Hi MASHers,

We have a lot to catch up on.

First, many thanks to Darryl Hickey for several years of faithful service as President of our little homebrew club.

Second, thanks to Eric and Caroline (and Liz!) for hosting yet another wonderful Solstice party. I believe that all who attended had a great time.

Please join me in a rousing round of thanks!

Third, thanks to those who shanghaied/put their trust in me to be President for the coming months. Thanks also to Joshua for volunteering to be VP and to the remainder of our officers, who I believe remain as they have been for many years now.

Fourth, congratulations to Darryl for taking the 2009 MASH Brewer of the Year award, S&DG (if I do say so myself) for coming in first in the December BotY and to Eric for coming in second in the December BotY.

Now, on to business...

As you've all seen by now, MASH meetings will be held on the fourth Tuesday of each month for the foreseeable future. Meetings will continue to be held at Titanic and the first meeting of 2010 will be held next Tuesday, January 26th, 2010. Mark your calendars. Eric or Joshua will soon send out a message to everyone with instructions for subscribing to the new MASH google calendar, which will also eventually make its way to our website. We hope that it will keep everyone on schedule and let us all communicate our events a bit more efficiently.

The BotY calendar for 2010 has been posted to the MASH mailing list. Eric should get it posted to the website soon. The competition organizers, led by Joshua and Denise, have decided to change up the scoring system for the 2010 BotY. They will be send out the revised scoring system, which is intended to encourage additional sharing of your brews, to the BotY style or not, as well as more informative feedback. Eric will also get the new scoring system posted to the website. The January BotY style is a Best in Show format. Bring up to two entries of your best brews (or meads) and we'll have a grand old time judging them.

As discussed at the December meeting, there will indeed be a 2010 Coconut Cup. The main event will be held on Saturday, March 13th. We'll no doubt need to get some judging done the weekend before that -- the 6th-8th of March and will have some evens during the week leading up to that day. Please try to keep some time free on your calendars. More details will trickle out soon.

Upcoming Competitions include the Meadllennium (see information at www.cfhb.org) and the Best Florida Beer Competition (see information at www.dunedinbrewersguild.com). Enter early, enter often.

It has been good to see useful traffic on the MASH mailing list. Please keep up the good content! If you plan far enough ahead, please let your fellow MASHers know when you'll be brewing; the company is always nice. Please also keep track of the Keg/Kettle conversion gathering that Darryl will be hosting soon.

Have a great, prosperous, and hoppy new year.

Cheers,
Scott
MASH President 2010