weekend round-up
Well, after Friday’s brew I had to hot foot it back home, shower, change into a shirt and tie and get back downtown for a beer pairing dinner at The Center Club. We were presenting our Ironman Pale Ale, Harvest Ale and Pagan Porter as pairings with the Chef’s offerings for the evening. Incredibly, this was the first beer pairing dinner that I’ve ever hosted and it was thoroughly enjoyable. The 30 or so guests were very receptive and a genial atmosphere prevailed. The beer was well received and many interesting and thoughtful questions were offered, which I hope that I dealt with satisfactorily. I had the pleasure of talking with a number of the guests for some time after the dinner had concluded!
Saturday saw a 7 am start as I had to be in the brewery to check on fermentations before driving to Westminster for the Maryland Microbrewery Festival @ The Union Mills Homestead. I arrived at the site @ 9.30 and set up the Oliver stand between The Raven and White Marsh Brewing. I have never attended this festival before although our brewery was present last year so I had heard all about the terrible weather and it’s effects upon the site. The site itself is beautiful and the festival very well organized but again the weather conspired against us. A light drizzle developed mid-morning and grew heavier throughout the day so that by the time the festival ended at 7pm, conditions were miserable. I salute the festival goers of Westminster though as, despite the conditions, attendance was fairly strong and many people persevered until the bitter end. Needless to say, my car was stuck in the mud but organizer David pushed me to freedom and I began my perilous journey back to Baltimore. Driving conditions were terrible and I passed many accidents on the way and I exhaled with a mighty sigh as I arrived back at the brewery, thankful that I wasn’t among them. Maybe next year the sun will shine and the festival will be the glorious event that it can surely be.
As you will know if you’ve read my previous posts, I’ve recently made my first ever pumpkin ale. It has been somewhat disheartening though that most of the pumpkin beers I have tried this season have been, well, crappy! It was a great relief therefore to have the pleasure of trying Mike of White Marsh Brewing Co’s pumpkin ale whilst we were at the Union Mills Microbrew. Fest. It has restored my faith in the style somewhat. Mike’s is nicely balanced with a pleasant but not overly aggressive spice character as I hope that mine will also be. Mike used squash rather than pumpkin in his, as many recipes do. Ours is fermenting nicely and will be transferred to conditioning tank later this week, at which point I will sample it. I will post my initial opinions of our effort at that time.
Cheers
Steve
Tags: beer pairing dinner, brew. fest., pumpkin ale