MAYbe we did, and MAYbe we didn't have a meeting in MAY.

Welcome to the May edition of the Trubmeisters meeting notes. This month
you will find a series of events described, and you have to decide
what's real, because MAYbe what you read really happened, and MAYbe it
didn't.

MAYbe Larry and Donna hosted this months event. We sure do appreciate
the hospitality. I guess Donna was afraid of us, because she didn't come
out of her room all night. Then again, maybe Donna was out of town with
her other husband last night. Either way, we need to thank both of them
for letting us spill beer and wine on their floors and do what ever it
is we might or might not have done in their hot tub.

MAYbe Larry made some BBQ pork. It was fantastically tender and oh so
yummy. He slow cooked it in his smoker outside, and then let it
tenderize even more in a roaster. He had 3 or 4 mustard based sauces,
and a couple of red colored (tomato?) sauces. All of them were rather
tasty. He had both North Carolina and South Carolina sauce. We were also
presented with some baked beans and of course 3 day old bread to soak up
the grease in the pork. I think Larry said there was 12 lbs of pork. The
vultures were quick. It only took 30 minutes to empty the whole crock!

MAYbe we had some mushroom flavored dip and crackers. There was also
some dog food in a paper bowl. There were even more crackers to place
the dog food on. It was liver and cheese flavored dog food. Or was it?
Hmmmmm. We also had some coffee cake. It didn't taste like coffee. Maybe
it wasn't really coffee cake.

MAYbe we had beer. You decide. Did we really have beer or not? :-O No
notes, so you will have to forgive me for missing some. There was a
special 1998 xmas ale from Breckenridge Brewery that Dan brought. It was
a very cool bottle that had a number hand written on it! We were
privileged that Dan would share this treasure with us. I saw some IPA,
wheat stuff, lagers, pils, oatmeal stout, and I'm sure a couple others
too. In kegs, George had Janet's Nicholas Craddy beer, and AB brought
some spruce beer. A new member felt bad when he heard it described as
not very sprucy. He said he was still learning brewing terminology.
Well, this time the word sprucy is literally sprucy. That beer really is
made with the needles of a spruce tree. Or is it? ;-)

MAYbe we had wine. There were 69 dozen bottles of wine! Or were there?
They were all good except the ones that were not good. The 1998 Foch was
so bad, I ended up tossing it down the drain. The 1996 strawberry and
cabernet was only slightly vinegary. Then again, it tasted that way in
1996 too. ;-) Steve brought a port that I thought was really good. A
couple more years, and that wine could be a best of show! Or MAYbe not.

MAYbe we had some mead. It was so thin bodied though, I couldn't taste
it at all. Maybe it really wasn't there?

MAYbe Dan saw a commercial for Maybelline mascara yesterday. He was so
excited about the fantastic way they described it's properties that he
called customer service and ordered a whole gallon of it! The woman was
curious what he was going to do with a whole gallon. Dan explained to
her that he would put it on the legs of all the women he met. She didn't
understand and asked him why he wanted to put it on their legs? Dan
explained that the commercial kept saying Maybelline mascara would lift
and separate! (Reprinted without Dan's permission. Maybe he won't mind.)


MAYbe there was a hot tub! And it was fantastic. We couldn't get the
temperature over 104 degrees. So that blew our plan to make a giant mash
tun out of it. Since everyone brought their two piece swim suits, it
made the tub a bit on the full side. There was a lot of pushing and
shoving both in and out of the tub. We have a lot of club member's
companies censuring their email now, so I can't go into any more details
than that. You decide if it happened or not! I should mention that Steve
does not need a bathing suit. His fur covers up anything inappropriate.
Janet looked fantastic in the one piece of her 2 piece suit. All the
other women were jealous and made her take it off. The men were opposed
to that activity and asked her politely to put the second piece back on.
Or did they? :-O

MAYbe there was a new member who did a demo of wort chillers. His name
is Jeff Hamilton. He drives a train for a living, and makes wort
chillers as a hobby. Anyhow, that's what I gathered from Steve
introducing him as an engineer and homebrewer. His chillers are made
with 8 tiny tubes twisted together like cords in a rope. The wort runs
inside these tubes while water flows around them like a normal counter
flow chiller. The extra surface area makes it possible to have a very
small coil do the work of our 25-30 foot immersion chillers. I can
personally vouch for the effectiveness of those chillers. While we were
standing outside listening to Jeff, it started getting dark, and the
temperature kept dropping every few minutes. Those are really effective
and efficient chillers he showed us!

MAYbe there were two other new members. Welcome Jim Cornelius and Scott
Janisch. It was great to meet all three new members. I hope we weren't
too wild for a first meeting and that you will return to future
gatherings. 

MAYbe most of the standard core group of people were also there. We were
missing our newly engaged couple and a few others. Jim and Sue are (for
good reason) not able to make as many meetings as in the past. Sue did
assure me they want to host a meeting again. They are on the un-official
list for next year. Maybe it's time to make the 2005 list official? We
will have to have a committee formed to do that. The only problem is we
recently voted not to ever vote again, so that means we can't vote to
pick who's on the committee! Or can we?

MAYbe Betty is finally giving up her strangle hold on the presidential
mug. She passed it to Tom last night, but made him swear on a keg he
would drink beer from it at every meeting. He swore at her and agreed to
keep it until death or until a new member joins the club. He then
proceeded to fill it repeatedly. Turns out the presidential mug is a bit
smaller than he expected and he ended up drinking more glasses of
everything than he normally would.

MAYbe there were omelets served by our great host Larry just after
midnight. I can't believe we stayed that late. But when he locked us in
the patio, we had to wait while he cooked up a dozen omelets. They were
fantastic, and it was decreed that any one who stays past midnight has
to be served omelets by the host from here on. To bad some of us have to
work on Friday. That 3.5 hours of sleep I got last night should be
plenty! ;-)

MAYbe there was a door prize of 5 beautiful short stem, large volume
glasses. Names were put in a bowl, and the first name drawn was Jeff!
Boy was I surprised. Then they drew the second name, and it was Jeff
again. That's great, I won 2 of the glasses. Then the third name was
drawn. It was ... DRUM ROLL ... Jeff again! There was dissention among
the natives. Seems someone was accusing me of rigging the door prize.
That bowl was watched every minute by someone, so how could I have
rigged it. A search was done by the door prize committee and it was
found that every single name in the bowl was Jeff. I was forced to
return my door prize items and names were put on new pieces of paper. I
have no idea how my name got on all those tickets. Must have been when
everyone else was outside listening to the chiller report and I was
watching the bowl to make sure no one stuffed the ballots. There is no
fee to be in the door prize drawing, it is donated stuff. Last nights
stuff was donated by Dan Pals. Thanks Dan!

MAYbe there will be pictures. I only took a couple of photos so we had
evidence of the new members for the annual police visit. I saw at least
5 cameras last night. If everyone gets the pictures to me, they'll be
add to the web page. That should include some nice shots of the wort
chiller presentation. I think the picture of Rick starting the seat of
his pants on fire when he leaned back against the stove didn't turn out.
BTW: Tom and I are working out how to get him access to the web server
so a real web page person can spruce it up a bit. ;-) This spruce means
make it more appealing, not filled with pine needles.

MAYbe next month will be at Steve and MJ's. A call will be made to the
Mequon Gestapo in advance so they can prepare a boarding party. 

A Good Beer To All, And Too All A Good Beer!
Jeff Kane