Out of the Bottle: If it's not Scottish, it's a naughty word.

My Scottish Ale is finally ready to go. First off, my goal of creating a midway point between an 80 Schilling and a Wee Heavy was overruled by the yeast. With a Final Gravity of just 1.008, the alcohol level is only a few ticks below 8.0%, which is way out of 80 Schilling Territory. Oh well.

The beer pours a deep mahogany hue, with nice clarity for a bottle conditioned beer. A vigorous pour nets a small nougat tinged head. Head retention isn't quite what I'd hoped for, but a good swirl of the glass brings it back to life. The aroma is exactly what I was shooting for. Deeply caramelized sugars intermingle with a touch of roasted grain. There is very little hop aroma to be had. What's there brings a hint of black tea.

In the mouth, caramel, toffee and just a touch of coffee intermingle nicely. Bitterness is very low, as was to be expected. The beer gets a little astringent late, but not overly so. The mouthfeel is somewhat dry and not quite as hefty as I'd hoped for, but is still pleasant. The carbonation is right where I intended. The overall experience is quite nice.

One of today's lesson, is that the freeware QBrew software I use to help formulate recipes is quite pessimistic when it comes to yeast attenuation. Every beer I've brewed so far has ended up with a higher alcohol content than QBrew predicted. Lesson number two, is that the software doesn't really matter if the results are this good.

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