Labeling the O Hike Ale

After a week of fermentation, a little over a week of dry hopping, and two weeks bottle conditioning, the O Hike Ale is as ready as it's going to be for reunion.

The batch yielded a total of forty-five 12 oz. bottles, forty of which I'll be serving at reunion; the other five I chose to sample over the past week to ensure this was a beer I was confident in serving. The first bottle I tasted was still in the process of conditioning, so I was a bit concerned that the rest of the batch would continue to taste as that first one had. Luckily the other beers I've had from the batch have conditioned, carbonated, and cleaned up nicely.

The most noticeable quality of the beer that, I feel is a detriment to the overall perception of the beer, is the level of hop bitterness. The test batch came out quite sweet, and I was somewhat more comfortable serving a beer like it at reunion than an overly bitter beer. A bitter beer may be more appreciable by a seasoned craft beer drinker like myself. For the typical American beer drinker (or non-drinker) that is unfamiliar with hoppy beers, the final batch may be less palatable.

On a positive note, I feel that the final batch came a lot closer to  the beer I attempted to clone, Gordon (aka G'Knight) from Oskar Blues. I believe the fermentation chamber I built helped quite a bit by allowing for lower fermentation temperatures. The fermentation was much "cleaner" than with the test batch, and thus the final beer has less of the fruity esters and hot alcohols of the test batch. The lower mash pH I also believe greatly improved the quality of the beer. As the result of hitting 5.1~5.2 pH during the mash, I believe it made for a much crisper and brighter beer as I had expected. Whether this was actually due to mash pH or not, I'll have to see with future brews. The beer finished perceivably drier as well, and although this may not be due to a lower final gravity (I last measured it at 1.020, the same FG as the test batch), the resulting taste of the beer is not as overly sweet as the test batch tasted.

It took a while to finalize the label, but I think it came out well and will hopefully offer a few laughs for people during reunion. I feel like I can't go wrong with an ode to Doc Overaker (the subject in both the front and back labels). He's one of the few figures at Holderness that is both instantly recognizable and central to the identity of the school, as well as capable of inspiring amusement with any of the anecdotes that surround his time as a teacher. Glad to hear he is back teaching at Holderness, and I hope he never hears he was the subject of this particular project!