I bottled half the brew and put the other half in a 9L keg. First impressions are inviting. It looks good - pours clear with a nice amount of carbonation (this was a bottled conditioned example).
The head didn't dissipate too quickly and continued to lace the glass all through to the end. But looks aren't everything.
The hops are slightly underwhelming - I was expecting more from the late addition of Citra and being a beer I've done many times before, this was slightly lacking in hop flavour compared to earlier versions. Maybe the hops for this particular harvest weren't as pungent as previously.
Also, despite this bottle being okay, other bottles I've sampled have a definite phenolic character. It isn't present in the kegged version, so I'm guessing there may have been some cleaning residue on some of the bottles.
And although the keg beer doesn't have the pehnolic characteristics of some of the bottles, there is a hint of oxidation, so that beer is far from being perfect too.
Overall not a bad brew, but nowhere as clean as I would like. I'll have to review the bottle cleaning process and also the keg transfer, as that's the most likely cause of the oxidisation I guess. Hopefully the next brew will be better in that respect.
