Jack Of All Brews February 2015 Meeting: "Where you can find IPA's that don't suck!"

For the February Jack Of All Brews Homebrew Club meeting we met up at my place in Waconia.  We had a pretty good showing with between 20-25 members (I was too lazy to actually count.)

BrewCred since last meeting:
Upper Mississippi Mash Out--Brett Lincoln 1st place Barleywines, Eric Wentling (me!) 1st in Spice/Herb/Veg and 3rd in Barleywines.

Dues &Shirts:  We still have many XL and XXL hoodies for sale and Sj wants them out of our house!  Contact Steven to buy one.  If you haven't renewed dues yet this year also talk to Steven--Jim brought our new member cards this month as well so you grab those if needed.

March Meeting topic will be brew sculptures, and the style of the month will be Irish Reds.

Upcoming Competitions:

1) March Mashness in St. /Cloud taking entries now through March 1.

2) 1st Round Nationals: Entries already done but judging is April 10-11 if you are interested in helping out.

Survey:  I released a survey on the Facebook Group in which we hope to gather some intel on what the make-up and desires of our club is like these days.  Please fill it out!

After official business, we broke open a few of the little brown vials of the off-flavor kit to taste some terrible flavors!  We poured each vial into a pitcher filled with Grain Belt (because I couldn't get myself to buy Bud Lite) for what JAB members lovingly called "roofie night".  We tasted through Metallic, Diacetyl, and Bitter--making Grain Belt even worse.  This also led to the great quote of the night: "Make the pennies go away!"

Washing the taste of dirty pennies and buttered popcorn from our palates, we moved on to our Mash Paddle style of the month: IPA!  We had 5 versions that evening with the Mash Paddle going to Mike Lebben for his extract Warrior IPA.  Second place went to Keith Brady for his Living in AmeRakau.  Every one of these beers was stellar and I would have been happy to find them on tap anywhere.  This sentiment prompted Tim Roets to ask the rhetorical question: "Where do you get IPA's that don't suck?  Homebrew club!"

Mike Lebben wins the Golden Mash Paddle!  With intense photobombing by Tim!