Category: Meeting notes

It finally happened. I finally managed to attend a meeting hosted by Dan “Top Chef” Cole. Those of you who missed it really missed out. As always, Dan’s cooking was outstanding: steamed mussels, porchetta, tomato bisque — we chowed down like starving hyenas. Thank you, Dan!

Fewer homebrews to judge than at the last several meetings. But almost all were excellent. We actually got into a heated discussion about giving scores over 40 and how often that should happen. If any beer deserves a score that high, it is Mara’s Brett Saison — citrusy, spicy, super dry, Brett not overwhelming, very refreshing. Perfect complement to the mussels and porchetta. (So, of course, we had to chow down again.)

Another heated discussion concerned the new style guidelines and how we will combine them into categories for SNERHC. There are simply too many new categories to give 3 ribbons for each. We can combine some based on our guesses about how many entries each will attract. Or we can use one of the “new styles sorted into old categories” lists out of the appendix of the new guidelines.

We came to no conclusions, and this topic will keep coming up. If you haven’t yet downloaded the new style guidelines, I urge you to do so now (http://www.bjcp.org). Start reading through them. They are long, and it’s not that many months until SNERHC. You’ll need to be familiar with them before you judge.

In that same vein, we need to choose a set of guidelines for the upcoming in-house competition on June 10. Check the announcements mailing list for the official ruling on that.

Tasting notes:

Dr. Pivo and Sue were gracious hosts, as they always are, and the April meeting was delightful. Everyone took the “Cider” theme to heart, bringing many varied ciders and cysers for judging. In fact, we had only 2 beers all night. We were saddened by the absence of Dan Beardsley, whose juice produced most of the ciders, due to a freak volleyball injury. But we carried on without him.

Tasting notes:

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The February meeting at Ernie’s house was a tremendous success. Besides the usual judging of homebrews and sharing of commercial beer, we had a special presentation by Doug Gladue. Doug reprised the talk on yeast he had given at the NHC last year. Extremely well-received. It generated a LOT of questions and discussion. Thank you, Doug.

Not a lot of homebrews were judged. Most were excellent. Except my Vienna lager, which was very green (only 8 days in the bottle) and soundly hammered.

After the judging was over, some of us overstayed our welcome, only leaving at the stroke of midnight. (No word on whether any glass slippers were found.) I managed to forget the scoresheets but Ernie took pics and sent them along. Thank you, Ernie.

The November meeting was held at Pivo’s house in New Haven. As usual, we had a number of truly excellent homebrews to judge. Very unusually, we also had a presentation on a beer style by Handy Andy.

The tasting notes are attached below. You’ll notice that all of the scores are above average. I don’t know if this means we are getting better as brewers or worse as judges. I’m hoping it’s the former. Either way, we didn’t taste a bad beer or cider all night.

Andy’s presentation on Gose was a huge success. So much so, we are planning more such presentations in the future. Andy has already posted his lecture slides to the Facebook group but I’m including my notes here just to show that I was paying attention.

We have a major problem!!

The October meeting, hosted by Steve Medd and his lovely wife at their home in Danbury, featured a ton of excellent homebrews. Really, truly excellent.

I finally found the time to scan in the tasting notes for posting here. And when I did, I realized that almost all of the scores are missing the brewer’s name. Oops.

If you recognize your beer here, let me know and I’ll identify you properly.

Sorry.

Just back from Dan and Alison Mages’ home and the September meeting. As usual, Dan went overboard on the food, with excellent cheese and bread and pickles and a wonderful tabouleh-like thing. Delicious.

Dan also showed off the swag he’s collected for SNERHC prizes. Completely over the top. SNERHC winners will be very happy. I can’t imagine how much time he must have spent wrangling this stuff out of the hop farms, brewers, equipment makers, and wholesalers he has persuaded to donate. Thank you, Dan!

The homebrews we judged were also over the top. Almost everything scored in the high 30s and some reached the low 40s. Absolutely outstanding brews. You shoulda been there.

Unfortunately, I’m an utter numbnutz when it comes to WordPress. I have no idea how to insert a table and fill it with the tasting notes. So I’m going to just give you the highlights here. Maybe someone who knows WordPress can fix this for me later.

• American Wheat with Mosaic hops, brewed by Pastry Dan, scored 37. Melon and juicy fruit aromas. Well-attenuated. Mouth-filling. Much more interesting than your standard American wheat. A very yummy, drinkable beer.
• Witbier, brewed by Pastry Dan, scored 30. Phenolic, grainy aroma. Lots of coriander in flavor. Dry finish. Bottle was a gusher which stirred up the yeast. Dan says other bottles have been better.
• Biere de table, brewed by Pastry Dan, scored 40. Second runnings of the wit. Clean, bright, fresh nose full of noble hops. Lemony flavor. Clean, quick finish. 3% abv. Very drinkable.
• Flanders Red with mulberries, brewed by Handy Andy, scored 42. Outstanding Flanders red base with a strong sour nose and balanced dry finish. Perfect acetic/lactic balance. Mulberries evident in aroma and flavor. Mmmmmmm.
• Belgian Dubbel, brewed by Ted (I think, notes unclear), scored 32. Clovey, phenolic nose. Malty sweetness. Hints of licorice. Lacks carbonation.
• American Stout, brewed by Colin, scored 35. Rich, dark, roasty, malty nose. Excellent malty sweetness up front. Could use a bit more hop bitterness in finish. Extremely flavorful.
• Imperial Stout with coffee and cacao, brewed by Handy Andy, scored 34. Strong aged alcohol nose with some coffee and cacao. Port wine character in flavor. More of an old ale than an RIS. Flavorful but not to style. Perhaps has passed its prime.
• Strawberry mead, brewed by Colin, scored 28. Aroma lacks honey florals, contains a bit of funk. Not much strawberry evident in aroma or flavor. Totally drinkable. Good first try at mead.

That’s all! I’m hoping Handy Andy has some photos we can post later.