Bubblings From the Fermenter
By Mark Tumarkin

Is it only me, or is time just whipping by faster than usual? Seems like I just wrote this column a week or two ago, and here it is another month gone by. Maybe it's just that time flies when you're having fun. We had a terrific road trip to Savannah; all the participants had a great time. (See Road Trip/Pub Crawl 2001 article for more details)

Greg and Sandra hosted this month's meeting. However, due to unexpected delays in their kitchen-remodeling project, they held the meeting at Margie's house. Margie, Sandra's sister, went along on the Savannah pub-crawl trip with us. That wasn't enough to scare her off and she volunteered to have the meeting at her house when it appeared that the tiling wouldn't be finished at Greg & Sandra's in time for the meeting. So, thanks Margie, that was really great.

And it turned out to be a great meeting. The pre-meeting dinners continue to be working well. We've been getting about half the people showing up early for the dinner, and the other half showing up later. The rest of you should come earlier; you don't know what you're missing. To give you an idea, here are some of the great things at this last dinner (sorry if I leave anything out) - crackers with smoked cheese and smoked fish, various regular and rolled sandwiches, mesquite chipotle quesadillas, squash and pear casserole, pad thai, beans, cheese cake, and Richard's beer dessert. Richard made an incredible walnut pie and ice cream using oatmeal stout in both (see article for recipe) that was the hands down hit of the evening. If that sounds good to you, try to join us for dinner next month.

Richard gave an interesting presentation on the Kolsch and Alt styles, with some very nice examples of the styles to taste. I hadn't realized that both styles are relative newcomers. I'd always thought that Alt (which means Old in German) was an old style. However, according to Richard (and Michael Jackson); both styles originated during the period between the World Wars. We also tasted the Kindl Berliner Weisse, not that it fits in either of these styles - just a gratuitous and unexpected taste adventure into a style that is very hard to find in the US. Thanks, Richard.

We also had our first tasting of the Monster Mash beers. This was a very interesting experiment. The first beer we tasted was the one fermented with Wyeast 1056. My first thought was that we had used a bit too many hops in the recipe. The beer tasted quite good; very clean and hoppy. I thought that the hop level was high enough that it would mask the differences between the different yeast contributions. Wrong. After tasting some of the other batches, it was apparent that the 1056 simply enhances and brings out the hop character (I knew there was a good reason that this was one of my favorite yeast varieties). The batch brewed with the ESB yeast was also hoppy, but more rounded and fruity, while the hop character was much more subdued in the batch brewed with the Weinstephen weizen yeast. The batch brewed with the Chimay yeast also had a subdued hop character, but was also very estery and fruity. We will have to do a more formal tasting with all the batches at the BJCP study group (and probably at later club meetings too). I'd like to have a number of judges make tasting notes on the different batches. Possibly, I'll write something up on the Monster Mash experiment for Zymurgy, certainly something more for our newsletter.

We discussed the possibility of a permanent meeting space. Dave Perez had suggested his Dojo, the Unified Training Center on University Av and 8th St, as a possible site for club meetings. He and I did a site inspection last week and it would certainly work if we'd like to use it. Lily, the owner, seemed very nice and was willing to do whatever was necessary to accommodate us. When we discussed it at the meeting, the prevailing sentiment seemed to be that most people liked having the meetings in members' homes. Robert contrasted this with the Tallahassee group's meeting at the Buckhead. He said that the NFBL was too large to meet in homes and that he really liked the homey atmosphere. Anyhow the next two months will be held in members' homes (August will be hosted by George and Karen, September by Robert and Jamie). Then we'll hold the October meeting at the Dojo to see what everyone thinks of that option. I'm in basic agreement with Robert - it's certainly nicer to hold it in member's homes, but I'm concerned about it being too much when we also plan on having an event or party every month as well. If enough people are willing to volunteer that would be fantastic, if not we can look at the other option.

George Perrin won this month's BOTY with his Berliner Weisse. Congratulations, George! We had a small number of entries this month (three), but next month's contest is on Am. Pale ale (Category 6) and IPAs (Category 7). I would expect we'd get a bigger turnout for those styles. So until then, keep those fermenters bubbling.

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