November Meeting

The project for this month was spiced beer. Several examples were brought in, but before they were tapped, a little business was done.
This year's Indiana Brewer's cup winners (Matt, Jeff, Larry & Jon were all present) got a bit of an ego boost when it was pointed out that this year's competition was one of the largest in the country!
Next year's meeting formats will be divided up into 3 types of meetings.

1. Informative - a set topic for discussion
2. Competition - everyone brew a specific style, i.e. porter, pale ale, IPA
3. Homebrew Evaluation - Detailed scoring & organized tastings of what we've brewed.

READ ON FOR A WRAP-UP OF THE NOVEMBER MEETING

Jason & Mike were given the task to create a glossary of brewing terms in response to bringing up that they were a bit confused by the terminology when they got started brewing. At the December 21st meeting, they will have some info on sparging methods for a "How do you sparge" discussion. Tom will use some of the club's funds to get a bargain beer kit to use as a prize for a later club competition.
Probably in March as it was decided to be an IPA project meeting. Jon Templet gave us an interesting discourse on the history of and the brewing of IPA's. Adding gypsum to the water, using any high alpha hop early in the boil to get the IBU's up and choosing a good aromatic hop for the end boil were the high points of his talk. Tom then passed around an easier to use rating sheet for the spiced beer tasting.
Larry started off with the absolutely wrong beer he brought from home. Instead of the Possibly Putrid Pumpkin Ale, he pulled the wrong tap handle and had a bottle of Susie's Sweet Stout. It was considered a "good" mistake.
Tom then opened up a proper entry with a vanilla oatmeal stout. He added a vanilla syrup to the already conditioned stout after experimenting with an eye dropper and measured samples of beer to get the proper concentration. Very sweet, it would make a good apertif, and suggeted using vanilla extract instead of syrup to cut down the sweetness.
Jeff then passed his Holiday ale that he also had taken to the Halloween party. One month was not very kind to the beer. The spiciness had been replaced by an unidentifiable aroma and had quite a tart finish. The question of whether it was time or the bottles that brought about the change was discussed.
Jason & Mike then opened their cloved-up beer that was definitely quite clovey, but very drinkable. When it was brought up that the clove might mellow out a bit over time and it would be interesting to taste it again at a later date, we were told that it probably won't last that long.

Then came the moment we were all masochistically waiting for, the opening of Eric's uber-clove pumpkin ale. Ever since we heard about it at the Halloween party, there has been a curious sense of dread to see how this would turn out.
After hearing how Tom used a scientific method to determine the amount of concentration of syrup to add. Jeff & Larry use measured amounts of spices in their brews. Even Jason & Mike carefully measured their heavily cloved beer. It was a bit of a shock to hear how Eric just kind of started dumping whole cans of clove & cinnamon into the boil.
If anyone needs any clove extract, I know where you can get about 5 gallons of it.

We had a bit more of Jason & Mike's clove beer as a way to come down smoothly from the clove overload. Something like the decompression needed to prevent the bends in deep sea divers.

Matt then ended the meeting with his hard cider that he will be entering in the State Fair next year.