English and American bottled just in time...

For the big World Cup opening round match. On June 6, Phil came over from Topeka for an intense bottling session, where in the span of two hours we managed to bottle one-hundred and two bottles of the two batches brewed a couple weeks back: the English Pale Ale and the American Amber Ale. Each of them looked very good (and similar) in the carboy, and both of them were extremely tasty after fermentation. Here's to hoping that they both carbonate well. We got forty-nine, twelve ounce bottles of each, two Grolsch bottles of each, and two ceramic flip-top Rouge bottles of each.

For as similar and tasty as these beers were... the World Cup match was quite bittersweet. The gents got the scoring started early to what looked like a win for the Brits, but a gaff by goalkeeper Green, evened the match. At the time I said, 'It would be a shame if that gaff proved to cost them the game, like a draw or a one goal victory.' How true those words proved to be.

Both batches will be ready to test and sample as of June 20, but will more than likely be ready to quaff after June 27. That's when we'll see who is better.

- Tom.