Anticipation...

Sometimes it is commensurate with the object of desire, and ... at other times it exceeds it, leaving disappointment in its wake when the object falls short.

I've been looking forward to trying my new IPA batch, but after sipping a few of the bottles I filled on Thursday of last week, I don't think extract kits are going to cut it for the more amber varieties of ale. This one basically tastes like an "estery" Belgian dubbel with more hops. It's decent, but definitely not an IPA. The character of the hops and yeast may improve over time in the bottle, but the malt just isn't right for the style. Live and learn, I guess.

Edit 8/20/08 - After waiting for the full week after bottling, I'm more confident that this IPA will improve with a bit more time in the bottle. It currently tastes like an IPA (yay!), with a little of the esters still peeking through. I expect that flavor to diminish as the yeast goes dormant and more of it drops out of the brew. Also, the hops have become noticeably less astringent. I guess I wasn't expecting these initial flavors because the raw Stout had masked much of it due to the strength of the roasted malt. Patience, young padawan.

So I've reverted to a darker brew for my next batch and purchased a partial-mash Porter (more grain, less extract). The preparation went quite well. The extra steeping and sparging steps weren't excessively complicated and resulted in a cleaner wort, at least in my perception. There seemed to be much less hot break, probably because less extract was used (4 pounds or so, I believe). Unfortunately, the sales assistant at the homebrew shop also gave me whole hops this time, which derailed a little experiment with whirlpooling that I tried during the transfer to fermentation.

Whirlpooling the wort allows you to siphon the liquid into the fermenter and leave the trub in the center of the kettle (rather than using a filtering funnel), which purportedly works well and avoids waste... as long as you don't have hops petals floating in your brew to clog up the siphon. I had to revert to the meshed funnel, which resulted in 4 gallons of liquid in the fermenter due to the sizable volume of unfilterable sludge at the bottom. This loss of volume bugged the hell out of me, so I added a gallon of sterile distilled water before pitching the yeast.

In any case, this batch started fermenting much more quickly than my last (24, instead of 48 hours), which I'm hoping is a good sign. I suspect that some of the esters in the flavor of my IPA might have been caused by stray yeast infiltrating the wort before the ale yeast could take a foothold. Here's hoping the good yeast will dominate this time.

Another object of my anticipation was the much-hyped German board game Agricola, which Z-Man games had announced it would be publishing in February of this year. After seeing the date pushed back month after month, I'd essentially forgotten about the pre-order I'd placed. And since my card was charged back in January, the shipping notification I received from them this month almost felt like ... an early birthday present!

I was actually unable to play the game for a few days after I'd received it due to various projects, including the above brewing activities and a fence that needed to be replaced & reposted (fuuunn).

So I'd been scratching my head over the instructions every other night or so and finally managed to sit down for a solo session last night to make heads or tails of the rules. The rulebook is rather poorly written, opting for a scoping structure of overall goals > phase/round description > action descriptions > scoring > appendix (containing detailed explanations of all cards). This works in concept, once you know the game, but they really should have included a brief walkthrough of one or two rounds to provide an overall picture of how it all fit together.

Anyhow, crappy documentation aside, I can say that the hype was entirely warranted for this game, and I'm not surprised it has finally dethroned Puerto Rico as the #1 ranked game on boardgamegeek.com (which hasn't happened since circa 2002). I'm tempted to introduce this to our casual gaming circle soon, since I'm getting a little bored with the usual Carcassonne and Ticket to Ride fare we've been playing. The only problem is that the components are a bit too numerous and colorful and could prove too tempting for a group of spectating toddlers and 5-year-olds. But I like the lower-key competition in this one (compared to TtR), which could be more relaxing for some of the players who are more prone to Analysis Paralysis and hand-wringing when the pressure ramps up.