Prost0103




				*Jan-Feb 2003* *Volume 26* *Number 1*

		*The San Andreas Malts' Newsletter* *Our 26th Year*
	INSIDE &OUT:		FEBRUARY MEETING ALERT! WHERE & WHEN: Saturday, 2/22, 11:30 AM- Half Moon Bay Brewing Co, 390 Capistrano Road, Princeton-by-the-Sea. 650/728-2739 WHAT: Malt & HMBBC Brewer Alec Moss will give us a tour after lunch - after that, we sit around & do our thing. BRING: $$/credit card, yourself & guests - give us a clue by 2/19 so we can give Alec an approximate "body count." Outdoor patio space is our target seating, if the weather behaves.
a melange for your reading pleasure, including... BHJ - Happy Brew Year! FEBRUARY MEETING EL PRESIDENTE ?? PALE ALE BOUT RESULTS STOUT BOUT ALERT!!
STOUT BOUT ALERT!! WHERE: The usual place - Pat Laughran's house, 409 Mangels, SF, 415/333-7395 for directions if you need them. WHEN: Wednesday, March 13, 7:30 PM WHAT: Match your "homey" against other "homeys" & some commercial selections of varying styles and renown. Celebrate the anniversary of the infamous Swill Bucket!! BRING: A tasting glass, a full stomach, any "homeys" you're willing to subject to public insult, & a thick skin! BTW - Chris told me to tell you to bring a few bucks for Girl Scout cookies to benefit Katie's troop!!
			*DIREXIONS (THANX, ALEC!):* From SF and the north: On Rt 1, after going through Pacifica, turn right at the first traffic signal you come to. So, go over Devil's Slide, through Montara & Moss Beach, & at the traffic light, which is at the Pillar Point Harbor, turn right, go about 200 yards & we're on the right side. If you come to a traffic signal at which you can only turn left, you've gone too far. If coming over 92: Turn north on Rt 1 & turn left at the 2nd traffic signal,about four miles north of 92. They added a new signal last summer, but you can't turn left there, only right. If you go past a small airport on the left side of the highway, you've gone too far. There is a big sign at the NW corner of the intersection for Mezza Luna Restaurant and Half Moon Bay Brewing Co.
DUES TIME - SAME FOR INFO UPDATES!! When you send in your dues check, please give us any address, phone, and or e-mail address changes so we can update the members' list that will come in the May-June issue. Also, please e-mail them to your Editor. Dues remain $15, thanks to a fat entry list at Stern Grove last year & judicious management - *MJK*



2 JAN/FEB PROST 2003

		B^REWER'S Comments & Opinions Home Journal
	SAN ANDREAS MALTS P O Box 884661 San Francisco, CA 94188-4661 http://www.sanandreasmalts.org President - Dave Suurballe 415/759-6768 (h) suurb@sbcglobal.net Vice President - Jack Dawson 415/841-1433 (h) jsdawson@pacbell.net (h) Treasurer - Joe Byrnes 415/681-5901 (h) joe@byrnes.com (h) Editor - Mark Kornmann 510/528-5351 (h) 510/466-3495 (w) beerman49@msn.com (anywhere) Webmeister - Jay Stanley beansboy@yahoo.com Contributing Emeritus Officers Pat Loughran Alec Moss Bill Stender Russ Wigglesworth Tim McNerney Honorary Lifetime Malt - Steve Norris *** * * * * * * It's easy to become a San Andreas Malt. Dues are $15/year, renewable in January. Mail them to our PO Box or pay at any meeting/club event.** The Malts publish the Prost* semi-monthly. Our copy deadline generally is the 25th of the even-numbered months. You may reprint our articles as long as you cite the *Prost* as the source. *Editor's note:* Send me material on the net/on 3.5" disk (< 1.44 Mb) in Word (< 7.5), WordPerfect (< 6.5) or ASCII (text only) files. If you send Word/WordPerfect files, send an ASCII backup just in case. Mail discs to: Mark Kornmann 1621 Mariposa Street Richmond, CA 94804-5017 * prost \pröst\ interjection, [German fr. Latin], used to wish good health, especially before drinking.	B^REWER'S Comments & Opinions Home Journal

		HAPPY BREW YEAR!!! May Dubya not completely lose his senses with his gunboat diplomacy - tho with the creation of this "Homeland Security" department, he's well on the way. I'm a 25-year Government employee - a lot of your tax dollars are being pissed away for paranoiac reasons. As a frequent flyer, however, I'm glad to see the new screeners - much better trained than their predecessors. However - some of the restrictions on what you can take in a carry-on bag are absurd - it goes well beyond what happened in the mid-70's when hijackings were the rage & the new bit about boarding passes being required to get to the boarding gates totally sucks if you only have carry-ons! KUDOS to you who made it to Tim's (& to him for hosting!) for the Xmas party - the weather that day was ridiculous. I know Karl (& Rose) & Nik decided that discretion was the better part of valor, even tho it meant missing one for the first time since I've been a Malt (20 years +) - they live in Sonoma County, which seems to get the worst of the deluges that befall the Bay Area. We had another first - NO GOOSE! Projected attendance dictated such, so we just had ham, side dishes, desserts, plus some tastes of Tim's private stash of aged brews, all of which were very good. Further KUDOS to the Malts (KJ, Pat, & Jack) who won ribbons at the State Comp (we did OK considering how few entries we had). Holiday brew scene was as bad as last year - thank heavens for SN Celebration! Nothing else I tasted, tho there were some decent quaffs, came close. The best non-holiday specialty I tasted in Nov-Dec was a double IPA at Pyramid - 8.8% ABV, hopped to the max, with an excellent malt base. What made it so good was the delayed alcohol reaction ... took the 2nd sip to get the back door bang! In that same vein, Marin Brewing has released White Knuckle ($3.99/22-oz @ BevMo), which is equally excellent. McMennamin's Kris Kringle, which I had a few pints of the weekend after New Year's, was satisfying, if not spectacular - lightly spiced dark holiday ale similar to Pyramid Snow Cap. I hit 2 of their sites, one in Forest Grove (great downstairs bar called the Doctor's Office - the site is a former Masonic old folks' home), the other in Edgefield, which I had visited 2 years ago. After a lunch of some excellent buffalo meat & black bean chili with a cornbread muffin (laced with honey - when I cut it in half, honey strands ap-peared when I pulled it apart) on the side, plus a couple of good IPA's. I had some excellent Pinot Noir in the winery tasting room while waiting for a long time amigo to show up (he found me in one of the many bars, where I was enjoying another IPA). The recommendation I made 2 years ago for this site still stands - I just want to be there sometime when it isn't raining like hell ... maybe this summer. Gotta play the pitch & putt course to test my short game before Eric & I head for Myrtle Beach in October. I found the Pale Ale Bout results - see them somewhere on page 3. Peace & Good Brewing - MJK



	3 JAN/FEB PROST 2003


	EL PRESIDENTE ?? *Dave - you've been incommunicado since Stern Grove, except for your appearance at the Xmas Party, so your editor's putting his creative writing skills to the test with this "diary" ...* 10/26/02: Holy shit! As many or more entries as we had last year & there's going to be hell to pay again getting the prelims done! Hope the Mashers will come thru again & that I can get enough Malts & other locals like Kelly Dunham to help out. With this job I have now, I've got a lot of long days ahead! 11/16/02: Thank heavens the last of the prelims are done - had to host 2 panels at my house, but Jack, Alec, Tim, Kornmann, & Kelly gladly obliged & we had a good time, even tho 25% of the brews sucked & another 50% were barely passable- whatever possesses these folks to enter some of this crap? But we can't complain - the entry fees cover the ever-increasing costs that SF Park & Rec keeps imposing on us, especially for security! Now my only worries are having enough judges and donated beer show up - and hoping for reasonably decent weather. 11/23/02: Contest went well; big shortage of donated brew this year - for whatever reason Sierra Nevada flaked out - so the attendees had to drink up all the leftover entries - which actually was good - less stuff to dump & we got out early. QUAFF got all the big awards - again - that was the only down side for the Malts. Time to retire to a local pub & quaff some known good brews. 12/14/02: Brought a mince pie to the Xmas Party, but couldn't stay around long enuf to get reviews from the folks - had to move on to another party ,,, 12/28/02: Xmas over - do I do a column, or do I plan my New Years' partying? Easy decision - PARTY!! 1/7/02: Prostman calls & asks for a column; I delete the message & think about it. 1/9/02: Prostman e-mails me about my column - can't he leave it alone?? I've been working for some lawyers for the past few months as an expert witness & have to devote my creativity to my job! My dear Nori's been too busy/too PO'd to cover for me! Naah! - Prostman knows me too well - lately I've spent too much time at watering holes in the evenings & too much time doing other stuff on the weekends to get around to doing my column duty ... thank heavens I know that Prostman will cover my lazy derriere & fill up the space - that's what he's there for! 1/17/02: Planning Meeting - those who were there last night saw this & ragged my ass all night ... now I'd better write my own piece to set the record straight & get something INTERESTING in this bloody newsletter!
					PALE ALE BOUT RESULTS - FINALLY! On September 9, a few of us gathered at Pat's to evaluate 9 pale ales - 5 "homeys" against one from across the Pond & 3 from Oregon ... again, the "homeys did quite well: 1. VP Jack Dawson's American Pale - 14.38 2. El Presidente's Light(er) Pale - 13.94 3. Deschutes Mirror Pond Pale Ale - 13.13 4. Deschutes Quail IPA - 12.88 5. Pat's American Pale - 12.31 6. Ernie Tolentino's IPA - 12.19 7/8. Pat's British Pale/Bridgeport IPA - 12.00 9. Fuller's Lummer - 11.86 We also played a guessing game as to which brews were commercial & which were "homeys" - the panelists scored 100% on Pat's British, Deschutes Quail (1 abstention), Ernie's IPA, & Fuller's Lummer; 0/6 on Bridgeport IPA; 1/5 on Dave's; 3/7 on Pat's American; 3/4 on Mirror Pond; & 6/7 on Jack's. Not bad!! Funniest comment of the night was El Presidente's about the Deschutes Quail - he said he detected soy sauce in the aroma. Was someone on the bottling line eating Chinese that day?? Thanx again to Pat for being the Bout Host ... let's see more of you there in 7-8 weeks for the Stout Bout!! QUICKIE BOOK REVIEW *Under the Influence, the Unauthorized Story of the Anheuser-Busch Dynasty - Peter Hernon & Terry Ganey* If you're into scandal - have I got a book for you!! This book, published in 1991, chronicles the A-B dynasty from its far from humble roots in Germany through 1990, describing the good, the bad, & even a few ugly sides here and there. You want family feuds, you got 'em! Peccadilloes of both sexes - many! Shady & dirty business deals - of course! Even some philanthropy - with the occasional cynical commentary about it added. The authors conducted hundreds of interviews - the copious notes about them take up 40 pages at the end of the book, which is a healthy 410 pages by itself. In the middle are some excellent historical photographs of the family & their extensive real estate holdings, both in the St. Louis area & in Europe. This book is a fairly easy read, but if you do like I did & read it over the course of 2-3 weeks, you may have a problem remembering who's related to whom once you get into the 3rd generation. If any of you want a first-hand look at the megabrewers to end all megabrewers, call/e-mail me - I'll be glad to loan it out. MJK


4 JAN/FEB PROST 2003
		CALENDAR Feb 15-22 Barleywine Fest at the Toronado - contest is Saturday the 15th. Judging starts at 9:30 AM - this year it will be in the Masonic Hall across the street from the Toronado to miti-gate the crowd factor. More info at www.toronado.com Sunday Feb 16 (?) - Celebrator Anniversary Party (supposedly) at Great American Music Hall - you editor read about it in the Dec-Jan issue, but there's nothing about it on their website (www.celebrator.com) - who knows?. Saturday, February 22, 11:30 AM - whenever, Regular meeting at half Moon Bay Brewing Co, - See Page 1. Thursday, March 13, 7:30 PM - Annual Stout Bout at Pat Loughran's. See Page 1. Sometime (probably the 1st or 2nd Saturday) in March - World Cup of Beers ... Bay Area Mashers' website should have info.
	Sunday, April 27, Noon to Dusk, San Pedro Park, Pacifica - Oyster BBQ & Elections. Details in March-April Issue. Saturday, November ??, 10AM -9:30 PM - State Comp @ Stern Grove. *Recreational/Educational Activities:* Devise a weekend "road trip"/outing! Call an officer/attend a Planning Meeting/post details to the PO box to run it up the proverbial flagpole! IT'S THAT TIME AGAIN, FOLKS!! AVOID THE IMPENDING RED DOT!! GET THOSE DUES CHECKS IN THE MAIL SOON!!