Muted and bitter are going to be fairly consistent for a first run kit. If its not to your taste don’t be dismayed. If you try some more recipes’ you will improve.

For about the first 10 years I was brewing I bottled with either caps (like you have here) or grolsch bottles. If you do stick with this hobby, like I recommended with the crab boiler, I strongly recommend getting into kegging ASAP. I drank soooooo much grolsch to get the bottles I needed, I easily could have supported a small kegerator setup.

Heres the thing. Its really fucking tough to make sure you’ve got 50 bottles perfectly clean. You have to make a ton of physical movements, precisely, to keep them sanitary as you are bottling. Its super common to get some off flavors or contamination from bottling. It also is a PITA to clean, store, manage, and then fill all those fucking bottles.

Kegging? It takes like, 1/100th the time. And you can store your kegs sterile and they stay sterile (with starsan). Is literally as simple as pulling a siphon, filling the keg, closing the keg, and putting it in the fridge. And a used fridge or laydown freezer with a temperature regulator.

Its easier, cleaner, -> 0 <- spillage, it makes better beer (less contamination, better conditioning), it tastes better when you pour it. When the keg is tapped, you have 1 thing to clean, and its easier to clean (you can actually get your arm down in there; no fcking goofy bottle brushes).