Many thanks to Paul Corkery and his wife Robin for hosting us at their home. The grill was cranking out some great food and the corn was easily the best I have had so far this year. Good thing we had some beer to wash it all down!
We had about 30 folks in attendance when we called the meeting to order at 7:30 (including 3 new members). Before diving in the style discussion, we talked a bit about some ideas we have been working on for an October Big Brew. Clay Spence gave us a little history about the beer we are trying to replicate — a historical porter from the 18th Century. The basic concept is to use a ton of brown malt and create a beer with a very high finishing gravity, but a very low ABV. This creates a beer with a velvety mouth feel that is 2nd to none. Our original plan was to malt all of the grain ourselves using solar power. But after germinating a test batch of 9 lbs of barley, we quickly realized that this is a huge undertaking with wide variety of points of failure. The slightest mistake in the germination phase might result in a 5 gallon batch of vinegar. But, it was the horrid smell of the germinating grain was the final nail in the coffin on that idea. Instead, we may malt some of the specialty grains used in the batch. More details on the Big Brew will come out as we get closer. Meanwhile, you can follow the malting experiment at the Princeton Homebrew Facebook Page. For now, hold October 22 on your calendar.
Ryan Hansen, PALE ALES VP, kicked off the style portion of the meeting with some history of the saison style as we tried some craft brewed varieties, including a skunked Saison Dupont Avril (3.5%), the Saison Dupont (regular), and Fantome. There were at least a dozen homebrewed saisons being passed around too. Al Buck, Chief Yeast Propagator at East Coast Yeast, was on hand to sample beers and provide feedback.
Be sure to check out the Club Calendar for the latest details on upcoming meetings. Thanks for the great photos, Dawn!