Festa Brew "Continental Pilsner"

So, I made beer earlier this year. However, this wasn't "hardcore" beer making. I started with a Festa Brew kit that my local Wine Kitz store sells. The store happened to have a sale on kits, so I bought one for $60.

A Festa Brew kit consists of a 23 L bag of pasteurized wort, a packet of yeast, and instructions. In beer making, the messy and complicated part is the wort preparation. If you don't have to make your own wort on the stove-top, you get to avoid all the mess of splashing sticky wort all over your stove and kitchen, and the anxiety over getting temperature control exactly right. A Festa Brew kit, then, is kind of a "Fisher-Price" version of a beer kit. Sounds like an easy way to make your first beer, doesn't it?
 

Festa Brew kit - A box of wort, a packet of yeast, and some instructions.

As it turns out, it really is easy if you follow the instructions. In essence, the instructions are:

1. Transfer the wort into the primary (white bucket)
2. Add yeast.
3. Loosely close lid on primary and wait 5 days.
4. Transfer wort to secondary with air lock. Wait a week.
5. Transfer wort back into a bucket and stir in some dextrose (sugar).
6. Bottle.

Wort in secondary.

23 L (5 gallon) of wort is a lot of beer. The yield on this kit was 40 bottles (330-mL recycled Stella Artois bottles) and 8 1-L growlers. After two weeks of fermentation IN the bottles (for carbonation, of course), the beer was ready to sample.

On sampling, I wrote in my notebook: "This is a good beer. Similar to Stella, but has more flavour - darker, more of the caramel sorts of flavours as opposed to hops. Hops are mild."

Cheers!

This kit was a little too easy, and I'm eager to try making beer the hard way next time (i.e. make my own wort). On the other hand, there is something nice about a kit that is just that easy. All you need is the basic set of wine-making equipment (bucket, carboy, airlock, siphon...) and some recycled beer bottles and you're ready to go. Bottle capping was easy because the Wine Kitz store loaned me the bottle capper. I plan on purchasing my own capper for future beverage projects.