May 2015 Minutes

John and Nikki Daniels hosted the May B.A.S.H. meeting on Sunday the 17th at their home in Rockport. Early arrivals spread out on the new composite deck and watched Paul Holder drink a glass of ice water! Club Vice President Sabrina Krueger called the meeting to order. The club treasury is dwindling somewhat leading up to July’s massive dues infusion. Club elections will take place next month. All B.A.S.H. members are invited to the upcoming Lazy Beach Brewing Company grand opening. D-Day for this event is Saturday, June 6th.

Beers for next months’ English ESB/Pale Ale competition are best consumed at 50⁰F, not ice cold. Please give your competition beers to Sabrina upon arrival. For August’s session beer competition you MUST declare an original gravity upon entry of each beer.

After destroying a nice spread of appetizers, we shifted the attack to Nikki’s taco salad. New homebrews were a little sparse this month – Paul’s hefeweizen, Wild Bill Lehfeld’s “Dimwit” Belgian White and Carroll Pate’s “Tom Freund” porter. We did achieve considerable inventory reduction on previously sampled homebrews. Several interesting commercial beers were shared, including Tom’s Alamo Amber Lager, Goliad Golden Ale and Real Ale Hans Pils, Andrew Herzig/Sabrina’s Highland Brewing Company Gaelic Ale and Odell Tree Shaker Peach IPA, Lou Needleman’s Tennant’s Whiskey Oak Aged, Rio Grande Desert Pilsner, Sierra Blanca De La Vega’s Pecan Beer, Ballast Point Victory At Sea and Marble India Pale Ale, and Phil Sims’ Choc Winter Stout and Oskar Blues Dale’s Pale Ale.

NSA surveillance captured the following baffling exchanges :

• Carroll -- “Nobody’s got one as big as mine” 
• Paul – “You’ve got about one inch behind you” Wild Bill – “That’s what she said” 
• Sabrina – “I’ll bring a thermometer” Lou – “Oral or rectal? It’s a question of flavor” 

The meeting ended as it began – with a Paul Holder shocker. For the first time in 33 years, Paul was ONE OF THE FIRST TO LEAVE. The end is nigh!

Upcoming B.A.S.H. events:

• 14-Jun-15: B.A.S.H. meeting (Daniel Nutting, English ESB/Pale ale competition, BJCP 8C) 
• 12-July-15: B.A.S.H. meeting (B&J’s Pizza on Staples at Timbergate, hosted by Paul Holder) 
• 9-Aug-15: B.A.S.H. meeting (Daniel Fearn, <4% ABV aka Session Beer competition) 
• 13-Sep-15: B.A.S.H. meeting (Mark Woerner, demonstration brew) 
• 11-Oct-15: B.A.S.H. meeting (Andrew Herzig/Sabrina Krueger, sour ale competition, BJCP 17A - F) 

Thanks again John and Nikki, see a doctor, Paul, keep on brewin’ and we’ll see you next month at Daniel Nutting’s!

Big Brew 2015

B&J’s Pizza on Staples at Timbergate hosted the 2015 Corpus Christi edition of the American Homebrewers Association’s Big Brew. Three teams from the Bay Area Association of Homebrewers (B.A.S.H.) brewed the AHA’s selected recipes for this year in an outdoor, public demonstration. The weather was beautiful and the B.A.S.H. canopy provided ample shade.

Club President Cory Mathews, assisted by Drew Burkhardt and Claudio Montiel, brewed a 5-gallon batch of “Old-School” American barleywine. This big beer had no fewer than ELEVEN ounces of hops – featuring Cascade, Tomahawk and Centennial. Vice President Sabrina Krueger and Andrew Herzig used the brew-in-a-bag technique to make a Columbus pale ale. Treasurer Carroll Pate brewed an extract version of “Killer Kölsch”.

We joined in the AHA’s global synchronized toast to homebrewing pioneer Charlie Papazian at noon Central Daylight Time, followed by toasts to latecomers Phil Sims and Travis Clapp.

All three beers were eventually completed and will be consumed by club members beginning in July. The barleywine turned out a little watery, but this years’ Chris “Boom-Boom” Edwards award goes to Carroll. After nearly overflowing his brew pot on three occasions, witnesses confirm the fourth boilover ended with a telltale wort stain on the pavement. Oops!

As we enjoyed draft and bottled beers from B&J’s ample inventory, our tongues loosened up. The following quotes were overheard:

• Sabrina (in a panic) -- “My purse and my beer! My purse and my beer!” 
• Wild Bill Lehfeld – “F*@k your purse! Save your beer!” 
• Tom Freund – “Sabrina – she’s like a bag lady” 
• Paul Kalaghan – “It was the top leg that lifted out” 
• Paul Kalaghan – “You can only hold so much between your legs” 
• Phil – “When I started A&M you had to be a high school graduate, free of venereal disease” 
• Wild Bill – “So how’d you get in?” Phil – “A lot of penicillin” 
• Phil – “I spent some on women, I spent some on whiskey, I spent some on gamblin’ and then I wasted some” 
• Claudio – “Think hoppy thoughts” 
• Doreen Kalaghan – “I don’t think that paddle’s big enough” 
• Wild Bill – “Hey Carroll, I’ve got pen in hand – don’t say anything stupid” 
• Carroll – “I don’t have to put all of it in” 
• Carroll – “After about 30 seconds it seemed perfectly natural” 
• Carroll – “The mouth recovers remarkably fast” 
• Chris Swanson – “Hey Carroll, it’s rising again” 
• Paul Kalaghan – “I know it was devious – she saw it from the get-go” 
• Claudio – “It must be French or something” 

Upcoming B.A.S.H. events:

• 17-May-15: B.A.S.H. meeting (3rd Sunday, John Daniels) 
• 14-Jun-15: B.A.S.H. meeting (Daniel Nutting, English ESB/Pale ale competition, BJCP 8C) 
• 12-July-15: B.A.S.H. meeting (B&J’s Pizza on Staples at Timbergate, hosted by Paul Holder) 
• 9-Aug-15: B.A.S.H. meeting (Daniel Fearn, <4% ABV aka Session Beer competition) 
• 13-Sep-15: B.A.S.H. meeting (Mark Woerner, demonstration brew) 
• 11-Oct-15: B.A.S.H. meeting (Andrew Herzig/Sabrina Krueger, sour ale competition, BJCP 17A - F) 

See you at The Daniels’!