Bad habits. We all have them, and they seep in to any activity we do regularly. I think most of us start out following brew-day instructions to the letter, but once we get comfortable, we might also get a bit…lazy. It starts innocently enough: accidentally forget to do something during brew day, determine that the batch wasn’t a total disaster, and when it happens again, don’t get too anxious about it. Pretty soon, the bad habit becomes part of the routine.
We spend so much time focusing on dialing in our recipes or getting our process down to an exact science that I think it’s time to celebrate the other side of brewing that not many of us want to fess up to. Some of these habits might be okay from time to time and probably not affect much, but with others, you very well might be playing with fire.
6. Forgetting to Label Beer Bottles
I think most of us have bottles of mystery beer lurking in our beer fridges and basements. Most of us are certain we can remember what it is because it has a blue cap on it, and who wants to take the time to write up twenty-five-plus labels? Six months later, we can’t remember if the beer in the blue-capped bottle is a Pilsner or a wheat beer. It’s hard to see through the bottles well enough to determine much past it being a stout or not-a-stout, so all that’s left to do is crack that baby open and take a sip. I like a good mystery just as much as the next person, so if a little adventure here and there floats your hydrometer, go for it.