The Brewsletter
May 2005
The
Official Newsletter of the
The
President’s Podium – Tom Byrnes
Last month’s meeting at the newly remodeled Biergarden in
May becomes a jammed packed month
for beer and brewing. May 7 is National
Homebrew Day, which is marked yearly with Big Brew. Homebrew
I’m sorry to say that I’ll miss the next meeting but happy
to be spending that week in
DALE’S PALE CONTEST – C. J. Jones
We have a Club contest this year that is going to be pretty fun – make your own version of a Dale’s Pale Ale, but without the can. You’ve had (many?) Dale’s Pale Ales by this time, and you know what it is – a very hoppy, mildly hefty pale ale.
What’s exactly in a
Dale’s Pale Ale?
Well, due to proprietary concerns, and in an effort to challenge us a bit, they won’t completely tell us. Seems every time they’ve told an individual what’s in the beer, they get either flamed with either emails from BJCP Style Believers telling them that their beer is not to style, or they get a beer from a competitor that cloned their recipe down to the individual hop pellet.
They did tell me
this much:
* the malt list: made from a (somewhat standard, traditional, whatever) pale malt base; two types of crystal malt (to sweeten it up a bit and give it a touch of color); and a couple of specialty malts (to do something else to it). This beer is 6.5 % ABV; depending on temperature, you can probably check a hydrometer to ballpark potential original gravity to give you this final alcohol content.
*the hops list: Northern Brewer, Cascade, and two others; there are 65 IBUs in Dale’s Pale Ale.
*the yeast used: they won’t say.
So, let’s rise to the occasion and try to make a Dale’s. I’m an extract guy, so I’m not much help with the grain bill, but I know for a fact that there’s no Chocolate or black patent malt in this beer. Pretty good, eh? Likewise, I know it wasn’t made with a lager or Belgian yeast. And finally, if you’ve ever drank a Tupper’s Hop Pocket Ale, Tupper’s is dramatically hopped with Cascade at the end of the boil; it smells like grapefruit, particularly when it warms up a bit. Since Dale’s doesn’t smell exactly like a Tupper’s, it mustn’t be “dramatically” hopped with Cascade at the end of the boil. Your palate is probably better wired than mine to determine what needs to be in your recipe, so let’s get moving. Although the contest is listed as a July event, this beer is scheduled for judging on 22 June 2005.
Have fun!
The Next Meeting Location – Diane Catenzaro
May by the
lakeside shall we meet
Ales of many
styles entreat
Azaleas beckon, birdies
tweet
Spring in Rob’s
yard can’t be beat
Dally with the dancing daylilies and ale-sip with the alluring azaleas as the club meets Wednesday May 4 in the Shangri-la-like environs of Rob Sissom’s backyard in Chick’s Beach. Show up early (6:30-7) with something for the grill or a side dish/munchie and let’s make a picnic of it!! Regular meeting time is 7:30 pm. Dress for outdoor weather!! Bring some beer!!!!
As warmer weather marks the beginning of the ‘backyard meeting’ season, remember that you can bring any kind of homebrewed OR commercial beers to this meeting. It is traditional to bring an extra bottle of one of your homebrews for the host as an extra thanks for being kind enough to welcome us to his home.
James, the Wine Steward from the Farm Fresh on the corner of
.
HRBTS Homebrew Competition – John Mitchell
The
Executive Committee came to consensus agreement that the club should hold a
competition open to all comers. This will
provide an opportunity to get more involved in the regional homebrewing
community, convey more honors on our local brewers and possibly raise a little
money. The competition will mostly
likely be scheduled 6-12 months from now in order to have time to organize and
advertise it. We will be forming a committee open to all club members to
organize the competition. We will take
volunteers at the meeting. If you are
unable to attend, you can communicate your interest to compcoord@hrbts.org. We will be looking for help with publicity,
prizes, registration, facilities, judging and stewarding. We will set a date during the May meeting for
the first committee meeting based on people's schedules. Don't worry if you've never been involved in
something like this. It will be a great
learning experience and fun too!
Virginia
Get out your Day Timers, your Palm Pilots, your Microsoft
Office Calendar, or what the heck, write this on your hand: 14 May 2005.
That’s the day you want to be in
You can also help in our beer education efforts. Our club will have a booth at the festival, right next to the Homebrew USA booth. We’re going to have displays of grains and hops used in the brewing process, an example of fermentation (fermentation in a milk bottle, so you can picture it in all of its glory), that sort of thing. Plus, HRB & TS members will be available to answer beer-related questions (such as “What kind of beer is made with chocolate malt, and is there one here?”) from festival attendees. Our educational efforts will dovetail nicely with what Mike and Melissa will be doing at their booth. We also have been given permission to pour tastes of homebrew at the festival. Now that’ll be very cool.
So, we need your help. We need homebrew contributions so we can pass them out to attendees. We also need volunteers to staff the booth. If you have homebrew that you can contribute to the educational cause, bring them to the May meeting; how’s ‘bout donating a six pack, labeled to identify what it is, to the cause? If you can volunteer your time, we’ll have a sign-up sheet. We might block as much as a half an hour of your time, but we’ll make sure you have something to sip on while you’re there.
Afraid of getting too buzzed at the festival? Consider spending the night downtown, at the Marriott or one of the other hotels downtown, or consider leaving your car in the garage and catching a cab home. Cab fare from Town Point to almost anywhere will run you twenty five bucks, tops, which is less than a hotel, or an interaction with the Legal System.
I’ll see you downtown on May14!
2005 HRB & TS Beer of the Month Schedule – C.J. Jones
Cut this out and tape it to your refrigerator along with those pictures drawn by your children!
|
Month (2005 unless stated
otherwise) |
Beer style name & 2004
BJCP beer style category number |
Beer judging date ;
usually two weeks before Club meeting) |
Winner goes to an AHA Club
Only Contest? |
|
January |
Spiced
Beers (21) |
15
December 2004 |
|
|
February
|
Strong
Belgian ales (18) |
26
January 2005 |
|
|
March |
Brown
ales (10C & 11) |
16
February 2005 |
|
|
April
|
Fruit
(20) & Cider (27 & 28) |
23
March 2005 |
|
|
May |
Extract
(all) |
20
April 2005 |
Yes |
|
June |
Mead
(24-26) |
18
May 2005 |
|
|
July |
Dale’s
Pale Ale clone (n/a) |
22
June 2005 |
|
|
August |
Belgian/French
ale (16) |
20
July 2005 |
Yes |
|
September |
Lagers
(all) |
24
August 2005 |
Yes,
for European Amber Lagers (3) |
|
October |
Stouts
(13 A-E, not F) |
21
September 2005 |
|
|
November |
Porter
(12) |
19
October 2005 |
Yes,
for Baltic Porter (12C) |
|
December |
|
23
November 2005 |
|
|
January
2006 |
Imperial
Stout (13F) & Imperial Pale Ale (14C) |
21
December 2005 |
|
|
February
2006 |
Doppelbock
(5C) and Barleywine (19B & 19C) |
18
January 2006 |
|
Competition Corner for May 2005, Extract Beers – C.J. Jones
Last Wednesday (4/20/05) we convened the judging for out extract contest. This was possibly going to be a massive show down / throw down. We have a lot of extract brewers in the club. Since this contest was open to basically anything, as long as it was extract-based, there could have been a trillion entries. How many were there?
Twenty. That is a bodacious amount of beer for one person to taste, so we did a little something different. First, we divided our judges into four groups, each group “lead” by one of our credentialed judges. Second, no one judged a beer that he or she had a hand in, so no scores had to be deleted. Third, we’d try a little something different to select the winners. We’d take the “winner” from each of the four judge pools, plus we’d take the two highest non-winning scores, for a total of six entries to the finals. Those six entries would be rank-ordered by our judges, and the top three would be win – place – show.
So, how did it turn out? Very interesting. There were twelve or thirteen different styles represented in the contest; all of the scores were between 23.5 and 36.5; there was a “tie” for highest non-winning “preliminary round” score, so we actually had seven beers make it to the finals. The finals, the “best of show” round, were judged by Tom Byrnes, John Mitchell, Mike Pensinger and Richard Pigeon.
When the dust settled, here’s how things stood:
The first place winner was supposed to be mailed to the AHA for the Club Extract contest, but entries are due by Tuesday, 26 April, and today is Sunday, 24 April, so … you get the picture. Gee, even if I had gotten moving on Thursday, 21 April, that entry couldn’t have gotten to where it needs to be via UPS in three or four days unless I spent a million bucks on shipping. Oh well.
Our next contest is our annual mead contest, so get your entries ready for that. And happy brewing.
2005 HRB & TS Cup Standings (as
of 4/24/05)
|
Name of Brewer(s) |
Total Points Accumulated |
|
C.J. & Diane Catanzaro |
12 |
|
The OVBC |
5 |
|
Tom Byrnes |
4 |
|
Victor Perrotti |
4 |
|
Phil Swanson |
2 |
|
Richard Pigeon |
2 |
|
Cory Pettiford |
1 |
|
Doug Boyd |
1 |
|
You could be here …. |
GET BREWING |
Recipes of the Month – Will Walker
Raspberry Cyser
This tastes a lot like champagne after it has aged properly. The raspberry flavor is light but pleasant. When it is young, it has a strong alcohol flavor, but this mellows nicely with age. Just don't drink it too soon.
Specifics
Recipe type: Other
Batch Size: 2 gallons
Starting Gravity: ?
Finishing Gravity: ??
Time in Boil: don't boil!!!!
Primary Fermentation: 1week or until krausen falls
Secondary Fermentation: until clear
Additional Fermentation: may need to be racked a 3rd time to remove sediment
Ingredients:
- 2 gallons apple juice, make sure it has no preservatives
- 4 lbs clover honey
- 1 16 oz can raspberries in heavy syrup (i.e., sugar/corn syrup
- 1 packet of Munton's dry yeast
Procedure:
First of all, don't boil the honey or juice! This drives off the flavor and aroma. Just thoroughly sanitize everything that comes into contact with the ingredients, and make sure your fermentation takes off quickly. I add the raspberries in the primary, but you may get more aroma if they are added to the secondary. I have also tried using Wyeast, but for cider I like the Munton's better since it starts faster. It is a very aggresive yeast, and the fermentation is extremely violent. Bulk prime with 1/2 cup of corn sugar. Let it age 5-6 months in the bottle.