I have created Lager. I’m normally an ale man. It’s less fussy to make. You pitch the yeast (singing hymns the while, naturally) and wait, dump it into another bottle and wait, dump it into another bottle and wait and then drink it. If the temp in room ranges, that’s dandy. Ale yeast likes the temperature I like. Ale and me, we make good housemates.
Lager needs much cooler temperatures, and then you go through ale routine, waiting longer because the yeast is slower, and when you’ve bottled it the final time and waited, you don’t get to drink it. You get to refrigerate it and wait some more. Feh! Thus, I have always scorned the making of lagers, although I have cheerfully drunk of Ed’s.
The house has been cool, though, so I made one. It is refrigerating, now. I drunk one just before refrigeration (lagering) and was pleased. Sip, sip, beer all gone. Two sips? That’s a dandy beer. After a couple days of lagering, it’s even better — that quickly.
I shall be making more lager. It’s too good not to have around.
…
Er, that’s pretty much it. No world-shaking news, no amazing revelations. Just beer. Num.
Roger Zelazny said, in Blood of Amber:
Baron Bayle owned a number of vineyards about thirty miles to the east. He was the official vintner to the Court, and his red wines were generally excellent. He was less successful with the whites, though, and often wound up dumping a lot of second-rate stuff onto the local market. It bore his emblem and a picture of a dog-he liked dogsso it was sometimes called Dog Piss and sometimes Bayle’s Piss, depend ing on who you talked to. Dog lovers sometimes take offense at the former appellation.
Ed has been making a lovely lager for years called Ed’s Piss. Originality is wonderful, but there is something to be said for an idea of some lineage. I am calling my lager Scott’s Piss.
Crossposted from Epinepherine & Sophistry