Our new club is off to a good start. We started with five and now have close to twenty members.
The last meeting there was some really just okay beers. One beer had the classic chlorine flavor. We all pointed it out and the brewer was happy to know just how bad chlorine can be if not used properly.
Of the 12 beers we sampled only three of them were bottle conditioned. The rest of them were sloppily poured into bottles from the draft system.
Virtually all of the beers I tasted exhibited oxidized hop character. I think many of the brewers have been dry hopping at too high of rates with less than stellar hops. I love a good dry hopped character but we as homebrewers are not getting the top pick when it comes to freshness that the larger pro breweries can get.
It seems the curse of most homebrewers in the club is to overhop everything. I like hops but there is quality and there is quantity. For instance most belgian style brews I tried were overhopped and with overly oily high alphas. I've tried to explain to some club members that many belgian brews actually use old sundried hops for lack of hop flavor but more preservative action as well as keeping the yeast profile dominate.
Oh well we all screw up. I'm just hoping that the next meeting my beer will be taken seriously.
The last meeting there was some really just okay beers. One beer had the classic chlorine flavor. We all pointed it out and the brewer was happy to know just how bad chlorine can be if not used properly.
Of the 12 beers we sampled only three of them were bottle conditioned. The rest of them were sloppily poured into bottles from the draft system.
Virtually all of the beers I tasted exhibited oxidized hop character. I think many of the brewers have been dry hopping at too high of rates with less than stellar hops. I love a good dry hopped character but we as homebrewers are not getting the top pick when it comes to freshness that the larger pro breweries can get.
It seems the curse of most homebrewers in the club is to overhop everything. I like hops but there is quality and there is quantity. For instance most belgian style brews I tried were overhopped and with overly oily high alphas. I've tried to explain to some club members that many belgian brews actually use old sundried hops for lack of hop flavor but more preservative action as well as keeping the yeast profile dominate.
Oh well we all screw up. I'm just hoping that the next meeting my beer will be taken seriously.
