Category: Meeting notes

Our March 2019 meeting was not the first one hosted by Eric and Jessica Sforza and The Cutest Puppy On Four Legs ™. But it was the first hosted in The Love Shack, their renovated home office party room pub in the back yard. It will not be the last.

First, the space is simply awesome. Everyone (except the Sforzas) felt more than a twinge of envy surveying the wood paneling, 6-tap bar, timber-framed hearth, Vermont Castings wood stove, and comfy furniture. I’m sure there were a few discussions later that evening about transforming similar structures at other homes. But it would be very hard to equal what the Sforzas have done with that space.

Second, the bar is amazing. Beautiful reclaimed wood. Numerous taps. A beer engine. Tasting glasses. A glass rinser. Yeah, a real one. The amount of joy provided by that rinser was just a bit obscene. (We’re all going to look at Pierre a little differently from now on.)

Third, the food was over the top. Homemade sourdough. Many cheeses. And homemade cookies bearing the host’s own face. (For real.)

Fourth, the puppy. They don’t come any cuter.

And finally, the host’s own beer, mead, and cider. Which was all fantastic.

We dispensed with formal judging for this meeting and just sampled. There was a HUGE variety of entries across the range of beer, mead, and cider. Some commercial. Most homebrew. Almost all excellent. (My mead was a rare clunker.) Notes below.

So, an enormous “thank you” to the Sforzas! We will be back!

Tasting notes. I actually think I’m missing a few. I know I’m missing my own mead (which was bad anyway). And they were still pouring when I had to leave. But this is most of it:

• Jaime’s Orange Blossom Mead. Still, semi-sweet, 9%. LOTS of citrus, good acid, slightly petillant, hint of vanilla. Young (3 months). Made with Wyeast cider yeast(?)
• Eric’s Pyment. Still, dry, sack (18%). Made with 9lbs Chilean Cabernet Sauvignon grapes. Left on skins for months. Pink/red, hazy, very floral, hint of vanilla, bone dry, a touch too tannic, some peppery alcohol. Could benefit from a little backsweetening.
• Eric and Andy’s Acerglin (maple syrup mead). Still, standard strength. Made with maple sap and syrup. Blend of two fermentations. With vanilla and oak.
• Pierre’s Traditional Mead. Still, sack. Wildflower honey. A bit boozy and solventy, some apple notes, a little fusel, good acid/tannin balance, crystal clear. 3 years old.
• Pierre’s Cyser. Still, standard strength. NY juice and Costco honey. Hazy, sweet, tastes like plums and apples, tangy acid, balanced. 6 months old.
• Mara’s Cider. Backyard pressing with natural yeast and Brett. From 2015. Super funky, very acidic, briny, bone dry.
• Eric’s Cider. Beardsley juice from 2017. Placed at SNERHC. Caramelized apples, almost dry, petillant, a little thin.
• Eric’s Cider. Beardsley juice from 2018. Just kegged. Hazy, note of walnuts, refreshing, just a hint of sweetness.
• Jaime’s International Dark Lager. Dark brown, hazy, clean except for a slight vegetal note, very lager-y, super dry, quite roasty. Make with 3 year old Boho Lager yeast.
• Pierre’s Saison. Made from Charter Oak wort and Affligem yeast. Kegged 3 days prior. Aroma of dill, no funk, some pepper, very dry finish, needs bubbles.
• Eric’s US Blonde. Very grainy, clean, slightly hoppy, quite dry, refreshing, aromatic.
• Gerry’s US Amber with Peach Extract. Extract beer. Smells of mint and nutmeg, light in color.
• Eric’s Mint Chocolate Imperial Stout. Black, head never quits, smells and tastes exactly like Andes Mints in a glass. Made with Godiva powdered chocolate and mint tea leaves. Tea added when pitching yeast.
• Eric’s Dark Mild. Served via beer engine. Dark brown, loose head, light body, low carbonation, very malty, floral, dry. Yum.

A large group of Yahoos (about 13) trickled into Clay’s home last Friday for our rescheduled March meeting. They also brought a lot of beer along with them.

Thanks to Clay and his wife for hosting, and providing an enviable spread of gourmet cheeses and salamis. The group certainly needed the snacks, as we made our way through more than a dozen blind tastings, as well as a couple impressive non-judged offerings from Andy—including an outstanding Scotch ale.

Scores ranged from the mid 20s up into the low 40s. Not only did we have several great beers to try, but there was a wide range of styles in the mix.

I was excited to introduce the group to a new-ish hop, cashmere, which is a hybrid of cascade and northern brewer. In my New England IPA the judges picked up characteristics of melon, peach, lemongrass and grapefruit and coconut from this unusual and rare hop. (Expect to see more beers with this hop from me!)

The night’s theme was IPAs, and we had our share of good commercial examples on hand. But a trip to Clay’s cellar inspired him to treat us to an Oude Gueuze from 3 Fonteinen.

Clay also conducted an impromptu survey of the group to see who could detect Phenylthiocarbamide (PTC). As it turns out, about half of us did, which is in line with the global population.

Upcoming:

Our April meeting will be held at the Veracious taproom in Monroe on the Wednesday, the 18th! We hope to welcome a larger-than-usual crowd for this one, so be sure to pass the word on.

Also, be sure to follow us on Facebook to get the most up-to-date info on all club happenings.

Competitions:

AHA Nationals First Round, April 6 & 7, New York, NY
South Shore Brewoff, April 7, Mansfield, MA

April brought our annual Cider meeting, hosted this year by Dr. Pivo (Steve Victor) and his lovely wife Sue at their house in New Haven.

We made some changes this year. No blind judging, for one thing. Everyone who brought things to share made a short presentation first and then we discussed our impressions. Huge success. We will definitely be offering this option in future meetings.

“Cider” usually connotes fermented apple juice, perhaps with some additives. We certainly had some of that. But we also had a number of other apple-derived entries: cyser (apple mead), calvados (apple brandy), and applejack (freeze-distilled cider). Some were homebrew and some were commercial. Some were fresh and some had been aged for years. In short, we were able to same an enormous range of apple-y drinks.

A particular standout was the hosts’ black currant cider. Fizzy, sweet-tart, and immensely refreshing, it came with stories of bottles blowing up during pasteurization. There were even pictures of Pivo’s protective gear. I will post if he will share copies.

Overall, a wonderful tour through the cider universe.

April0002

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Meetings at Mara’s place are always exciting. Things run fairly normally upstairs, although “normal” for Mara usually involves an outstanding spread of munchies. But we always end up drifting down to the basement eventually. And things get very interesting in Mara’s basement.

Mara has built her own glycol-chilled fermenter. She has built a 3-tier brewing stand we all envy. She has an induction brewing set-up and a 4-tap kegerator. And she has a beer cellar surpassed only by Clay, to the best of my knowledge. It’s all kind of intimidating.

As usual, the March meeting ended with everyone in the basement, sampling from Mara’s extensive sour beer collection plus some truly excellent cider she had on tap. As I tore myself away, she was opening yet another hard-to-obtain gueuze to share.

This particular meeting, however, included some excitement upstairs as well. We previewed some changes which may become standard operating procedure during at least some of our meetings. We glimpsed the future, and it was good.

As most of you know, we spend most of our meetings blind-judging homebrews according to BJCP guidelines. There is much to recommend this: it refines our palates, improves our descriptive ability, prepares us for BJCP exams, and makes us better brewers. But it can be a little too serious, especially when there are many homebrews to judge in an evening.

At the March meeting, we supplemented this with a second option: “tell-taste-talk” (as coined by our own Dr. Pivo). At the brewer’s discretion, we do not judge the entry blind. Instead, the brewer gives a short presentation on what s/he was trying to produce and what went right or wrong. We taste the brew and make comments.

Why would we do this? Well, in my case, I brought a saison made to an old recipe but with new water. This was my first brew in my new house, where the water is completely different from the water in the old place. I knew the beer was bad. I wanted feedback on what people were tasting. I could present the beer and the problem and I got excellent suggestions for improvement.

Other brewers discussed their beers (or ciders) or allowed the blind judging to proceed as normal.

Did this work? Yes! Fantastically. It will probably become standard procedure going forward.

Andy took pictures below. Tasting notes at the end.

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Aperture: 3.5
Camera: SLT-A77V
Iso: 6400
Orientation: 1

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Our notes from the February meeting at Clay’s house come from Bugle Editor Emeritus Andrew Tipler (thanks, Andy!):

This was a small exclusive meeting of the most important Yahoo members. We had 10 homebrews to judge including 4 ciders. There were some good commercial beers to try, too – including a big bottle of Cantillon gueuze generously shared by Mara.

Judging took place at a leisurely pace. I don’t think we had a beer we didn’t like all evening. Everyone brought their smart phones to show off to Gerry but he wasn’t there to see them.

Big thanks to Clay (and his missus) for putting up with us and giving us a grand tour of his brewery and beer museum in his basement.

The tasting notes are in Excel format: Meeting Notes Feb 2017

Andy also took all the pictures!

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Aperture: 4.5
Camera: SLT-A77V
Iso: 6400
Orientation: 1

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