Bubblings from the Fermenter
By Mark Tumarkin

It looked for a while like Hurricane Dennis might be dropping in on our August meeting. But then he decided to linger in the Bahamas for a bit longer before heading north, on his way to visit the Carolinas. Call me paranoid, but just a few days earlier was the seventh anniversary of Andrew's little visit to South Florida. He partied pretty heartily at our house, basically trashed the place. And although I still think fondly of my Cat 5 Pale Ale, a seriously hoppy IPA and Andrew 5th anniversary brew, I'd just as soon leave all those memories buried. I definitely don't need the reminders.

At least we didn't trash out Fred's house as bad as Andrew did ours. That wouldn't have been a good way to repay his kindness for hosting our meeting. We had a pretty good turnout, including Orlando and Nancy Lanni with their little one -- haven't seen you guys at a meeting in a long while. Also some new guests, Jeff Batchelder and Jack Jordan, both of whom brought along samples of their brews. Jeff brought a molasses amber ale, while Jack brought a blueberry mead. That's the kind of guests we really like -- hope to see you both again. The cast of usual suspects rounded out the meeting along with lots of good beer; George brought a keg of "Something," Greg brought some Wolver's Pale Ale from North Coast Brewing (this country's only organic ale), Andy brought some blackberry stout, Dave brought some brown ales as well as a Vienna style lager (though it seemed like maybe it spent a little time in Bohemia, verrry hoppy!), Wayne brought a pale ale and a steam beer, and I brought some Am Brown ale. We even managed to drink up a little more of the seemingly never-ending supply of Studley Ale.

We covered a number of 'business' topics. Bradley says the new T-shirts are at the printers, and should be available very soon. We got some new additions to the libeery. Zymurgy has started to send us a club subscription, although we may be losing our subscription to Brewing Techniques (there is a persistent rumor that they may be going under). Now all we need is our libeerian -- Donna, where are you? We're making progress on the incorporation front, more news on that soon. Some of the other topics discussed were the possible hosting of an AHA Club-only Competition, a possible fall event (a camp-out was one suggested possibility), also time to start thinking about what we want to do for a club X-mas party -- we want it to be something special, so let us hear your ideas.

We also talked about starting another BJCP study group (let me know if you are interested in participating). There was a lot of interest in this and also in doing some structured tastings at our meetings so that everyone can learn what judging is about. We will try to do one group judging at each meeting, using the BJCP judging form. This can be tied into the style competitions and/or presentations. Speaking of which, Dave gave the presentation and tasting on Vienna/Ofest/Marzen and brought an assortment of Viennas and Ofests for our education and enjoyment. Next month, Erin will do a presentation on Winter Warmers.

I propose that we elect Julie Willams as our Sargent-at-Arms. She learned her technique for getting the attention of an unruly crowd in elementary school classrooms. It went something like this: "If you can hear my voice, touch your nose. If you can hear my voice, look at Mark." I think she found that partying brewers are a tougher crowd than elementary students, but it still worked well. Thanks, Julie.

This month's style contest was Brown Ale. The winner was Wayne with his English Brown Ale, I took second with an American Brown, and third place went to Dave for his American Brown. Next month's contest is porter, so I hope you've got one ready. I'd expect a good number of entries, porter seems to be on a lot of people's favorites list. So, until then, keep those fermenters bubbling.