Review: The Brew House Beer Kit Part Two

Written by DJ Spiess

Tuesday, 18 March 2008

The long awaited review of the Beer House Oktoberfest beer kit. Here is how the beer turned out.

Back in January I made a beer from “beer kit” . The Brew House beer kit is very similar to a wine kit. The kit comes with concentrated wort which you rehydrate and then add yeast. What makes this beer kit special is the kit requires no boiling. It is like mixing kool-aid, but you get beer as a result (after fermentation). The result (in this case) is Oktoberfest ale.

The Oktoberfest beer kit from RJ Spangnols

The only area we deviated from the instructions was to not bottle condition. I kegged the beer, and never added the bottling sugar.

Looks

The ale looks exactly like you would expect. It has a copper red color and a thick off-white head. The beer has a great solid foamy head, almost as thick as krausen. It was slightly cloudy, but I am not sure if that was from the beer or possibly some failure on my part during the production process. All in all, the Oktoberfest is a good looking beer.

The finished beer ready to drink!

Aroma

There is little aroma from the beer. I could detect some hops, and maltiness. The malt aroma was stronger than the hops. Overall the aroma was a bit weak.

Impressive head on the beer.

Taste

The flavor was a bit bitterer than I was expecting from an Oktoberfest. Ironically when I was choosing this kit, I was warned against choosing the IPA for its lack of hop flavor. My original guess was that the hops could not “shine through”, similar to the weak aroma problem that many wine kits display. This kit has a bit too much hop flavor for an Oktoberfest. There is good malt flavor, but the hops seem too strong for the style. Strangely enough, the website lists the IBUs at 18, which is on the low end of the spectrum for the style. The hops seemed much stronger than 18 IBUs.

The beer is a smooth beer in terms of alcohol and drink-ability. I served the beer to a large group of friends to see how they would like it. Overall I received positive feedback, and many people mentioned that they liked the beer.

Results

The Oktoberfest beer kit produced a good beer, and overall the beer was well received. I don’t think the beer “wowed” anyone, but it was a good beer. When I introduced the beer to friends, I called it “red ale” and left it at that. If you look at their website , they are calling it “red ale” too. The box says “Oktoberfest” but the Brew House website describes it “stylistically positioned between a German Alt Beer and the Oktoberfest”.

I most likely will try other versions of the Brew House beer kits over the summer. I’ll give the Oktoberfest beer kit 7 Masskrugs out of 10.

Brewery: Me (Brew House Beer Kit)
Country of Origin: Canada (RJ Spagnols)
Style: Oktoberfest
ABV: 5.2%

Who is behind fermentarium?

My name is D.J. Spiess I've been homebrewing for many years and I hope I can help you enjoy this hobby as much as I do. If you enjoyed this article, please leave a comment, share it, digg it, or stumble it using the icons to the right or the top of the page.
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