There has been five years of avoiding home Brewers’ Meetings and enjoying nice quite evenings at home with my cozy bathrobe, my feet in fuzzy slippers up on the coffee table and the remote to the TV in my hand. Life was good.
Last week I was lured by the promise of a free dinner out to my first Minnesota Home Brewers meeting. It was the first time in the five years since my husband started brewing I attended a home brewers meeting. The Minnesota/American Home Brewers Meeting was not bad. In fact, it was enjoyable! First, the meeting was held at a very distinguished brewpub in downtown Minneapolis, Rock Bottom. I recommend the club sandwich. It was wonderful and the French fries were great. The Erik the Red beer was equally delicious. The President started the meeting. A tall gentleman with a mustache and goatee. In fact, 50% of the men there had mustaches and goatees. Facial hair must sop-up any beer that dribbles from the side of the mouth. Sorry for digressing.
The meeting was called to order. A toast was made to President Jimmy Carter (he changed the laws to make home brewing legal). Up-coming events were discussed: I seem to remember a membership drive, camping trip and large competition at a brewpub was promoted. All were met with an enthusiastic “Ugh, oh yea!”
At this point, I feel it important to squash any misconceptions you may have of this group and the type of meeting they are having. If you are like me I thought it would be a group of men, with a splash of a couple of old women with big boobs in tight shirts, sitting around sopping up beer and swapping dirty stories and consuming beer as if the end of the world would be when they went home to their wives. This is far from the truth. I was surprised to find a group of gents casually dressed, 50% with mustaches and goatees, and 50% in green shirts (why green I have no explanation other than the moon was full that night). They sat around tables each with a glass of beer swapping beer stories on the best batch they had made (I understand you never forget the first), and the types of sugars and yeasts they were currently using. The guest speaker swears by his 19 year old yeast. I swear I had walked into a male version of Julia Child’s kitchen. The main event of the meeting was a well-known author of the Bible to Brewing many of the brewers use when they start brewing. He was entertaining and I loved hearing about his first batch of beer and how he made it in a 30-gallon garbage pail stirring with his arm. Remember this is the time before the requirements of using Latex gloves. The beer did not turn out well. Something about bad bacteria invading the Promised Land.
The night ended with me going home with a better understanding of beer making, a free cookbook on beer making and a poster calendar of 365 different yeasts to use in brewing. It was a good night.
I must say I am impressed. I am also awed by the hard work and dedication these men and (few) women put into the craft of brewing. They are truly the old world “Crafters” of the trade of brewing beers, ales, ciders and meads. I applaud you all!
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