Tasting : The Product

So how did The Product come out?  Not bad, but there were a couple issues.

First off, it had the dank taste that I love about The Substance.  It was also darker (do the fact that I boiled off too much during the brew would be my guess).

This was my first time kegging, so the carbonation was a bit of work to get to where I wanted it to be and initially all the hop matter clogged the liquid out post.  The thing I've come to really appreciate about kegging is that you can fix issues almost immediately, unlike a lot of bottle issues and you don't end up with flat beer because you primed wrong or conditioned too cold.

(The Substance on the left, The Product on the right)

I also had some of the real stuff on hand to compare side by side.  One thing that I noticed immediately was that it wasn't quite as bitter as the Substance.  I'm still not sure why as according to BeerSmith, my IBUs were right on target.

The other weird thing that I noticed was that by the end of the keg, it had almost completely cleared.  The haze was gone.  All I can figure was that this might have something to do with using the English Ale yeast, instead of a California Common strain.

All in all, I was pretty happy with this beer.  I think that the grain bill may become my house IPA base and I'll continue to tweak it.

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