Drinking 40 Pints of Woodforde’s Wherry from a Youngs Kit

The wait is finally over. It’s beer o’clock. Or is it?

Step 8 – The Second Wait

Once in the keg, the beer needs to be put somewhere warm for 24 hours to get the secondary fermentation (caused by the sugar) going. After that it’s supposed to be put somewhere colder to settle.

The Sicilies, however, were going on holiday – as I mentioned in the previous installment – so I stuck the keg in the cupboard under the stairs, reckoning this would be both warm AND cool.

The second wait wasn’t so bad, as we went to the North Yorkshire Moors for a week. And a jolly good time we had.

Step 9 – Preliminary Testing

 The instructions stipulated leaving the beer for anywhere between 5 and 14 days, until it was clear. I gave it eight before I tapped off a little bit (pictured) and drank it.

Well, it looked like beer. It smelled like beer.

As regards taste, it’s a little harder to say. I’m not entirely sure what Woodforde’s Wherry is supposed to taste like – bar the gibberish cited on their website quoted earlier.

I found it quite watery, but then (i) I did seemingly use a gallon or so more water than I was supposed to and (ii) Wherry is only a 3% beer, and I tend to drink stronger stuff.

It was certainly bitter, with a metallic, iron taste to it. Perhaps that’s the “delicious citrus aftertaste”...?

To conclude, I’ve tasted worse beer.

Step 10 – The Acid Test

Of course, testing the flavour is only part of the story. I did not intend to drink this in 50ml samples.

That evening, I drank three pints or so of it.

Did I feel drunk? No. But then I wouldn’t really expect to have. More research with greater quantities is required to ascertain the real strength of the beer.

Did I go blind or get a blinding hangover? No. Which would suggest that the process went according to plan without significant contamination.

Did I get that hallmark of homebrew - a raging bout of the shits? No!

I call that a rip-roaring success.

Conclusions

I have two more tins of Wherry to make up once I’ve polished this lot off – plus a gallon of primarily fermented stuff sitting around still (I suppose) fermenting further.

Here’s what I’ll do differently next time:

• Measure the water out properly. I think (i) I used too much water and (ii) it was too hot to begin with, which could have killed off some of my yeast, leading to weakness.
• Be a little more scientific about temperatures. I reckon that I slowed the whole thing down by keeping it too cold for the primary fermentation.
• Sterilise everything before putting it into the wort. Just laziness I’m afraid.

Cheers!