The good: Football was pre-empted by three parties. It's almost like I had a social life for once :-)
The usual: Of course, beer was involved. On Friday night/Saturday morning, I finally bottled the Rochefort 8 clone I had been sitting on for a couple months. I did something slightly different, mixing the priming sugar and beer in a keg, so I could push the beer with light CO2 pressure instead of gravity. It was mostly an experiment to see if I could make bottling a little more ergonomic by manipulating the bottles at a better height, but it didn't quite work out that way. I reverted to moving bottles around on the floor, just like old times... As an added bonus, I'm less than confident that the priming sugar was well mixed, and the beer stopped fermenting at a higher final gravity than I expected, so I'm on a dual "bottle bomb" and "persistently flat beer" watch for the next couple weeks.
That's why I keg most of my batches. I only bottle if I'm planning to keep the beer around for a year or so.
After bottling, I took a sample of my Mustard/Pepper ale, which I still haven't transferred out of the primary fermenter. It's really coming along. It has a crisp, spritzy mustard bite followed by a mild black-pepper burn. All of this is backed by a light malt flavor and some yeast fruitiness. It's looking like it will be better for something other than torturing beer judges :-)
On Saturday, I got a chance to show off my last Oatmeal Stout at one of the parties. I think my favorite comment was something like:
"Beer usually makes me break out in hives, but..." (sips) "...I don't mind, this one's worth it"The funny thing is that this was the half of the batch I almost dumped. I had fermented it with somewhat suspect yeast (my favorite strain stepped up from a petri dish via multiple "sterile" transfers performed in my definitely non-sterile kitchen). Worse, I left it in the primary fermenter for too long, and it was invaded by fruit flies. They seemed to stay out of the beer itself, but were way to close for my comfort. Luckily alcohol and hops are preservatives :-)