Last night, I bottled the Gowanus Strong Wheat Ale and stole another taste.
It was even better than before. The flavors have all mellowed since before going into secondary, as they should have. Another round of fermentation started after transferring the beer and lasted for over a week. The wheat and honey and even the hops are all noticeable in the flavor and aroma. The color has darkened a bit and the body isn’t quite as thick as it was before. In fact, it reminded me a slightly thinner, more drinkable version of the Smuttynose Wheat Wine Ale that I reviewed months ago. And, with a final gravity of 1.024 and an alcohol by volume of 10.1%, it packs an alcohol wallop in the nose even without carbonation.
I made a lot of this beer and, after bottling, now have 47 bottles on hand. Eleven of these bottles are larger than 12 ounces, too. I have four short Sierra Nevada Pale Ale 24-ounce bottles, three regular 24-ounce bombers, and four tall 16-ounce bottles from some cheap Polish beer. If I had used all standard-size bottles, that would be 56 bottles total–my largest haul yet!
I’m in the process of designing a label for these bad boys. Achieving the right level of bad-assery is proving a challenge. Of course, I plan to leave some unlabelled to enter in competition later in the year.
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Gowanus Brewery 
[…] so I incorporated some fonts reminiscent of quill-tipped pens, parchment paper, and so on into the Gowanus Strong Wheat Ale label. This is obviously the triple-x beer of the […]
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