So what if the April meeting was sparsely attended? Those who did attend, perhaps a dozen of the hard-core brethern, enjoyed a feast, a debate, a game, and the beer. Especially the beer. Sis-bro Joanne won the gold ribbon for food provision for the wonderful meatballs and bread, complete with grated cheese, for terrific meatball sandwiches. (It's just as well we met in the warehouse-like confines of the future Snoqualmie Falls Brewing Company: had the meeting been at my house, I would have had to mop the floor afterwards. The sandwiches were good, but the Brothers Tap Dance, a troop soon to be in your region of the country, danced to avoid the occasional dribble of sauce as it escaped the bread vehicle and raced for your shoes...) I also remember Brother Nelson and his radioactive hot sauce. More on that later.
The event was also notable in the return of the Beer Raffle, albeit in a different form than in events past. The actual mechanism of the raffle has changed a bit, and was spontaneously improvised at the proverbial last minute. A simple explanation of the rules may be impossible, but I'll try. Bring something to give away to the meeting. The members who are still conscious will debate the value of your entry, and decide the number of "chances" that your entry is worth. Brother Avery brought the last unconsumed bottle from our triumphal Novembeerfest as an impromptu entry. That was worth a single chance. Brother Rob entered his bottle of stuff, guaranteed hottest sauce in the known galaxy. This was deemed worthy of two chances. Your humble Emp-bro had intended to bring a 12 pack of empty sanitized bottles, but spaced on it, so offered a bottle of fruit juice mead instead. This was also appraised at two chances. The Palmer monastery cleaned out their stray brewing materials and brought a bunch of yeast samples, a hop sample, and a sample of roasted barley. In addition, the Emperor had decided that their contribution of 6 ounce sampler glasses to the club drinking container supply was worthy of two chances all by themselves. The panel of judges determined that the Palmer entries, plus their awards, were worthy of a total of five chances. (This may be institutionalized: No group or individual can receive more than 5 chances total, no matter how great their entry...) Then came the fun. For each chance awarded, percent dice were rolled, with the taking of an entry taking place in reverse order, highest roll of the dice choosing first. The Palmer's ran away with the good stuff, owing to both the total number of chances allowed, as well as the wrist action of the delightful Sis-bro Dawn while throwing twice, scoring above 90% each time. At the other end of the scale, Scribe-bro Nelson rolled twice, failing to score anything but 'teens in both attempts. The Palmer's took the fruit juice mead and something else, I got the hops and yeast samples, Bro Avery got the sauce, and Bro Nelson got the Novembeerfest entry, which we promptly consumed for him.
All in all, I had a good time, and I hope that other people did too. I invite one and all to bring something to risk at the next meeting. There is fun in seeing what other people have brought, as well as in the argument as to what an entry is worth. And there's quite an ego stroke in having your entry deemed worthy of being taken first! But don't let that dissuade you. I'd like to see more entries than we had, but I think that joke entries would be fun too! (Are you listening Joanne?) It was quite a kick, and I want to do it again at my house this month...
Copyright 1997 by Rich Webb, aka The Outsider.
This page is authored and maintained by Rich Webb. You can send E-mail to me by following this link to the contact page. And feel free to contact me if you have any comments, criticisms, or suggestions. I remain, however, perfectly capable of ignoring your useless opinion...
Feel free to visit my home page while you're out surfing, or just go back to the rantpage index.
This document was placed here on May 16, 1997, and has been viewed countless times.