Meeting held at 8 Ravine Parkway in Oneonta with (10) HOPS Members in attendance.
Many orders of business were discussed including:
Many orders of business were discussed including:
- On December 9, Aaron MacLeod, the Director of the Center for Craft Food and Beverage Center, hosted the HOPS club at his Hartwick lab including analysis of 10 beers for actual ABV and IBUs as well as for any spoilers (such as Brettanomyces, etc.). He also gave a very informative presentation. For more information about their analyzing services, educational and professional seminars, please visit their website at www.hartwick.edu/craftfoodandbeverage or e-mail Aaron at [email protected]
- This meeting featured the Very Beery Christmas exchange that was once again a success with many beer related gifts changing hands during the meeting. Also, thanks to Susan and Teresa, there was lots of great food including pizza sliders, sausage balls, Christmas crack, Chex mix with bacon salt, and Boston Crème filler cupcakes.
- There were many, many interesting beers sampled at this meeting including:
- Jesse’s Ultra-Light Ale was a nice start
- Jim’s Honey Wheat that was made at the Sweet Meadows brew day
- A pre-release beer from Butternuts called Anthrax, a fine example of the increased quality of the Butternuts offerings.
- Psyc-HOP-athy from a Mad Tree brewery in Cincinnati was also offered up for high IBU tasting.
- Steve’s Irish stout from a kit at Sweet Meadows brew day came out fine
- Brian shared the new Game of Thrones Triple from Ommegang and we compared it to a Triple Perfection from a couple years ago. Though both were good, the aging made the Triple Perfection the preferred beer.
- Wes shared a 6 year old cave aged Liefman’s Goudenband that was awesome.
- Frank and Chris’ Rhubarb Lambic that was sour, and, along with the Cherry Lambic, both are getting better and better with some age.
- A bottle of Transmitter Golden Ale G4 was shared.
- The Horeheads Winter Solstice via Chris as he brought back a growler of this Barley Wine/Pumpkin Ale mix that was a fine dessert.
- Members are encouraged to make a cereal beer, that is a beer made with commercially available cereal from the grocery store, for presentation at the February meeting.
- Also note that someone forgot their reading glasses in a brown case as these were found on the table after the meeting had adjourned.
- The next meeting is scheduled for Friday, January 20, at 6:30 at the American Legion in Oneonta. We will plan on discussing possible upcoming events for 2017 (beer festivals, fund raisers, beer education, etc.)
