Drinking the mild I brewed four weeks ago.
That moment you crack open a beer you have brewed yourself– it’s kinda magical, kinda scary. It’s hard not to load it with harbingers of life in general (if the beer is shit does that mean I’m shit at life? What if it’s good, but not good enough? Am I consigned forever to mediocrity?)
I am a worrier, and drink beer as a way to regulate certain personality flaws, this being one of them. But my first solo brew is totally drinkable. Sure, the body is thin, and there is no head to speak of. The carbonation level threatens the delicate flavors– in short, a hyper active child only a mother could love. And I do love it.
I shared it with friends, and we were all eating pizza and playing with a Blythe doll. It seemed like the thing to do, as my beer wasn’t going to put hair on anyone’s chest. It’s a shandy-like beer, a return to childhood, to the furtive sippings of forbidden stuff. My friend noticed the chocolate malt and the biscuit, and she’s not even a beer-head. She also said it was squash-like. For non-Brits, squash is a refreshing, fizzy fruit drink. I don’t think it really tastes of squash but the mouth-feel is certainly reminiscent.
Sassquash. It’s as good a name as any, and my friend is pretty darn sassy. I realize now, just like Adam in the garden, naming things is a certain privilege. Just so with beer. I love the ‘in-joke’ names of home and micro brews that crown this anachronistic labor of love.
I don’t want to spend my entire brewing career churning out fizzy lifting drinks. Now I have to figure out what exactly went wrong here, and how the next batches could be improved. But where to begin?
Impy Malting 