President..........Jon Northrup danorthrupseh@earthlink.net
Vice President......Jim McMillan brewyourself@earthlink.net
Secretary.....................John Kroll fj1100john@aol.com
Treasurer................Franz Albright albrighter@juno.com
Webmaster/Editor.......Mike Bardallis dbgrowler@provide.net
| 10 November | DBG November meeting, Southgate Civic Center |
| 1 December | DBG December meeting, Southgate Civic Center NOTE this is the first Friday! |
| 8 December | Eccentric Day at Kalamazoo Brewing Company. Be there if you dare. 1999 pix |
| DBG
Officers
As you can see from the masthead above, the officer assignments have been assigned, with the job of President going to the one with the weakest bladder, to wit, the first guy to leave the room whilst assignments were being debated. New President Jon Northrup was unable to attend the first meeting of his term, but delivered his inaugural address, just the same, as shown in the accompanying photos. |
|
Dan and Linda Riling were kind enough to host the October meeting at
their new home in Trenton, and a pretty fair number of folks made
it over. We managed to conduct most of the routine tasting activities,
as Puba Jon successfully marshalled a Big Board O' Beer and kept it moving
along. Dan demonstrated his brewing rig and managed to stay calm and collected
despite all the people in his way, some of whom could not keep from knocking
his sink loose from its moorings repeatedly. There were some good snacks
on hand, including Nick's increasingly famous salsa, and an excellent chili
con queso. The GROWLER staff and several others especially enjoyed raiding
Dan's beer fridge, which yielded a bottle of Dan's excellent rauchbier
and a couple Skullsplitters. Smoke seemed to be the theme for the 10 o'clock
club, as John Kroll shared a bottle of 1999 Alaskan Smoked Porter he'd
brought back from his recent vacation. The GROWLER staff fully intended
to take a few photos, but journalistic ambitions disappeared on or about
the last step down into Dan's basement...
Heritage Days, though being perhaps a bit low-key compared to years past, was still a fine opportunity for the DBG to show that homebrewers are not just a bunch of drunken bozos out for a cheap buzz. Plus we have apparently snared New Guy Jim, who subsequently made it over to Dan's for the next meeting. As usual, the Oracle worked a large part of the weekend as front man, talking nonstop beer to everyone who happened by. Thanks to everyone who worked through the weekend to make our display a success, and especially those who received the drenching of a lifetime breaking down on Sunday. And also a big thank you to Deb and Alex for having the crew over afterwards on Sunday night for beer and food.
The GROWLER staff recently had the opportunity
to sample one of the demo beers from the first day, which was stewarded
to completion by the Puba hisself, and found it to be a fairly hoppy beer,
with a pleasant caramel character from the extended boil. We await sampling
the "dump and stir" with knees aquiver....
|
Like last year, yet another lady mistook an immersion chiller for a still condenser coil. "…That's all that's in beer, you're drinking grain and bacteria." "What' er ya makin? Beer? It's moonshine! (Mike; No. It's beer.) (She walks away saying "They're making moonshine.") Mother to daughter: "That's beer."
-collected by da Puba |
 |
As we believe has been finally and conclusively established, Eccentric
Day will be Friday, December 8th at the Kalamazoo
Brewing Company. (Their website has been fixed, too.) At least several
members of the DBG will be making the pilgrimage to the annual affair,
which features eccentric behavior, eccentric garb, eccentric food, and
of course Eccentric
Ale. Beer
is pay-as-you-go, and the broad array of snacks is complementary. In fact,
your editor may once again fix up a batch of pickled cackleberries to bring.
As usual, there are seats available in the
editor's van for those who would like a ride; the bus leaves Allen Park
around 08:00 Friday morning and returns by around 15:00 the next day. We
advise booking a room at the Radisson,
[(616) 343-3333], a short walk from the brewery; rooms are around $100.
Looking for a roommate? Try the DBG maillist and
see if anyone is interested. Join your fellow brewers, beer nerds, and
assorted revellers for beverage evaluation, related commentary, unrelated
commentary, and random frippery. Be sure and reserve a quadrant of your
liver today...
| The
Parting Glass |
 |
 |
| Starting over, almost... |
We have set up a subscription-only automated email list for DBG members only, that works thus: any message sent to the posting address is re-sent to everyone who is subscribed. These lists are great for planning things like barbecues, parties, and the like; in fact, the same listserver was the key means of communication for planning the AHA conference in Livonia last June. Your faithful webmaster has initially subscribed everyone he had a current email address for, but doubtless a few have been missed. To sign yourself up, send a message with the word "subscribe" (no quotes) in the message body to dbg-request@hbd.org and you are on your way. You will promptly receive an acknowledgement email message with further instructions. Homebrewers of Tomorrow, eh?
After much rasslin' with balky files, printers, and a few burnt fingertips, Franz reports that the exceedingly cool DBG T-shirts will be available at the next meeting.
In other news, our long-lost foreign correspondent Mr. Dennis G. "Skip" Elmer, lately of Tanzania, is slated to return for a visit, arriving on or about 2 December. Too late for the December DBG meeting, but well in advance of Eccentric Day....
Thanks to our Grand Puba for providing the quotes from Heritage days.
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