Meeting: 08.28.09
Posted on September 18, 2009Great beer and great friends at Barley Brother's
Hi Brew Crew, Well, here we go again. Sorry it has been over two weeks since the last meeting and I still have not been able to get to the M.A.L.T.S. business at hand. My apologies but I am going to continue to blame work. It seems as this job of mine is getting in the way of my beer drinking and all other stuff beer! Damn, only nine more years until full time beer... um I mean retirement. Thanks to Lon for hosting the past meeting at Barley Brother's. We had a quaint little (several tables) corner with a spectacular view. The beer was outstanding as well. Jake (sous chef from Shugrues) joined us for the first time and fell in love with Lee... I mean Lee's IPA (more about that later). Welcome Jake. Unfortunately, Doyle was not able to make the meeting but he was kind enough to forward an email to me beforehand. Doyle wanted to solicit our ranks for volunteers for the upcoming Brewfest held in November. For a mere hour or so of your time, you will be able to get into the Brewfest for gratis. We did have interest from several members and will revisit this at our next meeting. Also, we discussed having sponsors donate to the event and how it would entitle those sponsors to tickets for a threshold amount of dinero. Oh yeah, Lon get a hold of Nancy. We discussed creating a domain name for our website. Rich was kind enough to have done the research on this and I believe we decided as a group to try and grab the name "azmalts" or "maltsaz".beer. Just kidding about the .beer thing but what a great idea!! Lon and Dina from BB's passed out (no not that kind of passed out) cards for VIP membership to the M.A.L.T.S. Members attending the meeting. These cards are a great item and will entitle the holder to dollar off pints, % off of merchandise and specials on gift baskets coming out in the near future for holiday baskets. Three Cheers to our passer outers! A big congratulations goes out to Merv and his first batch of beer brewed a few weeks ago and to his new found paradigm that CRAFT BEER RULES! We look forward to tasting this new beer in the coming days, weeks, etc.. Lon discussed BB's attendance at the Great American Beer Festival (GABF) coming up next week. Lon has seven beers entered into the GABF this year. Good luck to Lon! This meeting was a bit "out of the norm" as we did not drink any beer nor did we have anyone bring beer to the meeting. OK, OK, So I am telling a bit of a fib.... you caught me. I just wanted to see if you were all still awake. Lee brought samples of his triple octane wheat beer and of his neon lime streak double IPA. Comments about the wheat beer were as follows: nicely done, sweet, lightly hopped, mildly malted and not overly sweet. The IPA was well received with comments as follows: good carbonation, nice hop nose, spectacular, like Hop Knot (Four Peaks Brewery), hopalicious and WOW! Nicely done to our big hearted friend Lee. Oh yeah, after Jake tried his second pint of the IPA he got down on one knee and propsed to Lee. Susie promptly kicked Jake in the balls and laughed until she fell out the window into the Colorado River. I had to go to Parker the following Monday and saw Susie floating near Big River still laughing hysterically. Terry (aka T-Bone) brought in his cream ale. It was very clear, very stable, aged well, great flavor profile for being two months old. Nice job T and we always look forward to drinking ya good stuff! Greg brought in an oatmeal stout that had coffee notes, dark colored but light bodied and creamy and smooth. Yeah, yeah, yeah, just because I write this stuff doesn't mean you have to be nice to me! Thanks to you all for your kind comments. Cristian G. did not attend the meeting but had Rich bring a sample of his mead. Since Christian did not bother to show up we are not going to tell him what we thought of his mead. Ha ha ha. I know we had you going there for a minute Christian. The good news is that we all love you... kind of in a biblical sense! The mead was refreshing, off flavor, a tinge of sulpher due to incomplete fermentation, very sweet and Scott said that his wife would drink it (what ever that means-I was to jazzed at that point to hear). Lon provided samples of a few of the beers that he has entered into the GABF. Of course they were all well received and were yummy. Lon then in a fit of intoxication stood up and declared to the world (or maybe just to everyone in BB's) that if his Nutbrown Ale won a medal at the GABF that Jaime and Mary could each kick him "right in the balls". That is a sight that I will be charging admission for!!! OK, that was about it. The next meeting is at Merv's house this coming Friday night, September 18, 2009. I will get you all an address later this week and you can check our website for a link to Mapquest. Oh yeah, and keep it a secret, this Friday night just happens to be Merv's wife, Heather's BIRTHDAY!! Can anyone say Tequilia? So we are finally at the end of another note meeting end thingy. I would like to ask if any of you can donate some $$. I figure it will take about $2,000.00 to really entice the judges at the GABF to award the Best in Show medal to Lon for his Nutbrown "nut kicker" Brown Ale. Right now I am about $2,799.00 short. Please help in our efforts to "sterilize" Lon... and get a good laugh in at the same time. Till Friday you Beer Drinkers,Greg Wales
M.A.L.T.S. Member (and no longer on probation)