I hope all of you had a happy Halloween and did not eat too much candy and beer. We accomplished a lot of MASH business at last months meeting, we set the Coconut Cup dates, we set the BOTY styles an d we are close to setting the Winter Solstice party.

The BOTY styles are as follows:

• January is category 12 Porters.
• February is category 11 English Brown Ale.
• March is category 9 Scottish and Irish Ale.
• April is category 10 American Ale.
• May is category 16 Belgian and French Ale.
• June is category 14 India Pale Ale.
• July has two categories 6 Light Hybrid Beer and 7 Amber Hybrid Beer.
• August is category 15 German Wheat and Rye Beer.
• September has all three mead categories 24 Traditional, 25 Melomel and 26 Other Mead.
• October is category 5 Bock.
• November is category 18 Belgian Strong Ale.
• December is 19 Strong Ale.

The BOTY list will be posted on our web site in the BOTY section in December.

Now on to the Winter Solstice party. The date is not set in stone as of yet but we are down to the first two week ends in December with a preference to 13 or 14. We will try to finalize this by the November meeting.

Coconut Cup dates are set and planning has started. The dates are; February 6 is the entry dead line, February 11 21 will be prejudging and February 21 will be the final round of judging with the awards ceremonies. Actually picking the date was the easiest part of it now the real work begins. Denise Graham has accepted the task of competition chairperso n graciously; ok some arm twisting may have taken place. We will all need to help out to make this years event a succe ss.

Last months BOTY style was 24 Traditional Meads, 25 Melomel Meads, 26 Other Meads, 27 Standard Cider & Perry and 28 Sp ecialty Cider & Perry. We had one of our best turn out with ten entries most of them where meads but we did have a coup le of ciders. AND THE WINNERS ARE: third place was a tie between the Buckwheat honey braggot by Russell and the Jackfru it mead by Meredith. Second place was a tie between the Blueberry mead by Scott& Denise and the Carambola mead by Scott & Denise. First place went to me with my Strawberry Lemongrass mead. It was great to see so many entries lets keep it up for next month.

Speaking of next months BOTY the style is 21 Spiced / Herb / Vegetable Beer, so GET BREWING!

Darryl Hickey
Miami Area Society of Hombrewers President.
Hickey Family Brewing & Meadery.
Brewing at ten feet above sea level with bar stool correction.