Wort City Brewers - August Meeting

A grim and rainy weekend led into a rainy Monday which was finally brightened by some delicious homebrew sampling at the monthly meet up of the Wort City Brewers. This is my local homebrew club in Wilmington, NC and although I only joined a few months ago I cannot for the life of me figure out why I did not join sooner. Every meeting is like a mini-beer festival of which you not only get to try others beer, but you get to have lots of reviews of your own beer if you so choose to bring any. It is a downright paradise for homebrewers and beer nerds alike!

This was the first time the club had a meeting at local restaurant – Hops Supply Company – and although there were fewer attendees than usual, the homebrew samples and beer discussion were top notch as always. Before diving into some of the inspiring… and not so inspiring samples let me share a couple of interesting things from the meeting.

If ya don’t know…

Fly sparging may produce higher efficiency than batch sparging, but usually no more than 5% - and sometimes depending on your setup it could be worse!

These keg clings are awesome – especially if you bring your kegs to events and like to showoff.

Once a barrel goes sour, it is completely impossible to reverse this and all attempts will be futile.

Now ya know!

Tasting Highlights

Summer Saison – a higher alcohol saison at about 7% but this was due to the beer FG being 1.002. Despite the dryer finish it was brewed with some fresh orange peel that really rounded out the fruity, easy drinking profile.

Raspberry Wit – A fairly standard witbier but in the secondary there were 3 pounds of raspberry puree that gave this beer the refreshing fruit taste and aroma without being a liquid version of the fruit itself.

Spencer Trappist Clone – this beer was brewed exactly as the Brew Your Own magazine recipe suggested and being a big fan of Belgian style beers I am biased, but this was an excellent Trappist style beer that seemed only to be lacking a little malt complexity and some aging (Spencer is the first and only American Trappist Brewery).

IPA – Only one IPA was served but it was loaded with pine and resin flavors that really made it fun to drink.

Russian Imperial Stout – brought by the club president – this 2.5 year old RIS won best in the stout category at our local Front Street Brewery competition. Very boozy but it easy to see why this beer won an award with its full complement  of roasty, sweet, and coffee flavors.

European Ale – Not sure this is really a style and with a very light and fairly astringent flavor this recipe could use some improvement.

If you have a local Brewing Club, I highly recommend checking it out!

--Ben