WILK Friday BeerBuzz–24 June 2011 (Mr. Beer – American Devil IPA)

So I’ll admit up front that my teaser from last week may have been a little misleading…but it was all in the name of good fun.  A few months ago the Mr. Beer company was nice enough to contact me and offer to send me a Mr. Beer brewing kit to try out for myself.  Yes in the name of full-disclosure, the kit was free, but the experience was a lot of fun and the results were exciting….so I definitely wanted to share the story and the beer with our audience.

The process was really simple.  You can check out the posting from my Brew Day Here, and my Bottling Day Here….and I thought what better way to discuss the actual tasting of my Mr. Beer than to do the sampling live on the radio!

Mr. Beer has really made the process of brewing a beer, simple, fun and really welcoming to someone just starting out, and surprisingly enough, the beer tastes good.  There are certainly limitations with this sort of brewing, but while you may not be brewing a GABF award winning beer in Mr. Beer, you are learning a lot about the process and perhaps even using it as a stepping stone toward all-grain brewing someday.

My beer was called American Devil IPA, and I added some fresh Nugget and Cascade hop cones from my 2010 harvest at the end of the boil and left them in through fermentation.  While I think the effect was minimal, it was fun to tweak the recipe a little for my preferences, as you can with all Mr. Beer kits. 

So how did it taste?  Well it actually was a very good and drinkable beer.  The hop levels and ABV are pretty tame for an “IPA”, but the flavor was solid and the color and clarity perfect.  So try it out for yourself.  Mr. Beer brewing kits are available on-line and many retail locations, and keep in mind our previous guest Brian Boak from Boak’s Beer started his brewing career, on a Mr. Beer.

Thanks
to  Julianna Contreras from Mr. Beer, Nancy, John, Joe, and Bosco for yet another fun Friday. 
The Friday BeerBuzz…bringing good beers and good people together. 
As always you can check out the video on-line at the WILK Friday BeerBuzz page by clicking HERE.