Meeting: 06.12.09
Posted on July 2, 2009Here's the notes from our latest meeting which was held at the home of Lee and Suzie Dockins.
Brew Crew, Once again we had a fantastic time at our M.A.L.T.S. meeting last Friday evening. BIG THANKS TO LEE AND SUSIE DOCKINS for hosting and providing the nosh material. We had a few new folks show up to the meeting and I am sorry in advance if I mis-spell your names or leave out a last name. The session included: Doyle Wilson, Lee and Susie Dockins, Jeana "Gina Carol", Kathy, Dave and Tami, Christian and Jules Grandell, Bill Sherman, Terry Williams, Rich Terrinoni and Jim Stansbury. Also making a cameo was Barley the Blue Wonder Dog! Outstanding turn-out and I look forward to seeing you all again soon. Old Business: M.A.L.T.S. was represented at the Barley's Brewfest in Henderson, Nevada and all had a great time! Our new M.A.L.T.S. banner was displayed and it really rocks. Great job once again goes out to Susan Weber Designs for our logo and ordering the banner! Treasurer Jaime related that M.A.L.T.S. was in the black ink by a few dollars. Let's help build the treasury and buy shirts and our logo license plates. Speaking about the logo license plates... Rich brought them to the meeting and unveiled them! Nice job Rich! If anyone is interested in buying a plate or shirt, email me and we will make it happen. New Business: Doyle ran down a few particulars about the brewfest held here in good ol' Havasu in November. Doyle mentioned that it is to be held on November 3, 2009 in Rotary Park (the bowl section) and will be fenced in. We are hoping to have a good showing of Home Brewers this year for the competition and I will get with our counterparts in Nevada and California about their attendance. Jim Stansbury was kind enough to invite all of the M.A.L.T.S. members to his annual Lobster fest held the following evening (Saturday, June 13, 2009). I can tell you that it was a rockin' party with M.A.L.T.S. donating 20 gallons of beer and a few choice gallons of Rich's mead. The good news was that our beer was so popular that we were empty in about 3 hours. Party on! Thanks to Jim for the invite and the great lobster! Christian made a suggestion that we have a M.A.L.T.S. BBQ and Family Fun Day as the weather cools down this Fall. All thought it was a good idea and we will put it on the agenda for the next meeting to pick a day and place for it. As Christian said "it will be a good opportunity to taste each others beers for the homebrew competition in November so you will know why I am going to kick all of your asses!" There you have it... the gauntlet (mash paddle) has been thrown down! As you all can well imagine the meeting had slogged on for oh, about 30 minutes by this time, and the natives were growing restless. So alas, we adjourned the meeting and started DRINKING! Rich brought in the sparkling mead. The comments were very positive with words like amazing, wonderful and sweet being thrown out there. Jules commented that the mead goes well with orange juice or just a splash of lime in the mead. Nice job Rich!! Doyle provided a six-pack of his Brussels Amber. Doyle outdid himself on that batch although it did taste like.... mead for the first few sips. That mead really sticks around. The comments were - dry, malty, very drinkable. Toward the end of the meeting I had a chance to sample another bottle - Very nicely done Doyle! Terry (a/k/a T-Bone) provide us with samples of his 1st and 2nd all-grain batches of beer. First we took a shot of his Cream Ale. T said that he was going for a taste similar to "Little Kings" Cream Ale. The comments were that you could really taste the pilsener malt coming through was a tad bit "skunky", dry. I think that pretty much sums it up. You nailed it T-Bone! Terry's next offering was his porter/stout. This beer had a nice roasty flavor to it and had enough hops and malt to balance out nicely. Doyle related that he would like to see it entered into the homebrew competition in November. I agree and very good job to T-Bone! Ahhhh, and then there was Christian. Christian provided us samples from his maiden all-grain brew. Christian brewed an IPA and dry-hopped 5 gallons with cascade and the other 5 gallons with columbus hops. Comments were that they were fruity, floral and "extraordinarily malty". The batch dry-hopped with the columbus was thought to be a bit "greener" and needed a few more days to a week to mature. Christian, take a bow (insert applause here). You did a fantastic job on your first all-grain. Lee wowed us with two of his beers all night long. Lee had a very nice Belgian Dubbel and his Neon Streaking Dirty White Boy West Coast IPA. Although I don't have any comments written down about these two beers, I will tell you that I spoke to many of you who attended and the consensus was that Jedi Lee has outdone himself on these two beers. The NSDWBWCIPA, (you didn't really think that I was going to spell that out again, did you?) was fantastic and is so close to the original Green Flash IPA! And what else can I say, Lee is the Belgian Dubbel master! Nice job PF! (inside joke). Greg showed his version of the Green Flash West Coast IPA. Named Flashing Green Monkey IPA, it seemed to do well with our tasters. Rich believed that in no way did it seem to be a 90 IBU beer (beer geek talk) and Doyle like the balance of it. A few of the non-craft beer lovers were seen throwing up in their mouths after trying a taste. And with that pleasant thought... I will leave you with this: Next M.A.L.T.S. Meeting to be held somewhere abouts the 10th of July (Friday) and we will try to coordinate with our patron saint of beer (Lon Weatherson) to have the meeting at one of his properties at Sailing Hawks. Stay tuned and drink mucho bueno cerveza. Once again thanks to Jules for taking notes and Jaime for treasury duties. Greg WalesProud M.A.L.T.S. Member