Our June meeting was hosted by Bad Sons Brewing in Derby who served us excellent beer and pizza and had no problem as we drank homebrew in their tap room. Huge thanks to them!
As usual, we judged a number of excellent homebrews. Three were brought by new member Peder who looks to be a formidable competitor in this space. We’ll need to be on our game. Judging notes at the bottom of the post.
In between homebrews, Andy Cox challenged us with a new game. We think of ourselves as pretty good beer judges. Are we? Can we prove it? I’ll let him explain in the guest post below.
The club completed its first bulk grain purchase from Thrall Family Malts in Windsor, CT. Thrall’s has an impressive list of malted barley, wheat, rye, oats and other grains. In total we kept about $800 in the CT economy! Visit your local homebrew store if you can (Zok’s in Willimantic and Brew&Wine Hobby in East Hartford) but for those of us in the homebrew “desert” of lower FC we will continue to support brewing through group purchases.
Are you game? Hidden behind the impressive CO2 article penned by our own Andy Tipler and Pierre Margraff in this month’s Zymurgy magazine was an article about games/activities for club meetings. Being the adventurous club we are, we gave one a go at the June club meeting.
The “Pale Beer Challenge” consisted of 5 blind samples of a Czech Premium, Munich Helles, Kolsch, German Pils, and a “mystery” beer. The challenge: match each sample with the right BJCP category and guess the style of the mystery beer.
Ok, this was hard! All four of the known styles were commercial examples listed in the BJCP guidelines (German/Czech sourced for the most part). Most of the group correctly picked out the mystery beer (Weihenstephaner Kristall Weissbier) with several correctly identifying it as a wheat beer. The Rothaus German Pils really set the determination way off: it had very little bitterness/hop presence. It was likely an old bottle (no date), but anyone using it to study to the BJCP exam would have been way off the mark. In the end, Mara (our hop expert!) got the most correct and went home with an example of each.
Now, tasting notes:
- British Golden Ale, Andy T: Some green apple, some juicy fruit, light earthy hops with a very dry finish. 6/3/15/5/6 = 35
- Marzen, Mike H: Malty and phenolic, leather, tannic, very dry finish, a little hot. 6/2/10/3/5 = 26
- Dampfbier, Peder J: Clove and banana, heavier on the clove, super dry finish, a little tart, too dry? 10/3/15/4/7 = 39
- Irish Red, Pierre M: Black tea and peat, sweet up front with a very dry finish, a little too hoppy and roasty, astringent. 8/2/12/3/6 = 31
- Czech Dark, Peder J: Sweet malt and cola, hint of butter, very malty flavor, finish is a little too dry. 10/3/13/3/7 = 39
- Hazy IPA (Session), Peder J: Melon, guava, grapefruit, orange, tangerine – a whole fruit salad – plus a little dankness, taste doesn’t quite match flavor, a little oxidized? 10/3/16/5/8 = 42
- RIS, Jim L: “Oh my god” – Andy C, toffee, molasses, raisins, leather, plum, quite huffable, pours like used motor oil, clean, not hot at all, a touch of sherry, alcohol is there but very smooth. 11/3/17/5/9 = 45
