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By Steve Kranz
The Spousal Unit and I once again attended the 17th Great American Beer Festival in Denver this past October. First, we must thank the AHA's Brian Rezak for placing us on his volunteer list which helped out considerably with the trip's overall cost.
First, the statistics:
Number of Breweries: 400
Number of Beers: over 1,700
Number of Beers Tasted: 165 (9.7%)
We attended two sessions, on Thursday evening and the Members Only tasting on Saturday afternoon, which is also when the awards were announced. Both were blissfully devoid of the Friday and Saturday night crowds...just us and the beers. Here's a rundown of Maryland's winners:
Brewer's Alley - Kolsch (Bronze)
DeGroen's Dunkels (Bronze)
DeGroen's Rauchbock (Bronze)
Brimstone Stone Beer (Bronze)
Blue Ridge Subliminator Dopplebock (Silver)
We had our own personal best and worst, too:
The best of those we tasted were:
Great Divide Brewing Co. (Denver, CO) - Hibernation Ale. Deep mahogany color & great taste
Bitter End Bistro and Brewers (Austin, TX) - Austin Pale Ale. Hoppy but superbly balanced, copper-colored American pale ale made with Centennial and Cascade hops.
Salado Creek Brewing Co. (San Jose, CA) - Salado Creek Honey Bock. Described as a "true European-style bock enhanced with natural mesquite Texas honey". The description I wrote in my book reads "Whew! Great! Super!"
Blue Moon Brewing Co. (Denver, CO) -
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By Neil Mezebish
First, I'd like to thank my volunteers who selflessly worked many long hours campaigning for me in the recent elections. I also want to thank the voters who showed up and waited in the long lines to give me their unified support. I promise to work very hard throughout the coming year continuing to earn and maintain your trust, as well as drink plenty of great homebrew with you all. Lastly, I want to thank Nancy Codner for all of her time and efforts over the last year as the club president. I hope to do justice to the fine leadership legacy that she established.
I found our first Officer's meeting, held just after the elections, to be warm and inviting. Far less formal than my expectations from a group that guides the direction of a club as prestigious and influential as the Midnight Homebrewer's League. Though this may shock and surprise many of you, overwhelming portions of the meeting content seem to focus on beer. We drink it, talk about brewing it, plan more meetings around it, break out someone else's recent batch and, oh yes, eat plenty of Michelle's great hors d'oeuvres (thanks to Mrs. Kranz.. my vote for club chef at all affairs).
We did actually discuss a variety of ideas relating to increasing attendance at the monthly club events and improving the benefits that our members receive. As Club President for the next year, I have made these two goals my personal mission. We reviewed our list of club members and found that there are about fifteen of us who are very active in most of the club events and brew on a regular basis. The next group of about thirty attend several events throughout the year and brew more occasionally. The balance of our members keep in touch through this newsletter and/or while in Kevin's Midnight Homebrew Supply shop. We would love to see new faces at tastings, have our club show stronger representation in competitions, and get to know more of
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