Home Brew Review

On Wednesday I had the pleasure of sampling 2 bottles of homebrew sent to me by fellow all-grain brewers.

First up was JW's Lager sent to me by John This is the first homebrewed lager that I've tried so I made sure that I got the temperature of the beer right earlier in the day. To sum this up in a line: A great session beer to serve up at a BBQ.

I found it to be nicely carbonated and a light golden colour (the pic doesn't do it justice) I thought that it could have done with more hop aroma and flavour but that could be just my preference, it had a very clean/crisp and light taste and a dry finish, ideal I would say at a meat V's hot coals contest and I'm sure that John's going to be very popular this summer if he brews this again!

Following that was an Oatmeal Stout sent to me by Calum, I am not normally a stout drinker but i'd happily see a few of these off.

Carbonation was great, just enough to give the beer some life, it tasted really smooth and really gives your taste buds a treat with a full on roasted malt invasion, (I wonder, does the smoothness come from the roasted oatmeal?) It was nice and sweet with a pleasant finish not at all like the mass produced commercial stouts I normally avoid at the pub, I've also come to expect that a stout will be filling, like having a Sunday lunch after 3 pints but this wasn't like that at all. It would be easy to sit on a cold night in front of the fire and see a few of these down the hatch, i'll be looking for a brew to put away for Christmas, this will be on the shortlist.

Both of these brewers have 2 of my beers to try each, both have a Glasshouse Porter which I bottled back in December, Calum also has a bottle of Largs Thistle and John also has a bottle of Randy Sparrow. I'm looking forward to their feedback, it's the best way to improve your brews in my opinion.