Big Brew Day 2012

As with every year the first Saturday of May is Big Brew Day, this year it was May 5th.  My homebrew club participated as usual this year.  This year we were hosted by Blue Cat Brewery http://www.bluecatbrewpub.com/ and the owner/brewer Dan Cleveland.  We were able to utilize the grassy area behind the brewpub for our brewing.  Dan went above and beyond and found out the necessary rules from the city of Rock Island so we could brew in peace.  After we fenced off both ends of the green space we were within the city's rules. Thankfully the day was a warm and sunny day.

MUGZ http://www.mugzhomebrew.org/ had at least eight different brews going during the day.  We had anything from light summer beers to hoppy IPAs.  One particular beer was brewed by several women of the group.  They annually enter their beer into the women's only events around the United States.  All in all everyone had an enjoyable day.

Inside Blue Cat, Dan had a couple of special seasonal beers on tap,  The first I tasted was the Maibock, it was a bit more caramelly than I would expect for this style, but it did have the desirable hint of pilsner malt and was rather high in alcohol as well.  Also I noticed it was a bit dark for the style, but I did enjoy the beer overall.  The second seasonal was Red Toad ESB.  It was a really nice English style ESB.  It had a noticeable hop presence with a really nice caramel presence.  This is a beer that can be a good session beer.  I thank Dan for having these good seasonal beers on tap during Big Brew Day.

As I said it was a very enjoyable day and before I had to leave for prom duties with our daughter I had a lot of fun.  If you are looking for a homebrew group to join in the Quad Cities MUGZ welcomes all brewers.   We welcome all levels of brewers from the beginners to the hard core all grain brewers.

QC Beerguy