Friday, April 22, 2005
Meeting wrap-up
Again we had a good meeting tonight. Some new faces all the way from Dover! They were really nice and I hope they come back for the next meeting - at my place! Woot! We also had Scott come up from Elkton MD... I'm not sure if he's come before - I could have sworn he came to the last meeting, but my memory is failing me... or maybe my beer is helping. Not sure which. At any rate, next meeting we'll take some member mugshots and create a new section on the FSB website that has the pics and short little bios for folks that participate. Maybe it'll help me (and other members) remember names and whatnot.
Beer reviews for the Oak Aged Vanilla Imperial Porter were mostly positive with the exception of Bonnie Bieber who hissed "too strong!!!" and quickly handed it back to Scott - With 8% ABV packed in there, I won't disagree - but I thought it was pretty smooth anyways. It's a very flavorful brew, no doubt... alot of folks talked about bourbon flavors which really floored me... there was more going on in it than expected. I'll be putting the recipe up on the FSB recipes section of the website tomorrow hopefully. Maybe someone out there might want to brew it themselves :D
I also (finally) killed my keg of Honey Pale Ale tonight when pouring the growler for the meeting, so as soon as I got home I dragged the "Rainy Day Pale Ale" upstairs and popped it in the kegerator. I fiddled with my empty honey pale keg a little b/c the liquid out poppet was leaking on me... but got it fixed (I think) and washed out. Tomorrow I'll rack the Limey Vale Nut Brown Ale into a keg in preparation for the OAVIP mini to finally kick.
HDYB called today and left a message that my 50lb sack of Pale 2-row is in. I'll swing by tomorrow and grab it, some Munich malt, and some hops & yeast to brew the inaugural beer of my new all-grain system... "Living Dead Girl Ale", a Rogue Dead Guy Ale clone for my wife in honor of many things, namely our daughter's namesake Lenore, a tribute to Rob Zombie's classic song, and my wife's favorite commercial beer of all time. I'm not going to bother to take the time to reculture the Pacman yeast strain ... I'll just stick with WLP001 California Ale and hope for the best. You know it'll be good.
My hops are out of control. The cascades I got from Jeff Ramberg are climbing my fence like little psychovines.... some are already over 2 feet tall. I gotta get out there tomorrow and trim some of them back so I've got like 3 or 4 per grouping. Both Magnum rhizomes have shoots, the Nugget has about 9 or 10 shoots, and one of my Liberty rhizomes has 2 or 3 shoots. One of the Liberty shoots is not doing so hot, mostly because the rhizome was funky when we got it... but it is shooting - I just don't expect to see anything visible for another few weeks.
Lots of good beers tonight... Scott Bieber brewed a Belgian Saison / Duvel clone during the meeting. I think in 3 or 4 months we should have a "Battle of the Belgians". I'll have 2 belgians ready for consumption (or at least tasting) at that point, Marty is about to keg a Tripel, and I know a few other members have tripels in the wings... could be really cool to have a little (informal) contest.
Oh well. Time to go collapse into a stupor and wait for 7am... when the wee beasties rise and attack.
Beer reviews for the Oak Aged Vanilla Imperial Porter were mostly positive with the exception of Bonnie Bieber who hissed "too strong!!!" and quickly handed it back to Scott - With 8% ABV packed in there, I won't disagree - but I thought it was pretty smooth anyways. It's a very flavorful brew, no doubt... alot of folks talked about bourbon flavors which really floored me... there was more going on in it than expected. I'll be putting the recipe up on the FSB recipes section of the website tomorrow hopefully. Maybe someone out there might want to brew it themselves :D
I also (finally) killed my keg of Honey Pale Ale tonight when pouring the growler for the meeting, so as soon as I got home I dragged the "Rainy Day Pale Ale" upstairs and popped it in the kegerator. I fiddled with my empty honey pale keg a little b/c the liquid out poppet was leaking on me... but got it fixed (I think) and washed out. Tomorrow I'll rack the Limey Vale Nut Brown Ale into a keg in preparation for the OAVIP mini to finally kick.
HDYB called today and left a message that my 50lb sack of Pale 2-row is in. I'll swing by tomorrow and grab it, some Munich malt, and some hops & yeast to brew the inaugural beer of my new all-grain system... "Living Dead Girl Ale", a Rogue Dead Guy Ale clone for my wife in honor of many things, namely our daughter's namesake Lenore, a tribute to Rob Zombie's classic song, and my wife's favorite commercial beer of all time. I'm not going to bother to take the time to reculture the Pacman yeast strain ... I'll just stick with WLP001 California Ale and hope for the best. You know it'll be good.
My hops are out of control. The cascades I got from Jeff Ramberg are climbing my fence like little psychovines.... some are already over 2 feet tall. I gotta get out there tomorrow and trim some of them back so I've got like 3 or 4 per grouping. Both Magnum rhizomes have shoots, the Nugget has about 9 or 10 shoots, and one of my Liberty rhizomes has 2 or 3 shoots. One of the Liberty shoots is not doing so hot, mostly because the rhizome was funky when we got it... but it is shooting - I just don't expect to see anything visible for another few weeks.
Lots of good beers tonight... Scott Bieber brewed a Belgian Saison / Duvel clone during the meeting. I think in 3 or 4 months we should have a "Battle of the Belgians". I'll have 2 belgians ready for consumption (or at least tasting) at that point, Marty is about to keg a Tripel, and I know a few other members have tripels in the wings... could be really cool to have a little (informal) contest.
Oh well. Time to go collapse into a stupor and wait for 7am... when the wee beasties rise and attack.
