Well the Coconut Cut was a big success! This years competition had three hundred and eleven entries from four states. It took five judging sessions, forty-nine flights, twenty plus judges & stewards, countless hours of planning and paperwork (computer work) to accomplish this feat. MASH would like to thank all of the judges and stewards that came from other clubs to help with our competition this year. Once again I would like to thank all of you for all of the time and effort you gave to this years Coconut Cup homebrew competition. And a really big thanks to Denise Graham for a great job putting it all together.

I would like to congratulate all of the medal winners on their fine entries and hope to see them next year. As for our MASH members we took many medals and two club medals. But the cold hard reality is we did not retain the Cup this year. Tampa Bay BEERS sent many good entries and took a lot of medals which saw them taking the honor of the Cup. Congratulations to Tampa Bay BEERS. MASH has to do better next year so we can recapture the Cup. Good job to the following MASHers for winning medals: Jeff Donnell, Eric Johnson, Bob Fischer, Denise & Scott Graham, Russell Everett, Scott Ross and myself.

I would like to thank all of our sponsors for their generous donations and ask all of our members and friends to use their products and services. Thank you New Belgium Brewing, Boston Beers, Anchor Steam, Wyeast and Dogfish Head Brewing. We are going to take a couple of months off before we start preparing for next years competition.

As for the club's February BOTY competition we had only one entry. The style was Stout and our loan entrant was Russell. I know a lot of us where preoccupied with the Coconut Cup to brew a Stout but we need to do better next month. Next months BOTY style is Light Hybrid Beer category 6. This includes Cream Ale, Blond Ale, Kolsch and American Wheat or Rye beers. SO LETS GET BREWING!

Up and coming homebrew competitions are; Blowoff entry due by April 4, 2008 and Entries for the 2008 National Homebrew Competition will be accepted from March 31 through April 11, 2008.

And on a sad note our very own MASH member Calvin will be leaving sunny Miami for the bright lights of New York City we all wish him well and if you are in NY look him up.

That is it for this month; see you all at the March meeting. Bring those BOTY beers and any others that you would like to share with your MASH friends.

Your very thankful President;

Darryl Hickey