May 2015 Meeting Minutes

Meeting held at Andrew’s House at 112 Pleasant Meadows in Cooperstown

(14) HOPS Members in attendance with about ten beers sampled

Many orders of business were discussed including:

• The HOPS for Hounds charity fund raiser and home brew competition is to take place on May 31 at Council Rock Brewery.  There are now twelve competition brews.  The winner of the HOPS for Hounds pre-tasting by the HOPS club members will win the coveted championship beer paddle and the winner of the public vote will be honored by having their beer brewed at Council Rock and be part of their beer menu for sale to the public.  
• Chris is contacting Big Chuck to try and get an interview on the radio for more good public relations and ticket sales.  
• Frank will try and make some postcard size flyers than can be left at sales locations as reminder cards for people to take home with them.
• Joe, Kathy, and Andrew volunteered to help at HOPS for Hounds with ticket collection and other activities as needed.
• It was recommended that Brewsmith.com is a good place for creating recipes.
• Food a plenty was eaten including black and blue burgers with cheese interspersed into the hamburger, real Zweigle’s red hots, chili, mashed potato salad, and the delicious Susan’s Strawberry Delight (recipe accompanies these notes with a pretzel crusted dish where one was expecting graham crackers).
• There were many interesting beers samples this meeting including highlighted beers such as:
• Compared Chris and Frank’s Vienna lager with that of Council Rock’s and determined the best was a 50/50 combination of the two beers.
• Initial offerings from Blind Guy Brewing that were nicely done.
• A heavy peanut butter chocolate coffee stout that tasted fine, but had lost its peanut butter flavor over time.
• Wes’s sour/coffee/tea/smoke experiment from contaminated bottles was interesting and a reminder to clean one’s bottles.
• Mike’s Triple Imperial IPA that checked in at an unheard of 200 IBUs.
• The June meeting will be on Friday, June 19 at 6:30 at Chris and Frank’s at 3938 State Highway 23 in Oneonta.  More details are to follow as we get closer to the date.