My Homebrew Journey - My First Beer: Brown Porter

I figured I'd start the essence of my blog posts here, with where all of it started for me. My very first homebrew. Actually, I should be more precise, my very first "all-grain" homebrew, as I have done some kits before that. But as starter kits don't really follow the same rules as actually brewing a beer with real, genuine ingredients, I'm going to neglect those. My first genuine brew was also a kit, but it was an all-grain kit at least. I also recommend it to everyone who has an interest in brewing; you have to go through some kits first. Start with the basic ones where all you really need to do is add some water and yeast and let it ferment. Then move on to an all-grain kit.

Anyways, I digress. My first brew was one of the kits from a local brewshop, a porter. Very basic kit, some grains, hops and a yeast. I think it was:

• Pale Malt
• Cara/Crystal Malt (20EBC)
• Chocolate Malt
• Special Belge Malt
• East Kent Goldings Hops
• Dry Yeast (strain unknown)

I still remember the brew day quite well. I brewed this on New Year's Eve 2015. It was a lucky day, I was really looking forward to the delivery of all my all-grain brewing equipment, including this kit. I didn't expect it to arrive anytime soon, considering it's the holidays and all that, but to my surprise, the delivery man showed up and delivered all my goods, I could not be happier.

I also didn't really plan to go celebrate that evening, so I had the rest of the day to devote myself to brewing my first beer. I unpacked all my gear, I set everything up, had some dinner and then I spent my evening brewing this all-grain kit, making sure to follow all the directions included.

When you first brew a beer, the process can be a bit daunting, but everything went pretty smooth, I probably made a couple of tiny mistakes, but nothing that would hurt my beer in the end. Could it have been better without those mistakes? Probably, but I ended up with a great beer. I was close to the numbers that I needed to hit according to the recipe, so I was very happy after a hard evenings work.

Then starts the waiting game, you've brewed your beer successfully, but now you got to sit there and not touch it for 2 weeks to let it ferment, and then another additional 2 weeks after bottling to make sure it is carbonated and has mellowed out in the bottle.

Finally came the day that I got to open a bottle and taste my beer, and I'm going to be honest, I expected better. But then again, that's because I really enjoy porters and stouts and they're among my top favorite beers. And this one didn't really taste like what I expect from a porter. I was a bit sad at first, but then I remembered that this is an all-grain premade kit, of which I had no idea of what it was supposed to taste like, so I chalked it up to it just being the recipe and it not necessarily being me screwing up.

I opened another bottle of it today (picture below), I had like two left. In the end, I do like this beer, and considering it's a beer that is refermented in the bottle, it doesn't really go bad, its flavors develop over time and it actually tastes pretty good by now. It has more of the roasty, chocolate-y notes that one would expect from a beer like this, head retention is still great. All in all, it's a good beer and I'm happy with the result of my very first brew.

Stay tuned, cause there will be more posts coming about all the other beers I've made so far, leading up to my first post of an actual brew day.

Thanks and cheers !