Big Bend Brew Off
By Fredric Manfredsson

The week before going to this competition I asked George (Perrin) what these gatherings were really about, if it wasn't really another excuse for grown men to drink beer; large amounts of beer in a short period of time, sort of a geriatric spring break, but without the Budweiser. George agreed, or at least he failed to argue my theory, and he made me promise not to bring this up with Karen.

There were nine Hogtowners that headed for Tallahassee this year, I (Fredric), Mark T, Wayne and Sue, Dave W, George P, Richard P, Greg M, and of course the honorable Dave Perez, whom, I might add, volunteered me to write this piece, and as such I will of course take every opportunity to pick on him.

Upon arrival in Tallahassee we immediately got lost, despite the fact that our vehicle was equipped with the latest satellite navigational equipment, a benefit well negated by listening to verbal directions from Dave P, but luckily we had left Gainesville early enough to get to our hotel, the Cabot Lodge, some time before they closed for the night.

The first evening we spent at the brewpub where the competition was to be held; Buckhead, a quite nice establishment with a decent menu, and, in my opinion, pretty good beer. The only problem was that the room that had been set aside for us judges and stewards was more or less designed for the lovely muggy summers of northern Florida, and not the subfreezing temperatures that plagued us for the entire weekend. A few poorly disbursed heaters kept the room at a steady 45 degrees……have you ever tried to eat ribs with gloves and then proceed to lick your fingers…..

We retired back to our Hotel quite early to sample some of the brews that we had picked up at the local very well stocked beer store (they sell Rogue's brutal bitter by the way J) as well as some concoctions brought from Gainesville, a very refined gathering. But what happened later that night surely is proof that man and animal, no matter how different they may look, still are very closely related: as we proceeded to bed that night, we (Mark) accidentally brought Dave P's case of beer (that he had purchased earlier that night) into our room, and in an instant Dave turned from the pleasant fellow he normally is into an stark raving mad lunatic; he was throwing himself at the door, almost tearing the molding of the wall as his full weight (undisclosed) pushed against the security chain….as we stood there with fear we realized that what we were looking at was nothing more than a bear trying to protect her cub, and thus Dave has truly deserved the name: Mama Bear.

The competition itself took place on Saturday and luckily the arrangers had gotten to the pub early to let some of the warm air in from the main restaurant, but still, a main concern during the day was to keep the beer warm enough rather than cool. I am unsure of the number of entries but the number was rather large and the judging carried on from early in the day until the evening, and in the end the winner was a Bavarian Weizen brewed by someone in the southwest (New Mexico or Texas I believe) and second place went to our own Dave Williams with a Classic American Pilsner (which I am still waiting to sample by the way). The looong day of beer drinking ended with, yes, even more beer drinking at a beer pub with an extensive variety of beer on tap and in bottle, alas, I never got to see the owner who has been named the Beer nazi after the TV show Seinfeld. After a few pints at this institution we were again off to the hotel were we sampled a few more beers before it finally was time to throw in the towel for the weekend……..

So, what did I learn from this trip? Well, I realized that Hogtown brewers has a great supply of judges, almost 1/3 -1/4 of the judges were from our club. And I also got to meet some great judges from other clubs in the region, as well as sampling some great beers. I can truly recommend to all our members to go to these competitions, if not as a judge go as a steward. I also learned that a global positioning satellite is only as good as the person sitting next to you giving directions, but most important of all: I learned never, ever to get in between a mama bear and her cub.

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