Oh, What A Night!

Tonight, we celebrated our first year anniversary at as a homebrew club by hosting Bill Kroft of Marzoni's Brick Oven & Brewing and his good friend and homebrewer Mark Dellinger. We met at 7pm at the Coney for our monthly meeting, with 11 regular club members in attendance.

We started with introductions and a brief history of Marzoni's (and Bill's brewing history). Next, we sampled some homebrews from three of our members: Ray S. brought a Honey Porter, an extract recipe that had a pound of honey in five gallons; Pat S. brought a 'normal' IPA, then followed with an apricot extract infused IPA - both all-grain recipes; and Eli brought a year-old, very dry cider. All four contributions were delicious.

After those, we cracked open two of Mark's homebrews, which included a heavily hopped smoked porter (awesome Rauchbier) and the one that Nate has been waiting for ... a saison with tons of Brett! Both were very tasty, but the 2005 "bretted" saison was absolutely outstanding!

Last, but not least, we cracked open the four different beers that Bill brought along: the Belgian Witbier and Oktorberfest (seasonals) and the two year-round offerings, Stone Mason Stout and Avalanche IPA.

Finally, as a rare and special treat, Bill brought along a bomber full of his very special and not-available-to-the-public Eis-Barleywine. In short, he took 10 gallons of the five-year anniversary barleywine (around 11% abv), froze it, and extracted 4 gallons of liquid from that. The result was an intense and very HOT alcoholic barleywine concentrate that was phenomenal tonight ... and what will turn into what I can only imagine as Heavenly in a few years. Kudos, Bill!

In all, quite a successful meeting!

October Meeting - Our First Anniversary & Special Guest

Join us this Tuesday, October 14 at 7 pm (note the time change) at the Coney for our 1st Anniversary homebrew club meeting. As a special treat, we'll have Bill Kroft, the brewer at Marzoni's Brick Oven & Brewing, join us with some growlers of his terrific beers.

As usual, feel free to bring some homebrew to share.

See you Tuesday!