[ale] OT- homebrew?

[Michael H. Warfield]

On Mon, 2008-12-08 at 19:08 -0500, Paul Cartwright wrote:
> On Mon December 8 2008, Sid Lane wrote:
> > quick poll:
> >
> > how many Covert Hops alumni are there in ALE?
> >
> > how many people know the story behind the club's name?

> I used to brew when I lived in Maryland in the late 80's.. learned from George 
> Pappazian's book and the original Cat's Meow list. I moved here in '92, found 
> out it was illegal to brew, and never touched it again.

	I moved down here from Michigan in 1982.  I started homebrewing cider
and wine a few years later (mid to late 80's).  Ok, not exactly
"brewing" per se but the same hobby.  That much was not illegal.
Legally, you could produce wine, mead, or cider (what we silly Americans
call "hard cider") without a problem.  The only real problem was a typo
in the original legislation that accidentally left off "malted
brews" (i.e. beers).

	I never joined the Covert Hops society simply because my specialty is
Champagne Style Hard Cider.  We gave bottles of it away as speaker's
gifts at the first Atlanta Linux Showcase.  In fact, I'm just starting
24 gallons of it fermenting today.  In a couple of weeks that will be
just about 120 750ml bottles of very nice Champagne Style Hard
Cider.  :-)

	The name Covert Hops was obviously from the fact that the beer brewers
had to remain under the radar since beer brewing (and only beer brewing)
remained illegal in Georgia even after they legalized all the rest of
it.  It took years to get that legislative screwup fixed and, AFAIK,
beer is still limited to 50 gallons per household per year while the
others are caped at 200 gallons per year per household or 100 gallons
per person, which ever is less.

	At the time, the only brew shop in the area was "Wine Art" in the
Around Lenox strip mall.  She always had several copies of the Covert
Hops newsletters in her shop.  One day, when in there, she was telling
me that she had been raided by the GBI and was threatened with a felony
"aiding a criminal enterprise" charge because she had cans of "malt" on
the shelves labeled for making beer.  She had to mark over any reference
to "beer" in black marker and write "for bread making" on those criminal
supplies.  Years later, she moved her shop out to Roswell Road and
renamed it "Wine Craft".  I haven't been in there in a couple of years
(there's a much closer homebrew shop on Indian Trails I frequent) but
last time I was in there, she was still running the place and still had
a, very worn, copy of the Cats Meow II in a gray binder I had printed
out for her when she was still in the Around Lenox mall.

> coincidentally my SON just started brewing last year ( 2 years ago?) and has 
> made some very good stuff! His equipment is a lot fancier than I ever had! He 
> graduated from West Ga with a degree in IT, and is now working in Wastewater 
> treatment for a large commercial bakery in Douglasville :) I have been 
> BEGGING him to switch to linux, but he balks.. He just recently got a new 
> laptop, a Dell Inspiron, with Vi$ta ;(
> if anyone would like to compare brews or digs about his OS, he can be reached 
> at:
> Paul Cartwright <pauldcartwright at gmail.com>
> he is a proud new daddy, Chloe was born June 24th, and he hasn't brewed since 
> her birth.
> 

	Regards,
	Mike
-- 
Michael H. Warfield (AI4NB) | (770) 985-6132 |  mhw at WittsEnd.com
   /\/\|=mhw=|\/\/          | (678) 463-0932 |  http://www.wittsend.com/mhw/
   NIC whois: MHW9          | An optimist believes we live in the best of all
 PGP Key: 0xDF1DD471        | possible worlds.  A pessimist is sure of it!

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