All's Well that Ends Well

I tend to be overly critical and over-analyze in two areas of my life, my job and brewing. In my job, its actually a good thing. I think I'm a very good teacher, and by over-analyzing, I'm constantly looking at how my students are doing and what worked or didn't work in a particular lesson. As a homebrewer, I'm not meticulous or over-analytical in my actual brewing, just in the final product. Sometimes that's a good thing that allows you to go back to the recipe and tweak some things or find ways to improve it. Other times you miss the forest for the trees.
Such was the case with my first beer I brewed for my fantasy football draft. As I mentioned before, I've been in the same league for 9 years, and have yet to brew a beer for the draft. A good friend of mine in the league is a regular drinker of my beer, and a couple other guys have had my beer. But the large majority had not. I tried to brew a beer that would appeal to the masses, in this case a seemingly wide range of beer preferences. I settled on a California Common, thinking it would appeal to ale and lager fans and be a nice drinkable brew on a hot day. As the draft approached I started to open a bottle here and there to see how it was going. And I panicked thinking it wasn't as good as I had intended it to be. Here's where over-analytical is trumped by situation. The perfectionist brewer in me thinks that the late addition of dry malt extract (that was nowhere near fresh) gave it a lingering "extract twang" that detracted from the overall flavor and hops of the beer. While not totally off the mark, I don't think it was as "California Common" as I wanted it to be, or at least compared to previous efforts.
However, the beer went over huge. In fact the 2.5 gallon keg was emptied by about the third round (about hour and a half). I had brought along a number of bottles with the label my friend (and league commish) had designed. Those were drank up along with some Hopshot IPA I brought along.
My point is this. For the situation, the beer was great. It wouldn't have taken home any awards, and it was far from my best beer. But, the crowd who it was intended for enjoyed it a lot, it was easily drinkable on a hot August day, and it got people excited for next year's version of the SOC Ale. Plus I was happy with the team I drafted, it could be Team Lebowski's year!
On a side note, the portable kegerator worked great. This time I used the 16 gram CO2 cartridges. For anyone using a portable CO2 charger, this is the way to go. I went through 2 for a 2.5 gallon keg, I used the 12 gram at my daughter's birthday party, and went through a bunch. They are too small, so air escapes when screwing it into the charger and they don't last long. I'm pissed I have a box of these left.
I've been busy as summer is wrapping up before the school year starts. But two of my beers are ready to be reviewed, Burning Beard which is tasting great and one of my staples, Inky's White Ale. I'll review those this week.
Salud!
Bearded Brewer