Brewclub and Octoberfest update

On the second Friday of the month Jack Of All Brews has its monthly meeting, and this month I hosted in my basement bar.  We had a great mix of some of our old-school members and new arrivals to mix things up a little.  The weather was wonderful and we were able to spread out onto my patio and light a fire in the firepit.  My firewood has been sitting around waiting for a fire for so long it went up like a torch! 

We had a huge list of homebrewed beer and mead to try, including some of the winning brews from the Byggvir and State Fair competitions.  It was incredibly hard to pick a winner and the two runner's-up were a Galaxy IPA and a Stone Ruination Clone both by Aaron.  The winner of the monthly Golden Mash Paddle was Andrew G. for a Framboise that was as good as any commercial examples I've ever had. 

Next month is Octoberfests and Fest celebration at Tim's place, since I'll be in Belgium! 

I have still been working my way through Octoberfests for the month:

1) Great Lakes Octoberfest: 
Not bad, but more one-dimentional than I expected from them.  They do an amazing Dortmunder Export, and I thought this could use more malt complexity than I found.  Still a nice beer.  3.5 of 5.

2) Schell's Octoberfest:
Served from tap into a leather mug at the MN Renaissance Festival.  Subtle taste of...leather!  Quite refreshing on a dusty 85 degree day at the fest.  I do have a bottle of this that I can try untainted later, but for now I'll count this as a 3.5 of 5.  Oh and yellow jacket wasps really love Schell's as well!