Bottling Day

The brown, faceless beer bottles have been accumulating at the top of my stairs in paper bags for weeks; looking as though I decided to raid the neighbor's recycling bin in hopes of reaping a reward. In actuality, it is my husband and I who have been drinking this beer, all in preparation for my first bottling day. The reward I am hoping to acquire is cupboards full of bottled homebrewed ale.

The preceding three weeks I have spent much of my time, like a mother hen to her chicks, countlessly totaling seconds between bubbles escaping my primary and then secondary fermenters. It was my growing desire this year to begin brewing my own beer. And as each bubble of CO2 escaped my fermenter, that ambition was closer to being realized. It has taken a total of three weeks, two fermenters, heavy lifting, diligent sanitizing, and vivid dreaming that has sustained my utter excitement to this very day: Bottling Day.

I'm not sure if every batch will be as meaningful, but this first brew holds special meaning, as does all of my firsts: first kiss, first dance, first car, first child. I've been keeping a keen eye on my brewing beer and have reveled in the fact that soon enough I'd be drinking it; I'd be consuming the fruits of my labor just as I've eaten the foods I've grown, drink the coffee I grind by hand, cherish the creations of my crochet needle. This is one more hobby, one more passion, that has helped me grow closer to the woman, mother and wife that I intend to be. After today, one more of these roles has been fulfulled: official ale wife.

I spent two hours this afternoon, while my daughter slumbered in her crib upstairs, muttering around my kitchen in a language only the brewmaster might comprehend. I prepared my bottles, sanitized my equipment and managed to heave a five gallon glass carboy full of fermenting brew atop my tiled counter. I siphoned and muttered, then transferred and muttered, I spilled precious drops and cursed, then muttered. And as the process came together, like two strangers awkwardly meeting for the first time and then finding comfort in their likeness, my brew and I came together, shaking hands and agreeing on a job well done. I filled roughly 50 bottles in two hours with the sweetest dark ale and left it to clear, to settle, to become exquisitely handsome in a top cupboard in my kitchen.