[Bordermarch] Brewer's Guild

[Lathrop, Dave]

Greetings Bordermarch,
 
The Brewer's Guild meeting, held at Lord Malcolm's residence, was meet
with great success. In attendance were; Lord Malcolm, Lord Nikolai, and
me.
Discussions about future plans and recipes to be tried were presented
while the tasting session took place.
Lord Malcolm presented his Scottish Ale for review, and its flavor seems
to have heightened since the first bottle was tasted at our 2008
Baronial.
It has an excellent dark amber color with a nice head of tightly packed
small bubbles. It has an aromatic woody flavor that was neither bitter
nor sweet.
The after taste lingered on the pallet just long enough to temp one to
partake another swallow.
Lord Nikolai presented a bottle of his dark beer whose name and type
eludes me at the moment. His beer was well received, and had a true old
world flavor.
Although Lord Nikolai used no chocolate in his recipe, it still had a
hint of chocolate flavor when one first tasted and smelled the brew. It
also possessed a tightly packed head of small translucent amber bubbles.
A new original mead recipe utilizing cinnamon and raisins for some of
the ingredients was offered to the Guild for a taste test by Lord
Nikolai. His mead has not even been racked and yet it still possessed a
taste that
went down smooth with no bitterness, and very little dryness. It was
slightly sweet with the cinnamon flavor present, but not overpowering in
the lest. 
Lord Nikolai also brought a rare bottle of his sparkling cherry mead to
the group. It seems that all the other bottles had been consumed by
impatient connoisseurs of sparkling cherry mead before it had 
aged properly. 
Since this bottle of sparkling cherry mead was so rare, Lord Nikolai
decided to open it with a little bit of his usual flair. Lord Nikolai's
brightly painted wood bottle opener, carved to resemble a screaming
woman with her mouth wide open,
could not be used to open the cherry mead due to the fact that Lord
Nikolai found a cork somewhere and stuffed it into the bottle of mead.
He decided the use of a real cork would keep it from exploding all over
his wife's clothing, again!
Lord Malcolm directed Lord Nikolai to a real corkscrew that looked like
a metal hammer. Lord Nikolai had a bit of a problem figuring out how to
unscrew the hammer head to expose the working end of the corkscrew, but
after some assistance
from Lord Malcolm he finally got it. Lord Malcolm, satisfied that Lord
NIkolai  could handle the corkscrew, turned his attention to cleaning
out his glass in the kitchen sink. I was standing in the corner of the
room, propped on the counter, while Lord Nikolai was using his massive
strength to sink the corkscrew into the cork. Finally satisfied with its
position and holding power, he gave a mighty grunt and freed the cork
from its prison in the glass bottle. I watched with intense interest as
lord Nikolai
looked down the throat of the bottle, into the dark cherry red liquid
that was resembled a glass smooth pond. All was well with the world
until Lord Nikolai, inadvertently, jostled the bottle of resting mead
just a bit too much. I watched in horror as
Lord Nikolai's pupils dilated enough for me to see his retina in the
back of his eyeballs. A scream was just bubbling forth from his throat,
and he was gripping the bottle around the neck like it was a deadly
black mamba two-step snake! 
The bottle was going to explode, and Lord Nikolai knew in his heart of
hearts that there just wasn't time enough to stuff a cork in it! Thank
God for is rapier training. In one fluid motion he raised the erupting
bottle of mead over his head and
rushed to the sink. Unfortunately, Lord Malcolm was oblivious to the
happenings behind him due to the sound of running water. The vintage
sparkling cherry mead was shooting sky high from the magic bottle of
unending supply, when Lord Nikolai
turned just in time to see Lord Malcolm blocking his access to the
kitchen sink. Too late, too little space for maneuvering, too much
happening at once, the sparkling cherry mead cascaded over Lord
Malcolm's head and drenched his designer tee-shirt.
Lord Nikolai was aghast and sincerely apologetic for the unexpected mead
shower he had just given Lord Malcolm. I started choking on something
and couldn't speak. Lord Malcolm just looked in wonder at Lord Nikolai,
then at his tee-shirt, then at the sparkling cherry mead in the 
baby bottles resting near the sink. He claimed the mead was definitely
not dry, and blended nicely with a cotton polyester weave. He was most
gracious under the circumstances, and returned from the changing room
with another designer AC/DC tee-shirt on.
There was still enough of the mead for a real tasting, and I must say
that it has aged very well and has developed an excellent cherry flavor
leaning towards the slightly sweet.
For those who want to, but have never had the pleasure of tasting some
of Lord Nikolai's sparking cherry mead, please visit Lord Malcolm's
kitchen. Just stick out your tongue and lick the walls, I'm sure you'll
get some of the flavor that Lord Malcolm now wears. 
 
HE Santiago