Rocket City homebrewers from Huntsville, AL

Over 40 clubs were represented at Friday evening’s Homebrew Club Night “festival.” Lots of brews of all kinds were on tap. There were lots of familiar styles ranging from German style pilseners to Imperial Stouts and just about everything you can imagine in between. There were also lots of tantalizing brews that were “out of the box” and certainly worth mentioning here. One of my favorite hangouts during club night was at the Ann Arbor Brewers Guild exhibit, where not only were club members pairing food with their beers, but also integrating food themes into the beer. At first glance the assortment was rather intimidating, by the end of my sampling I was duly impressed. Not only with the brewing finesse of the brewers, but also of the surprising drinkability of every single one of these brews:

• Oregano Pale Ale with White Bean, garlic and onions ale – one of my favorites
• Sage Rye IPA
• Jamaican Jerk Porter – hot, hot hot
• Red Curry with Masa Brown Ale – Masa (corn flour) with Indian curry spices
• Cardamom Vanilla Mead – wow what a combo
• Oaked mead with orange peel
• Chocolate Chile ale
• Lemongrass & Lychee nut wheat beer
• Cranberry Cyser
• Belgian Cherry Dubbel
• Rauchbier
• Belgian Wit with Rose Hip and Poppy Seed

After exercising my palate I headed straight for a German-style pilsener. There I encountered Lyle Brown and his bottle of Iranian Saffron Mead. Wow. It was a blast of aromatic saffron in a honeyed elixir.   Medium-sweet and quite mysterious. A bit of this in a seafood soup or stew would be out of this world.   It was also great for sipping all by itself. At the current price of saffron, I won’t be adding an ounce of the stuff in my mead as Lyle was able to do.

Other memorable brews: Chocolate Raspberry Porter, Chocolate Coffee Stout served with brownies, Tangerine/Orange Lambic – mouth puckering sour, served with vanilla ice cream. Yummy if you like that sort of thing. Too sour for me.

We were in Bourbon country, so there were naturally several bourbon barrel aged stouts, porters and other ales including a Kentucky Common Beer – sour mashed ale aged in bourbon barrel. The latter was a surprising light refreshing ale with delightful subtly.

Throughout the conference 40 clubs donated over 600 5-gallon kegs of homebrew. Rocket City Homebrewers of Huntsville, AL contributed the most beer and won the award for their contributions of 40 5-gallon kegs of homebrew.

The National Homebrew Competition announced the winners from 5,644 entries in 28 beer, cider and mead categories. Homebrewer of the Year was awarded to David Anderson of Northglenn, Colorado while the Homebrew Club of the Year was awarded to the Saint Paul Homebrewers Club of Minnesota.

Photos Copyright 2008 by Charlie Papazian