Homebrewing - Fort Wayne - May 4

If you are new to homebrewing or contemplating about starting to homebrew, there are two homebrewing stores in Fort Wayne:

Brewers Art Supply (www.brewingart.com) and Hops & Harvest (www.hopsandharvest.com). Both stores offer brewing classes for the novice homebrewer and for the serious homebrewer. Check out the websites for their location and more information.

MASH (Mad Anthony Serious Homebrewers) (www.mashfortwayne.com) is a local homebrewing club for homebrewers to join. They have monthly meetings as well as events and entering homebrew competitions in and out of Indiana. Check out their website for more information.

Fort Wayne Events, News and Recent Tastings

There are numerous beer tastings being held around town on the following dates:

Dec. 4, 10, 11, 12, and 18 (see Calendar for location and time).  These tastings are all free so bring along a family member, friend, neighbor, co-worker and introduce him/her to the craft beer scene.

Reminder, Granite City Food & Brewery will have a Mug Club party on Monday, December 7th, tapping Batch 1000.
News:  Brian Spaulding of the Fort Wayne MASH Homebrew Club has informed me that Stefan Kelley is no longer the contact person for the club.  The new information is as follows:

   info@mashfortwayne.com and http://www.mashfortwayne.com/

Trion Tavern (New Haven) now has Unibroue Maudite and Delirium Noel on draft and 800 Degrees (Fort Wayne) has Dogfish Head Indian Brown and Boulevard Wheat on draft.

Tastings:  Mad Anthony's has a couple of new brews that I recently sampled: The Mad Anthony Hop X which is a very hoppy tasting beer with a smooth texture, citrus, pine hops aroma and flavor.  This is definitely a beer for those that enjoy hoppy tasting beers.  The other new beer at Mad Anthony's is Mad Anthony Smoked Amber.  Given the name of this beer, I automatically thought this beer would have a very smoky aroma and flavor, but hence it did not. I found this beer to only have a hint of smoke in the aroma and flavor which was much to my liking.  It is a very crisp, clean beer and very easy to drink.  I would consider this to be a good session beer.

MASH Meeting & The Trion

I attended my first MASH (Mad Anthony Serious Homebrewers) (http://www.mashfortwayne.com/) meeting, even though I am not a homebrewer, at The Trion in New Haven, IN this past weekend.  I enjoy trying homebrewed beers and I was invited by Brian Spaulding of MASH and I figured I would take him up on his invitation and that this would be a good way to try some homebrews from members of MASH.  I was first of all very impressed with the warm welcome I received from all the members in attendance and secondly was very impressed with the various styles of hombrews that I sampled.  The styles that were passed around the table for sampling were: Vienna Lager, Octoberfest, Irish Red, bottle conditioned Imperial Irish Red, American Brown, Oatmeal Stout, American Amber, Amarillo Pale Ale, Rye IPA, Blueberry Brown Ale, English Barleywine, 3 blended Mead which was brewed 2 1/2-3 years ago, and a Braggot.  Everyone explained what brewing process was used, the ingredients used to brew their beer and then members gave their opinion of each beer.  After sampling each and everyone one of those beers, I quickly decided that I will be attending more of these meetings.  The meetings take place on the second Sunday of the month at 3p.m. at either Mad Anthony Brewing Company or at The Trion.

Speaking of The Trion, they have 45 taps.  That's right 45 taps of some mighty fine beers.  They have beers from breweries such as Founders, Bells, Lindeman's, Southern Tier, 3 Floyds, New Belgium, Mad Anthony, Dogfish Head, Ommegang, Victory, Stone, and New Holland just to name "a few".  Well worth a visit for a good brew or two and good food as well.

Mad Anthony Octobeerfest Festival Recap

It was a beautiful sunny day for this year's festival in which attendance was bigger than last year which was great to witness.  There was food, music, the annual scene of marshmellows being tossed, and beers being poured by Mad Anthony, Rock Bottom, Lafayette Brewing, Broad Ripple, Upland, Barley Island, Shoreline, Belmont/World Class Beverage, and 32 different beers and 6 different meads poured by Homebrewers Brian Spaulding and Kyle Alberda of MASH (Mad Anthony's Serious Homebrewers).  The MASH table had consistently long lines throughout the festival of attendees, including yours truly, waiting to sample the many homebrews that were made available and it was definitely worth standing in line for.