jmbingham wrote:SacSoul you' ve put a lot of work into that beer,can't wait to here how it finishes.
Will there still be maple flavors after the yeast have finished with the sugars?
Sounds tasty
JB

There should be according to my little brewing sugar guide. It's only if you use it at boil that most of the maple flavors are lost and you end up with a dry, woody flavor.

Great work SacSoul,

Reading the earlier part of this thread, it would have certainly crossed my mind more than once to just cut my losses and start again... Your persistance is inspiring, and to me embodies the true spirit of the craft

I recommend putting a few bottles of this batch down somewhere safe, just in case I ever get over to Colorado :D
You could also pull 'em out in a year to see how far your've progressed by then...

SacSoul wrote:Screw his noodlieness, yeast is my new god

p.s. don't lose the faith - who do you think guided the work of the yeast

Cheers
Dave

I lost my patience and had a taste yesterday. It was excellent if a little young. It was full bodied with a medium-light carbonation. A slightly maple-like start nicely transitions into a fairly strong coffee/caramel flavor, and finishes with an almost clean bitterness (still a bit tainted by tannins). The carbonation may be different when I taste again this weekend as the bottle I popped felt as if the cap wasn't on very tight and may have lost some of the carbonation (which also means I can't comment on the beer's head yet). Despite the lack of head, it still laced nicely. Overall, I am very pleased

I popped a bottle that hadn't leaked carbonation with my neighbor yesterday. It got his seal of approval (and he has ok tastes; he introduced me to Boulevard Brewing which has quickly become one of my favorite micros) so that makes me pretty happy. In the future I'll use less Maple when bottleing though. 12.5 ounces was a tad much on the carbonation side as a nice, smooth pour still results in half a glass of head that refuses to settle So, all in all, good head retention, nice lacing, great color, decent mouth fell, and a pretty good full-bodied flavor. Definitely not much of a summer brew as it will fill you up pretty quickly

Now, hopefully my second batch (Red Ale) comes out better than the first So far, a week into fermentation, it is doing fantastic.