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Written by William Landry
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Sunday, 11 April 2010 |
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I wish to thank Chuck and Kim one more time for their hospitality at what was easily one of the most attended meetings in a long time. A total of 32 members and 3 guests, John H. from Tech, along with Jim (the graphics guy) and his friend attended on a pristine day.
Kevin C. gave us his treasury report which had us at 53 paid members before out meeting. Our balance was $665.78. Expenses for this meeting consisted of Irish Red samples and some beers Doug likes to drink that we used for "off-flavors".
The Sam Adams Long Shot competition was reviewed in brief. They are limiting entries to BJCP style #23 Specialty Beer but also including fruit/vegetable and spice beers in there as well. Entries are due between May 17 and 28th.
Meeting dates for the year are all spoken for. As follows:
May 1 James B (Big Brew)
June Doug M. (Irish Red Competition)
July Beth D. (APA Presentation)
Aug John S.
Sept Bryan S. (APACompetition)
Oct Jeff F.
Nov Carrie and Justin C.
Dec Will L. (RIS Competition)
Harry and Kevin attended a meeting with the Square Society to discuss the clubs involvement in Microfestivus which will be held August 14th from 12-6pm. As we did last year we'll have an opportunity to sign up as pourers a week or two earlier than the public, and in addition some folks can sign up to stand at the tables and talk about the beers provided we aren't stepping on the brewer's toes. In addition we have been asked to taste the beers and choose a "Brewers Choice" best of show. There are still some issues to iron out on logistics, but we thought a 10-12 man team with 20 tastings each should be able to canvas the selections and come to agreement on a beer. Hopefully. And finally, we have been asked to steward the public's best of show competition in which everyone who enters will be given a token of some sort to put in a container for their favorite beer which we will then count (more likely weigh) the tokens in each container to see who wins.
CHUCK PLEASE GET HARRY THE GUILD LOGO
We also discussed further us having a Craft Beer Week demonstration at Blue Ridge Hydroponics on May 22. The date has been confirmed with Chris & Fran, and it is my understanding they are working on an ABC license for samples for the day. It will be an 11-4pm event. I will be looking for people to be there at 10 to set-up and stay late to clean up. We'll need brewers for demonstrations. The tents and tables will be needed wherever they end up after Big Brew. We'll need volunteers for food. And of course beers to sample. So please give all that some thought and I'll be sending out a formal request for volunteers in the near future.
A couple of notes from the floor:
Floyd Fandango is July 3rd and 4th (Sat. and Sun.). Blue Ridge will not be setting up a table. So you are all on your own if you want to participate.
Doug has volunteered to buy tasting glasses for the club (being reimbursed of course). He's buying an extra case for anyone who is interested in purchasing a nice smaller glass. I'm sure he'll have a price at some point but it won't be more than a few dollars I'd guess.
Carrie C. is taking shirts for embroidery if anyone is interested. You can either drop them off with her or I'm betting she'll take them at Big Brew in a few weeks. The cost is $7 a piece. You buy the article of clothing first.
We had a short break followed by a presentation from Bryan S. on the Irish Red style. The interesting point was that it is a style that never really existed until Michael Jackson mentioned it and the macro brands decided to make it one of Irleand's own if I remember correctly. We then sampled 4 examples from Michelob, Saranac, Moylan's and O'Hara's. Even though it was a little outside the style guidelines for ABV (at 6.5%) the consensus was the Moylan's was the best tasting.
After another short break, Doug M. brought out the big guns, the 40s of High Life, and presented 6 more "off-flavors". "Earthy" was the first and we all agreed it was very evident that you were drinking dirt from packaging or water contamination. "Mercaptan" was next. This is everyone's favorite skunkiness most often associated with light struck beers, but also a poor yeast or autolysis issue. Next up was Ethyl Acetate, a solvent like ester. This is most often caused by high fermentation temps and sometimes wild yeast. Our fourth off-flavor was Ethyl Hexanoate which is your fruity, apple like ester. This again is a fermentation issue from low aeration or too high a pitching rate. While this is present in all beers it's the concentration that varies. Next up was "spicy". That clove taste which arises from microbial contamination, wild yeast or aging. In the case of hefeweizens the 4-vinyl guaicaol is typical. Finally we had "Metallic". This comes from water sources, but also non-passivated vessels. A lengthy discussion arose about when to clean your pots and it was concluded that cleaning right before brewing and getting a shiny polished surface was bad, especially in Aluminum pots. If you find yourself with a shiny pot, the sheet suggested 250 degrees in the over for 6 hours, or as Doug said, a few days in normal room temps.
That concludes the minutes. We'll see everyone at BIG BREW!!!! |
