Shiny clean bottles waiting to be filled with home brewed beer.

I am getting ready for an evening of bottling with Hubby tonight. The Holiday Seasonal Ale that a friend gave me for Chirstmas (Hi Jay!) is done fermenting and needs to be put in its bottles. I am eager to try this brew, which features honey, spices, and fresh orange zest, but it will be another three weeks before we crack one open.

I never gave the vanilla ale and chocolate stouts a proper review here, though they deserved it. The chocolate stout was pretty darn good, providing a very deep and rich brew, but the real star is the vanilla pale ale. This brew is by far my favorite so far. The taste is sophisticated,  light and cool, with a very mild vanilla aftertaste–it’s nothing like the cream soda beer that the name might imply. I have a handful of pints left, and I’ll be brewing more when they run out.

Well, I’ll be brewing more when they run out and I run out of kits to brew. The Holiday Seasonal Ale is one of three kits I had on hand, and I need to brew the Extra Special Bitter (a gift from Hubby’s brother and next in line) and Cream Ale that I have here waiting for their turn before spending money on any additional kits!