, which was more like black cherry than maraschino cherry. And I used almost a whole tube of red food coloring shooting for a pink color. I think I might have overshot, and I may be more red than pink, but we'll see how it looks once it's conditioned.

The taste was nice. The base beer is my latest incarnation of Stonington Memorial Summer Ale. That's a half malted wheat, half pale ale malt grist with Tettnanger hops. In the past, it was a 60 minute addition and a flameout addition, but I changed it up a little, with additions as first wort hops (added to the kettle as runoff begins), along with 60, 45, 30, 15, and flameout additions. It all amounted to about 20 IBU, which was a little higher than I wanted, but my volume was low, so there you go. This gives the beer a noticable but mild bitterness and all-around hop character, which was nice for the base beer. I packaged about a gallon of this un-pinked. The pink beer ended up being just slightly cherry, almost more from the nose, inferring a flavor. The food coloring is mostly high fructose corn syrup, and that showed in the flavor of the pink beer. I hope that isn't too fermentable, or my bottles might blow up. Time will tell.

They're nearly conditioned already, but I'll give them a few more days before I pop one open and test it. I don't need to drink a flat one, thank you. I already tried that anyway.

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