[Your regular correspondent was unable to attend this month’s meeting due to parental responsibilities. This is a guest post by the B Team.]
Our November meeting brought us once again to Tribus Brewing in Milford, one of our favorite places. Their beer is great, the back room is secluded and comfortable, and the staff is always good to us. Huge thanks to Tribus for hosting us!
The meeting began with an educational presentation by Andy T. Fully retired now, Andy has far too much time on his hands. Luckily, he also has a fertile imagination and excellent fabrication skills. He keeps coming up with great ideas for new brewery gadgets and building prototypes, several of which he brought to the meeting.
I took a bunch of photos but I will not publish them here. At least, not yet. I don’t want to steal Andy’s thunder. He has (yet another) article coming out in next month’s Zymurgy which explains each gadget much better than I can. You’ll have to wait and see them there. All I’m going to say is that each of them is something you didn’t know you needed until you saw it and can be made for a small fraction of the cost of the nearest equivalent available at retail. Kudos to Andy!
The educational portion done, we turned to judging homebrews. Not very many this month, but most were of excellent quality. It’s getting harder to give constructive feedback on beers these days; there just isn’t much room to improve. Tasting notes:
Weissbier (10A), Andy T: A lot of bubblegum on the nose, “more Belgian than German” according to Pierre, and could use a little more malt there. Flavor nails the style. Dry finish makes it very drinkable. Needs more bubbles. 7/3/17/3/7 = 37
76% wheat, no rice hulls. Andy designed and printed a special manifold holder to allow for a very long braided hose false bottom. 6ft for a mash tun sized for 5gal batches. Thinks he can go to 100% wheat without a stuck sparge.
Marzen (6A), Pierre: Nose is quite fruity, mostly dried fruits. Flavor is right to style except a bit too intense – actually improved with a little water. Needs more bubbles. 7/2/13/4/7 = 33
“Same score it got at SNERHC!” – Pierre
Black IPA (21B), Andy M: Piney, a little citrus. Nose could use a little more complexity but flavor is spot on. Just a hint of coffee. Lingering finish has a hint of bite. Otherwise perfect. 11/3/16/5/8=43
Was afraid it had gotten oxidized due to equipment problems during packaging. Apparently not.
Pre-Prohibition Porter (27), Santi: Chocolate, grainy malt, and licorice with some earthy hops. Squeaky clean, lagery. Gorgeous color and clarity, “blood of the vampire” according to Pierre. Very flavorful. Just about a perfect clone of Yeungling. Dry finish. 11/3/17/5/8=44
This was the base beer to which Santi added coffee beans to create the beer that is going to the second round in the Twelve Percent competition. Pale malt and triticale from Blue Ox plus some pale chocolate malt, fermented with 34/70.
