[Trubmeisters] November Meeting Notes
Date: 2001-11-02 14:37

Hello All!

Last night was a great meeting.  Those members who just lurk in this
list are missing a great time.  You should attend a meeting or two for
the opportunity to taste all the great beers we have.  If you have
nothing brewing, you can always bring a good commercial beer along.  We
will still drink it. :-)

We had 2 new people show up.  Zachary and his sister Rachel (who he
recently married, which is legal in Texas we are told) showed up and
seemed to enjoy them selves.  I guess Zach is Steve's personal slave,
and spends time in his store for free.  Next time you stop by, ask Zach
how his sister is doing.  :-)  (OK, so she isn't his sister, and he
isn't married to her, but he is from Houston.)  Let me see ... How's my
memory ...  There were 2 clubs in Houston when I was there.  The
Mashtronauts and the Foam Rangers.  :-)  (WOW it's been 8 years since I
was there too.)  The Mashtronauts met at a bar near NASA, and the Foam
Rangers were up near Kingwood I think.  My first club was the
Mashtronauts.  They are the ones who got me into brewing.  Enough old
memories already!  Back to Zach.  He is willing to give all members the
now famous 80% discount on everything in the store.  Just tell him Jeff
said it was OK with Steve. <GGG>

We are a beer club, so this spewage of information should include a
description of the beverages sampled.  You know, we should have a
contest some day to pick a good name for this pseudo publication.
Something like the "Blow Off" or such.  Back to beer.  I will try to go
around the room.  As always, forgive me for any I missed or forgot.
Remind me, and I will be glad to do a post review of you beer. :-)

George had a brown colored malty beverage in a keg.  It was a decent
brew, but I did not get the name/style.

Jim & Sue brought a Scotch Ale in a keg that was what I considered to be
the best beer there.  I drank more than my fair share of it.  I guess I
wasn't the only one.  Good thing it had a CO2 supply, because it would
have had a dent in the side from all the sucking that was done on it!

Steve brought a little keg with some jack-o-lantern puke in it.  I
really hate to keep putting down Steve's beer, because he truly is a
great brewer.  If you like the style, it was very good.  Not too strong
on the spices, but recognizable as pumpkin flavor.  It had some amazing
head on it too.  It took me 2 more glasses of the Scotch Ale to clean
the foam out of my glass.  This reviewer is just not fond of anyone's
pumpkin ale.

Jeff (the good one, not me) brought an old IPA.  Although it was nearing
the end of it's life, it was still quite drinkable.  The hops had really
mellowed and melded with the malt to make a creamy rich beverage.  I
liked it.

That's it for the kegs, so onto the table.  No particular order here,
and this is where I tend to forget who did what.

Scott (the father of the baby to be) & Steve made a stout together.  I
really liked it.  Seemed to me to be a bit heavy on the black patent
malt.  But I find that to be the best flavor there is.  I can see where
others might not have liked that beer, but I could have easily drank a
couple bottles of it.

Ken brought a holiday spiced beer that was over a year old.  This is
another kind of beer where a taste must be acquired.  I liked it, but
then again, I liked it last year too!  Maybe we will get to sample it
next month at his house again.

Jeff (the bad one) brought a donation from the "other" club.  It was a
Lindemans Frambois (raspberry lambic).  This is also a beer that
requires one to acquire a taste for it.  I used to hate lambics, till I
had this one.  It has become one of my favorite sipping beers.  You
really can't drink it till you are drunk.  I proved that a couple weeks
ago when we attempted to drink over 10 cases of the stuff, and had a lot
of it left. :-)  So this was one of the left over bottles.

Betty & Brian brought a bottle labeled BA.  My mother always told me if
I have nothing good to say, then I should say nothing.

Dan brought some of his wine he puts in beer bottles to trick us.  It is
very good wine.  Just goes to prove that a beer brewer can make wine as
good as any vintner!  I am not sure, but I think one of his bottles was
a mead?  My taste buds were so confused at that point, that I can not be
sure.

Tony & Steve were new members from last month.  They shared a lager with
us.  It is only 3 weeks old.  I was amazed to find it had a serious dry
hop flavor.  Not many brewers are bold enough to dry hop a Budweiser
clone!  They added rice syrups in the boil.  They are even fermenting it
at 44 deg.  It was fruity (in a dry hopped way) and sweet (a surprise
too).  I think the fermentation is not done yet, but when it is, this
will be a beer not to miss.  Quite a combination of styles.

That brings me back to our host for the evening.  He brought out some
Cherry Bounce to get his wife, my wife, and Steve's wife drunk.  Based
on what I saw of the three of them, it worked.  He also had a few
bottles of peach mead that were emptied.  Since the cherry bounce was
gone, he then supplied them with a sweet and a dry cherry wine.  Both
were finished off in record time.  I thought the 2 wines would have been
best if blended together.  Although, either was good on it's own.

I know there were a couple of other beers on the counter, but I don't
remember who brought them.

Everyone was impressed with George's culinary skills.  He made a venison
stew that had some of the tenderist venison in it.  The carrots were
cooked, but not mushy.  The potatoes were firm, but not crunchy.  There
was a creamy base so rich, it was hard to resist.  He sliced up some
sausage and cheese to go with a basket of crackers.  Somewhere in the
middle of the gathering he brought out a whole quart of pickled beans he
makes.  They were so good, I saw someone chewing on the dill weed after
all the beans were gone.  VERY WELL DONE GEORGE!

We had 22 people show up.  Looks like we are moving back up towards the
peak again.  Nice to see.  I am tempted to say this was the best
attended meeting by ladies that I have seen too!  Many times spouses do
not attend, but I think they were almost all there, including my wife.
I think she will start being a regular now.  We need to get George's
wife to attend outside of her home.  His hosting is the only time we get
to see her.  I can not find the words to describe her method of bringing
life to a party. :-)

Scott & Julie had their "surprise" baby and beer shower.  The son-to-be
collected some blankets for wiping up beer spills, a hat for brewing in
the winter, a teddy bear that was filled with malt extract, a bunny that
makes bouncy noises when the temperature of the mash reaches 150 deg,
and I thought I heard someone say a Male Chicken Collar!  I guess that
last useful item will be stored away until he is at least a teenager.
We want a video of the scene where you explain to him how to use it. :-)
I was not paying close enough attention to the whole ceremony, so again,
feel free to beat me senseless for skipping some details.  (Too late, I
am already senseless!)  She has 3 more weeks to go.  I think they are
naming him Carbonating.  (Scott and Julie use the last name of Stone.)

Betty called the meeting to order, and the room got silent for about 2.3
seconds, and then anarchy broke out.  Half an hour later, she tried it
again.  Once she had gotten the attention of 4 people, the meeting
commenced.  A list was drawn up to assign places for next years meetings
(if we can call them that).  Many people volunteered for a given month,
and then someone else erased their names and moved them to a month they
did not volunteer for so they could have it.  Anyhow ... Make sure you
go over the list when/if Betty gets it out to us.  That makes the big
assumption that Brian does not feel obligated to wash her pants for her.
Considering some of the events that took place last night, they probably
do need to be cleaned soon.  :-)

As a heads up, MJ is having a relationship with one of the Kilsch Bros. 
She said she can get us perks (or anyhow the work perky came up) at
Lakeside.  Maybe that was just a tour of the brewery.  Oh yeah, that was
it, we will try to have a tour of Lakeside in February.  This all
depends on if MJ can talk them into letting us trash the place.  There
may be a cost associated, it depends on if Steve ruffs MJ up before she
see Russ or not.  :-)

The newest tradition that George started has come back to him.  We had a
raffle of a giant beer mug (1/2 oz. size), some tattoos, a tap handle,
and a T-shirt with a US flag on it.  I think MJ got the glass, Jeff (the
good one) got the tattoos, and Sue got the shirt.  Betty drew her own
name I think, and got a psychedelic Miller Lite tap handle for her boy
toy.  How many of those you got left George?  (tap handles, not boy
toys)  There may have even been another prize that I missed.

Sue and George decided to get a "real" door prize for next month.  She
collected $1 from each person willing to donate.  Don't expect much
though, there is not a lot you can get with $8.  Yeah, I know we had 22
people attend, but it is a voluntary system you know. :-)  Of course,
Sue may be counting on our old age and memory issues to solve that
problem.  "What money?"  If the cash makes it through her washing cycle,
and back into George's hands, he is suppose to visit the Miller Company
Store and acquire something worth while.

Oh, yeah, Sue remembered what Dan had on his shirt last month.  It was a
swarm of stealth fighters with the caption "Can Osama Come Out and
Play?" at the bottom.  I threw away the rest of the Hinterland posters. 
Sorry Sue!  Maybe I'll have my 9 year old make a new poster for you.  It
would be just as valuable.  :-)  Let's try this again next month.  What
shirt did Dan wear this month?

How many of you have seen Steve during a full moon?  (The one in the
sky, not the one on George's wife.)  Whether we wanted to or not, he
felt obligated last night to let us see it.  As he removed his clothes,
Janet grabbed a hair brush and some scissors.  Steve told her it was OK,
when the moon settled in the morning, the mange would go away too.  Wow!
Talk about your wolf man.  To make matters worse, he had to show us his
other "little" problem.  As it peaked out, Janet grabbed it with her
toes and suddenly Steve had a wet spot.  Some say it was spilled beer,
but this close to Halloween, you never know.

The standard topics have been ignored much to long in this club.  We are
doing a good job of talking about beer, but the politics and rock n roll
have slipped in the past few months.  Of course some other topics have
taken their place.  If they come back, I will report them here, but for
now the standard required topics have been tabled for future meetings.
:-)

There is one of our standard topics that was covered (or uncovered) very
well!  I guess George, his family, and some friends went to a Miss Nude
America contest recently.  He (and at least one other person) took quite
a few pictures.  Let's just say many of the pictures left nothing at all
to the imagination!  The photo's were fondled ..err..  I mean handled
... no, not handled, handed ... no, not handed either, tossed ... nah,
tossed is probably a bad word to use in this context too, passed ...
yeah passed is the word I am looking for ... passed around for the
enjoyment, or disgust, of everyone.  There were 2 or 3 pictures that
really should go on our website, but if we did, we would have to set up
password protection to keep kids out of it.  Next time you see George,
ask him if that fence was uncomfortable.

You know, I do have a real paying job, and I have spent way too much
time typing this up this month.  I think that pretty much covers and
uncovers everything I am able to print without a series of disclaimers. 
So I am closing here till next month.

Ken has next month's meeting at his place.  Brian and Betty have
January.