North Seattle Homebrew Club meeting

I attended my second North Seattle Homebrew Club meeting the other night. Good bunch of people. These meetings are great fun. Next month there probably won't be a meeting, due to Beerstock 5060 being held at Mark and Alison's place.

Andy, who was hosting, had some healthy-looking hops in their second year. He's growing them zig-zag fashion in order to maximize his vertical space at the back of the house. Looks like a workable idea. Might make sense to do that against the fence where I'm growing mine now.

I brought the light ale. I didn't catch much feedback, though Paul said he liked it a lot. It was kind of a raucous point in the meeting so I'm not sure whether it didn't get much attention or whether people were politely withholding comment. I do recall some discussion of the interesting color.

Kevin from The Cellar had a ginger molasses porter that I really liked. Some people thought it needed more body (that would make it more similar to other porters, in my experience), and more alcohol in order to better carry the spice notes, but I'm pretty sure I'd prefer it the way it was. I don't usually like a porter as a warm weather beer but this one would do. It was like an adult root beer or ginger beer.

There were a couple of strawberry wheats. One used a flavor extract and the other used fresh and frozen berries. The tartness of the real berries came through, which I enjoyed, but there was also a flavor that I associate with frozen berries and don't like much. It would be fun to make one of these, though.