On Jan 25, 2025, the Tallahassee Animal Shelter Foundation (ASF) hosted the annual Pints for Paws fundraiser for the first time since before the pandemic in 2019. (See this article for more context.)
We had posted our old kegerator for sale on Facebook marketplace, where NFBL member Tim Rach noticed our conical fermenter in the background of a photo and asked whether we’d be interested in brewing for the event. I have poured beer for Southern Fields a few times since they opened, but I haven’t poured any of my own homebrew since Chris Asa and I took some beers to the Tallahassee Beer Fest in October of 2017. (In fact, I took the Dark Mild, and because I was insistent that it be served at cellar temperature, I actually took the kegerator to the festival.)
Anyway, the event was a great success for the ASF. The weather was beautiful, especially considering that North Florida had spent the past week shut down for a historic blizzard; there was still snow on the ground at our table until after noon. We brewed two beers for this event: an Italian Pilsner called “Paws & Pils” and a Piwo Grodziskie called “Hearth Hound” (participants were encouraged to use animal-themed beer names). Both beers were very well received by the attendees.
I had expected the Grodziskie to be more mixed as to whether folks like it, but there were very few folks who admitted to not liking it. I think there are two reasons for this. Firstly, it isn’t an offensive beer; the smoke level is really low. Secondly, selection bias probably weeded out most of the folks who disklike smokey flavors, save for a few that I bullied into trying the beer anyway. The result was that we had people coming up to the table asking about both beers due to word of mouth, which is all you can hope for.
It was a great event. We enjoyed supporting this charity and interacting with attendees and meeting other homebrewers. We took inspiration from other homebrewers and we’re excited to up our game for the next event (Tallahassee Beer Fest later this year, unless we can find something sooner).