Date / Style of November Meeting

The next FABTS meeting will be held at Kybecca on November 14th, 2009.  The style for November is Brown Ales.  Looking forward to it.

October FABTS Meeting

This month's FABTS meeting was held at Kybecca today.  The style of the month was Harvest Ales.  During the meeting we sampled the following beers.

• Jack's Pumpkin Spice Ale (Michelob)
• Otter Creek Oktoberfest Autumn Ale
• Smuttynose Pumpkin
• Buffalo Bill's Pumpkin Ale
• Cottonwood Pumpkin
• Popperinge Hommel (hop harvest!)
• Southern Tier Pumking  - imperial pumpkin
• Weyerbacher Imperial Pumpkin Ale
• Great Divide Fresh Hop Pale Ale
• Clipper City Heavy Seas Mutiny Fleet "The Great Pumpkin" Imperial Pumpkin Ale
• Fordham Close Encounter Harvest Ale
• Fisherman’s Pumpkin Stout
• Arcadia Ales Jaw-Jacker (ale with cinnamon, allspice, nutmeg added)
• Founder's Harvest Ale
• Weyerbacher AutumnFest Ale
• Mendocino Autumn Lager (only noticed as I type that is states "Märzen style")
• Great Divide Hibernation Ale (old ale – not specifically labeled a harvest beer, but hibernation prep is certainly autumnal in nature)
• Lupulus, an amber from Brasserie Les 3 Fourquets (7.5%)

I think the two winners in the group were the  Popperinge Hommel and the Clipper City. 

April FABTS Meeting

April was our 4th installment of Big Beers. I think we finally finished all the Strong beers. We also had a special toast at 2pm to coincide with the CAMRA Cask Ale Week. A reporter and photographer were there from the Free Lance Star to document the World Record attempt. Check out the status of the world record toast here. We toasted with Lyle's Trafalgar Premium Bitter. A great session beer he plans to brew at The Pub.

After the toast we sampled a total of 19 beers. Here's the list and a few tasting notes.

Moa Original Lager (New Zealand’s native Moa is the only beer to be fermented in the bottle, like French champagne. This was a donation from Chad.)
Dogfish Head Fort '06
Dogfish Head Fort '07
N'ice Chouffe Christmas Ale
Weyerbacher Fireside Ale
Troegs Flying Mouflan (This was a donation from Edwin at Virginia Wine Experience)
Unibroue Edition 2005
Bell's Hell Hath No Fury
Lost Abbey The Gift of the Maji Bier de Gaarde
Lyle's homebrew with bret Vinnification
Lyle's Flanders Red
Avery Brabant Barrel-aged Wild Ale
Avery Collaboration Not Litigation '08
Maredsous Dubbel
Dogfis Head Immortal Ale
Sonoran Brewing 100
Jimbo's Saison homebrew
Green Flash Le' Freak
Holy Mackerel Special Golden Ale

We're finally finished with the Strong Beers. Next month's meeting is scheduled for May 9th and the Styles for the month are Maibocks, Trippels and Golden Trippels.

March FABTS Meeting

The March FABTS meeting is this Saturday, March 21st at Kybecca on Plank Road.  We are on our 3rd installment of Big Beers.  The January meeting focused on the Dark Big Beers.  Think Weyerbacher Blithering Idiot or North Coast Russian Imperial Stout.  The February Big Beers meeting had lighter and hoppier big beers; barley wines mostly.  Our 3rd installment will be whatever Big Beers we have left over. The partial list of beers we have so far is below.

2x 12oz Sierra Nevada Torpedo (7.2%)
2x 12oz Starr Hill The Gift (Hellerbock - 6.5%)
2x 12oz Dogfish Head 90 Minute Imperial IPA (9%)
2x 12oz Victory St. Victorious Doppelbock (8.5%)
2x 12oz Dogfish Head 90 Minute Imperial IPA (8.50%)
1x 750ml Brasserie Artisinale de Rulles Biere de Gaume Tripel (8.4%)
1x 750ml Dogfish Head Fort 2006 (17%)
1x 750ml Dogfish Head Fort 2007 (17%)