Bubblings From the Fermenter
Mark Tumarkin
July disappeared very quickly; I turned around and the month was gone. We started out by working towards the Road Trip/Pub Crawl 2000. A lot of emails went back and forth between KK Koenig, of the Dunedin Brewers Guild, and myself. This had started out when I asked KK for suggestions for places to visit on our upcoming Tampa Pub Crawl. KK volunteered to be our guide for the trip. Since KK does a radio show about Tampa beer spots and seems to know every place in the area, I jumped at his offer.
Turned out to be a great move on my part. I think KK really helped make this years' Road Trip a success. He not only planned the stops, arranged for free beer and happy hour pricing, and guided our bus driver through the rainy streets of Tampa and Clearwater; but he also rounded up eight or ten members from the Dunedin and Sarasota brew clubs to join us. Along with the presence of Ken Woodward and a contingent from the North Fl Brewers League of Tallahassee, this really helped give this pub-crawl a sense of involvement with the larger homebrew community. Especially after my recent trip to the AHA national convention, it really felt good to increase this sense of community. Not only did KK help in all these ways; but he kept things organized and moving along, allowing me to kick back and enjoy the trip much more. It's easy to see why the Dunedin club has him as their events coordinator. (I want one of those bells with the tap handle to help keep our rowdy meetings under control - but Fred says uh-uh; I can't have one. Damn)
We had a great meeting at Greg and Sandra's house, with a good turnout of brewers and some really interesting beers. We also got a new member; well actually an old member who rejoined. Richard Furlong, who used to be a member years ago, brought some of his mead and beer with him. Welcome back, Richard. Greg gave a Presentation/Tasting on Historical Beers; assisted by Fred who gave us his idiosyncratic view of psychoactive beers in history. Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately (depending on your point of view and degree of adventurousness), Fred didn't have any examples for the tasting.
At last month's meeting, Jamie invited us to participate in the North Florida Brewers League's Octoberfest on September 30th. This is a charity fundraiser that they have run for a number of years, quite successfully. We will have our own table and will need to have at least 3 or 4 kegs. If you are willing to brew a batch for this event, the club will pay for the materials. Of course, we're looking for your best recipes; something you know will turn out well. Also, if you don't have a keg, we can take care of that too. The NFBL will be providing Beds for Brewers. From what I hear, this is a really fun event. So please let me know if you will make a batch of beer and/or if you would like to go to Septemberfest.
This month's style contest was OPEN. There was a small number of entries considering that you could enter any style you like. We continued the judging change that we started last month. We again judged the entries at a later date, rather than at the meeting. I think this is a better approach and we will make it permanent. The winner this month was my Tupelo/Passion Flower mead. Next month's style contest is Brown Ales. This will include Milds and all of the Brown ales - Northern and Southern English Browns, and American Browns. This is a quick style to make, best drunk fresh and young. Even if you don't have one ready, there's still time. So, get those fermenters bubbling.