The final day of judging. We judged four flights of melomels. After that we broke off for pizza and a couple Sierra Nevada Pale Ales. Sure was good to have something with malt and hops in it! Then it was back to the grind. We judged the melomel mini BOS and finished up with the Best of Show.

You can click on any picture and get a larger picture. Send me an e-mail if you want a really big picture (1536x1024) of any of these.

Here's Ken Schramm, Arnold Nietzke, Pat Babcock and Mike O'Brien (left to right, front to back). Bills dog is in the background checking out the sandhill cranes that were feeding in the back yard.

Spencer Thomas crackin' open one of the tropical meads in his flight. Spencer did his flight solo. I have no doubt his excellent palate did the flight justice.

Mike and Arnold. I wonder what Pat is going to do with that calculator?

Dan McConnell looking to see which mead is next in our flight. I wanted to judge with Dan because I know he's top notch.

Here's me helping with the mini BOS. Spencer is to my left and that's Ken across the table

I think we have winner! Spencer seems to be enjoying this one very much.

Now the work beings, the BOS judging. Ken, Dan, Pat, Spencer (taking the picture) and I did the judging. It wasn't an easy choice.

Pat and I.

Hard work but it was light hearted too.

Ken is holding up his glass making some points. Bill is in the background. He worked pretty hard not to get his picture taken!

Dan pouring over the melomel winner. Although it would go on to win, he just wasn't convinced.

Note the proper way to judge a mead, pinky held high!

The money shot!

Here's Bill getting some of the glassware loaded in the dishwasher. I can only guess how many loads it took.

Copywrite March 1999