October Meeting Recap ? Brewsquitos' Homebrewing Club

Steve, Tim, John, Nate, Al, Jeremy, Jason W., Matt P., and Phil were the attending members at this month?s meeting. It was good to see a few more friendly faces this time around and hopefully that will continue now that summer is over. Jason W. graciously hosted us at his shop. He and Al also shared some light snacks, thanks guys!

With Al and Jeremy both arriving a bit late, the rest of the group started with commercial in-style beers, as no one had brought a homebrewed in-style example. I shared a wet hopped Lager from Lakefront Brewery in WI (http://beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/741/62867/?sort=latest&start=0). In general everyone was pretty lukewarm on this offering. The hop flavor didn?t have the ?juiciness? normally associated with wet hopped beers. In retrospect, no one realized this weighed in at 7% abv as it hid that quite well. Next, Nate shared Southern Tier?s Harvest Ale, an Extra Special or Strong Bitter brewed in NY (http://beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/3818/13637). The name in this case may be a little misleading as it?s not wet hopped. However, this is a great fall seasonal with notes of caramel, piney/grapefruit/spicy hops and clean yeast character. I?ll definitely grab this one again. Steve shared Founders beloved Harvest Ale?probably one of my favorite beers (http://beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/1199/20478). This wet hopped IPA is extremely juicy with terrific grapefruit/dank-y hoppiness, yumsville! While enjoying this beer, we all relished in Tim?s amazing recollection of drinking 7-8 pints of the stuff at Founders Harvest Fest in 2011 (he brought a crew of people who didn?t enjoy it and they all gave their beers to him), good times! The final beer in this section of the evening was Buffalo Bill?s Pumpkin Ale which is contract brewed by Pyramid Brewing (both places are in CA, I believe) (http://beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/205/643) shared by John. Upfront this brew had the typical pumpkin spice aroma and flavor. I recall clove sticking out with some cinnamon too. It was decent, but the water-y body detracted from the overall experience.

Al and Jeremy finally showed up to really get the party started. Al continued his domination as brewer-of-the-year by sharing a homebrewed Pumpkin Ale. Once again, a very fine example by Al which showcased a fantastic smoked pumpkin flavor with a healthy dash of spices. He added a final touch of vanilla in the keg which smoothed out the profile without overwhelming the pumpkin and spice. Nice work Al! Al also shared an IPA that fell a little short and some of the Imperial Stout which was brewed at the New Holland Homebrewer?s United event in August. This beer is ready to drink (if anyone is still conditioning theirs) and is fucking tasty (nice work on the recipe, Jason!).

Tim brought a sample of the prototype Honey Wheat beer that he?ll re-brew for his friend?s wedding down south. They sent him a good amount of orange blossom honey to use in the beer and the flavor definitely comes through. The slight orange-y/citrus character of the honey worked very well with the hop profile. This will be a great beer for both craft and macro-lager drinkers at the event.

Jason W. shared a hoppy Brown Ale that he brewed with Mike Z and used Michigan hops from Michigan Hop Alliance (http://hopville.com/recipe/1648710). It had the drinkability of a good brown ale with moderate roast and a healthy kick of floral, slightly earthy hops. His next beer was an American Stout (http://hopville.com/recipe/1010935) with great roast and chocolate notes. Bitterness was right on for the style and gave good balance.

My beer for the month wasn?t a harvest ale, but I?m enjoying it more than any of the wet hopped beers I?ve done in the past. It?s a west coast style (very low malt profile and clean yeast) Pale Ale showcasing Nelson Sauvin hops from New Zealand. I find them to have a better grapefruit/citrus character with more ?dankiness? than some of the PacNW varieties. http://hopville.com/recipe/1649264

Rounding out the night, Jeremy shared a few commercial examples (Flying Dog?s Oyster Stout and ???, can?t remember too much from that point of the night ) and Matt P. brought two vintages (2008 and 2010) of Russian River?s Supplication (http://beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/863/22227). As a lover of sour beers?holy shit, thanks Matt! Both beers were VERY tart with a good amount of brett (barnyard, earthy). Big notes of cherry, oak and red wine in the taste. Separating the two was a much bigger acetic (vinegar) character in the 2010 version. The 2008 version was absolutely wonderful.

In other club news, the apparel order is currently on hold. According to Kevin the minimum piece order is 24 and we?ve currently got 12. Hopefully we can get this worked out soon, so everyone can rep? the club when they?re out and about.

Also, I?m working on ideas for our special event at Vivant. Here?s the response I got from Rick after trying to work something out for the September meeting:
?Saturday mornings are still very undesirable for all parties involved it seems, so I think we should just move on from that idea. In theory, meeting in the brewery would work perfectly, but the problem is that we are now double brewing most days, and Jacob has a very unpredictable schedule of when they shut down for the day. And really, we?re so small that there?s no place to go where we won?t all be in their way. I think we need to take this outside of the normal meetings for your club, let you guys do what you need to and meet when you need to, but still maintain a quarterly gathering here that?s something more than what you guys normally do. This could include vertical tastings of similar beers, things that you have cellared, or a focus on seasonals. We could arrange something like this on a weekend evening, set the schedule in advance, and then everyone in the club who wants to make it has plenty of time to prepare and not piss the wives off by getting drunk at 10am and being useless the rest of the day (I?ve been there). I?ve even got Jacob to volunteer his and the other brewers time to participate in these, if we could accommodate a Saturday or Sunday evening for example. So, throw this by the club and see what sticks. -Rick?

Let me know if you have any ideas that you think would be fun for that event.

Next meeting is a casual meet-up this coming Tuesday (Nov. 6) at Perrin Brewing Co. (http://goo.gl/maps/oKtSx) at 6:30pm. I plan to be there around 6:15 to try and get us a table. Results were split on the survey for the best date for the regular November tasting meeting. However, due to the proximity of the meeting at Perrin, the date will be November 20th (location still TBD?feel free to volunteer if you?d like to host). http://brewsquitos.wordpress.com/monthly-brew-styles/

Cheers and let me know if I missed anything,

Phil

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