Monday 9/24/2007…
As predicted, things did settle down and work out in the end. 
There were a few scheduling snags, but in the end everyone had a great time. Pictures (evidence?) will be coming soon. There’s a lot more info on the Commander SAAZ homepage, including the final results. Congratulations to all the winners! See you all in a few weeks at Sunshine Challenge!
Tis the night before kickoff and all through the house…..
Chaos reigns! Judges stashes on the couch. Raffle prizes in the living room. And paperwork everywhere! I’m sure things will settle down though…. Really I am… 
Tomorrow kicks off the final festivities for this year’s Commander SAAZ! We’ll be starting judging at the Holiday Inn at 4:00 with plans to finish by 7:30-8:00 so those going to the Barleywine tasting are free to enjoy themselves. Then we’ll pick back up on Saturday at 9:00. If you have something in particular you want to judge be there on time!If things turn out as planned Friday you can just ask for Mambo’s and that should get you to the Hospitality Suite. (We’ll have the SAAZ banner out front). If the weather turns inclement then we’ll be moving judging inside, otherwise we plan to do most of the judging on the deck at Mambo’s. We’ll do our best to make sure that the folks at the front desk know what is going on….On Saturday all of the judging and the splashdown party will be in the Dolphin room just off the lobby.
See you on the beach!
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Two weekends of pre-judging have come to an end. We are in good shape going into the final event thanks in large part to the support of judges from other clubs. This weekend both CFHB and Tampa Bay Beers were represented. We even had help from a judge who is new to Florida having recently moved from Texas. Thanks to all!!
This weekend also saw a fabulous beer tasting hosted by Matt Backus of Sunseed Food Co-op. Matt brought out some very interesting beers, including one of my new favorites, Kill Ugly Radio from Lagunitas. What a truly lovely IPA with big grapefruit hop aroma and flavor and wel balanced bittering. There were several other great beers as well and all are available at Sunseed. We also found out that Matt can order kegs in as well. So if you are looking for really cool beers, give Matt a call!! (321-784-0930).
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As predicted, Commander SAAZ has surpassed last years mark and hit the 500 entry mark! This is of course a good thing, and a bad thing…. It’s good because it shows there are a lot of folks out there interested in our little (or maybe not so little) competition and were willing to take the trouble to send us their precious beer for evaluation. The bad news is of course that that’s a lot of beer to judge!
On the judging front we had an excellent turnout for the first weekend of pre-judging with representatives from SAAZ, CFHB, and the Treasure Coast BrewMasters in attnedance. We had a great time of fellowship and beer judging and were able to accomplish what we needed to to be on track for the final weekend. We also had a truly excellent turnout from club members who helped steward, cook food, setup, cleanup, and all the other things that have to get done to put on a quality competition. A big THANKS to everyone who came out, especially the CFHB and Treasure Coast folks who came from out of town to assist!!!
We’re not home free yet though. We still have one more weekend of pre-judging to get through. So we still need judges and stewards to help out for next weekend!
Event Info….
It appears we have rounded out the docket of events for this year. Sorry it took so long, but a couple of our key players have been dealing with higher than normal demand at work (I did mention that a lot of us work supporting space lanches didn’t I 
)
To make things a bit easier to keep track of we’ve put together a brief consolidated schedule here.
One exciting new event is BOB… Barley wine On the Beach.
In a joint venture between the Dunedin Brewers Guild, Dunedin Doggie Rescue, and SAAZ, we bring you the first ever Barley Wine on the Beach event! Dunedin’s own KK will be your host for fifteen classic Barley Wines from around the world. The youngest one is over seven years old!
Fifteen bucks gets you a seat at the table, fifteen Barley Wines, and heavy hors d’oeuvres out on the deck. Ocean breezes, vintage Barley Wine, a bit of Reggae…. How much better does it get! And ten clams from each ticket goes to support the Dunedin Doggie Rescue, so you can even feel good about enjoying yourself!
Tickets are limited and are available in the SAAZ online store under the Commander SAAZ section.
Drop off location updates…
Matt Backus at Sunseed Food Co-op has agreed to act as a drop off location for Commander SAAZ entries. They are located on A1A (6615 N. Atlantic Ave, Cape Canaveral, (321) 784-0930). You can drop off entries with Matt, Sean, or Aaron.
Hotel Information Update!!!!!
There was a mixup with the event code for the hotel. The correct code is “BCS” (Brevard Club SAAZ). If anyone has made a reservation and been told they didn’t know anything about it please call back with the code “BCS”!! If you haven’t made your reservations yet CALL NOW. The rate is only good until August 31st! The Holiday Inn number is 321-783-2271.
The commander SAAZ page is updated with this year’s menu (which looks suspiciously like last year’s). The webstore is also up to date with Splashdown tickets as well, so don’t forget your splashdown tickets!
There are just over three weeks until the entry cutoff (see the handy dandy countdown on the right). Make sure you get your entries registered and delivered by the September 6th cutoff!!
We are expecting this year to be even bigger and better than last year, especially since we are the second to last competition in the Florida Homebrew Circuit and are also a MCAB (Masters Championship of Amateur Brewing) qualifying event. So if you haven’t started brewing, get going!
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