Shortly after brewing my sparkling ale, I read through the recipe for the lager I planned on making next, and suddenly remembered a major difference between lagers and ales:
Lagers take about 3 months to condition while ales only take a week or two.
This time requirement is the main reason everything I have made so far has been an ale, along with the fact that it would require another 3 or 4 cases of bottles.
We bottled the sparkling ale Sunday and I went ahead and brewed the lager last night. This way I have something to drink while I wait.
The ale, or sparkling beer, as I decided to call it, will be ready around the 27th. The lager should be ready for bottling this weekend, so I will probably buy bottles from my local homebrew store tomorrow.
In case you are keeping track, the sparkling beer was BEER dad brew #14 and red lager is #15.