Saturday, May 7th at Three Wise Monkey’s Tap Room
Attendees: Richard Swindells, Tony Tilbury, Nik Leng, Nigel Saddler, Simon Baker, John Waston, Dom Anthony, Justin Dean, Steve Bennett, Steve Plampton, Colin Miller, Jon Rollinson, Kevin Warnes, Alan Osbiston.
Agenda
12:00 Arrive
12:30 Golden Ale Challenge
13:30 Food
14:30 Club update (Brewery visit and festivals)
14:45 Automatic wort chiller (and possible further discussions on automation in the brewhouse)
15:00 AOB
A few arrived early and didn’t hang around waiting for the others to trickle in, tucking into the tap room bar offerings. Once the meeting began at 12pm, a general run down of the agenda was covered, then the Golden Ale challenge began.
General feedback was good for the beers put up for judging using the “Ray method”, which really simplifies the judging process.
John Watson, Nik Leng, Tony Tilbury and Richard Swindells put beers in for the Golden ale Challenge. The general consensus was that there was a clear winner agreed. The beers entered were all of good quality, with John Watson’s beer being the clear winner of the challenge with a delightful, Harlequin hop inspired Golden Ale, which was very much to style and tasty to boot.
Good feedback was given on the other beers.
After the Golden Ale challenge, food was taken with a delightful range of cooked options available, the beef cheek and pork belly options proved popular.
After dinner, a short overview of upcoming events was held with points discussed about the upcoming competition and to finalise entries and pay, if monies were still outstanding. The Shed festival was discussed and we touched on the range of beers and requested help if anyone had the time spare and wanted to attend.
Next up, Richard Swindells gave a short presentation on an automated wort chiller prototype he’s created with an overview and operation. He covered the parts, making it, and the general idea. The general idea was well received, with other wort chilling techniques suggested. Dom A. suggested an obvious and very simple technique: locating a tap to choke the output from a plate chiller, as a simple and highly affective solution.
The AOB beers saw a wide range of beers on offer, opened for feedback. One highlight was a Black IPA brought along and mislabelled, with the bottle labels read, the bottles opened expecting a hazy pale ale coming out black. Much to the raucous remarks given and no quarters given. Luckily the beer went down well with good feedback.
In general the venue was a good choice, other than the noise of the music playing too loudly.
After the AOBs were taken, a large group decamped to The Queen Street Brewhouse. And the rest is hazy history.
