Hi MASHers,

Another Coconut Cup has come and gone. This was the 12th one. MASH has organized 11 of those; FLAB organized the second one. How many of you remember back that far? I'd like to thank Denise for once again taking on the role of organizer. While my opinion may be a bit biased, I think we can all agree that she did a great job and that she makes it look easy. Hearty thanks to the South Miami/Coral Gables Elk's lodge for hosting the Coconut Cup. The venue was as close to perfect as we could hope for! Thanks to Darryl for getting us in to the Elk's lodge and for wrangling some great raffle prizes; I know that it took a lot of last minute work. Thanks to Jon for setting up lunch for the judges. Thanks to Eric, Jon, and Joshua for helping to organize and flight the entries. Finally, thanks to all of the MASH members, friends, and other judges who helped judge and steward the event itself.

I am happy to report that many MASH members who entered something in the competition ended up placing. Congratulations to Bob F., Colin, Darryl, Jeff, Joshua, and S&D G. Please have a look at the full results. MASH took the Coconut Cup back by the slightest of margins. Please take this as a reminder to set aside three bottles of everything you brew this year to enter into next year's competition. Better yet, set aside four bottles so you can have a taste before you enter anything. This would let you determine if the style has drifted a bit with age. It might also ensure that our own club actually enters the most number of brews into our own competition.

It is never too early to start thinking about next year's Coconut Cup. If anyone would like to step up and offer to organize or contribute in a large way, we might be able to get some planning done a bit earlier and have an even stronger event. Please let me know.

While we are thinking about competitions, congratulations once again to Joshua for taking 1st place and 3rd place medals at the Best Florida Beer Competition up in Dunedin! Congratulations to Joshua for taking 1st place in last month's MASH BotY competition with his Weizenbock and to S&D G for taking 2nd place with a Dunkelweizen.

The entry deadlines for the AHA National Homebrew Competition (NHC) and the Palm Beach Draughtsmen's Hurricane Blowoff are fast approaching. Please see the MASH Calendar for details. (Remember that you can subscribe to this calendar to integrate with your own.) As long as there are enough entries, we will coordinate a run up north to pass the club's entries off for the Blowoff. If anyone would like to coordinate shipping entries to the NHC, please communicate via our mailing list.

The Hurricane Blowoff itself will be held on the weekend of 4/23-24. Our Draughtsmen friends were good enough to send down four judges and a steward to help with the Coconut Cup. I hope that we can send at least that many back up. They put on a great competition and it would be good for anyone who might be interested in taking over the Coconut Cup to see how another club handles things.

The following weekend, May 1st, is National Homebrew Day and the traditional date for the Big Brew. Recipes for the latter are posted. We will discuss them at this month's meeting and try to come up with a plan for the event. If you are interested in hosting the Big Brew (or have any conflict with the 5/1 date), please let me know.

To close, I'd like to encourage you all to visit http://www.flbrewer.org. It is a great resource for Florida's homebrewers and includes a forum that many of our state's great homebrewers follow quite closely as well as the current standings in the Florida Homebrew Circuit. Please make use of it.

I look forward to seeing everyone at Titanic for this month's meeting, which will feature BJCP categories 10 (American Ale) and 14 (IPA). Remember that you can bring beers from other categories for tasting and feedback and earn 1/2 point in the BotY standings for doing so.

Cheers,
Scott
MASH President 2010