The Brewsletter

November 2006

The Official Newsletter of the Hampton Roads Brewing & Tasting Society (HRB & TS)

www.hrbts.org

The President’s Podium – Tom Byrnes

This month, I am pleased to report that we have accomplished the changes described in a letter sent to you in September. The incorporation paperwork is in the mail and a waiver form will be debuted in January when members renew their dues. These changes, along with raising awareness of personal responsibility, are very positive for the club.

Last month’s meeting was the world famous Oktoberfest meeting at Will and Jonna’s, which lived up to its reputation. It featured all of the traditional German foods, along with a variety of homebrewed and commercial beers. Our silent auction was a big hit, due mainly to the wide variety of items donated. Thanks to Will and Jonna for their hospitality, making this meeting special in the hearts of our members. Also, thanks to Rob/Jodi whose efforts made our silent auction very successful. Finally, thanks to all of the club members who supported this auction, either by donating or buying merchandise.

This month starts the 2007 officers’ election season. We will open nominations at the November meeting and close them just prior to the vote in December. Our elected offices include: President, Vice President, Treasurer, Newsletter Editor, and Competition Coordinator. Our Meeting Coordinator position is appointed by the president but also has a voice on the board. I wanted to take this opportunity to encourage all members to consider running for office. It is through new faces and ideas that our club will continue to grow and evolve. All nominations can be emailed to me at president@hrbts.org. Our goal would be to have a majority of the nominees selected prior to the December meeting.

November brings a wide variety of beer related activities. First, November 4^th is Teach-A-Friend-To-Homebrew Day, sponsored. by the AHA. Each year on the first Saturday in November, homebrewers around the world are encouraged to invite non-brewing and brewing friends and family to celebrate Teach a Friend to Homebrew Day and brew a batch of beer together.

Also that same day, a unique event is planned that has me very excited: The Newport News’ Archaeology program’s first annual Ales For Archaeology beer tasting, to be held at Endview Plantation. This is a new event and the only one like it on the Peninsula. Newport News’ Archaeology program has partnered with the St. George Brewing Company from Hampton to host an informative, fun, and festive event on November 4, 2006. The breweries scheduled to attend at press time include: Clay Pipe Brewing Co, Dogfish Head Brewery, Green Flash Brewing Co, Harpoon Brewery, Humboldt Brewing Co, New River Brewing Co, Old Dominion Brewing Co, St. George Brewing Co, Thirsty Dog Brewing and Williamsburg Ale Works. Each brewery will be serving two styles of brews for tasting. The one-price event ticket will allow the bearer six individual tastings, a commemorative glass, a pit cooked barbeque meal with all the fixings, archaeology displays, living history demonstrations, music by Special Ed and the Shortbus as well as other various vendors. Sodas will be available for designated drivers as well as non-drinkers, and additional tasting tickets can be purchased for $1 each. The event runs from 11am to 4pm-- the cost for a tasting ticket is $22 in advance and $25 at the door and the non-tasting ticket is $17. The Endview Plantation historic house will be open for tours at a reduced rate during the event as well.

Finally Bill Berry and BARF will be sponsoring a Richmond Pub crawl on Nov 11th. They have a 53 Passenger tour bus (with restroom!) that will depart the Indian River park-n-ride at 3PM on the 11th. The plan is to have the bus 'shuttle' between Legend Brewery, Richbrau Pub, and Capital Ale House - so you can enjoy them all, or stay at your favorite. The bus will pick us up (Last Call) at 11PM, and return to the Park-n-ride aound1AM. Seats will be $25.00 each and there will be a '1st annual Pub Crawl' tee shirt included. Contact Bill at wmb.exe@gmail.com to check availability, make a reservation and arrange a payment. There will be 3 homebrew clubs participating in this event so don’t delay.

Today I saw a new beer label on the shelves of Bon Vivant Market, so I used our 10% club discount to purchase a few bottles. It was a new beer from The Williamsburg Aleworks, our newest microbrewery, run by one of our members and proprietor of HombrewUSA, Mike Pensinger. They have his Tavern Ale, which is described as robust brown ale; the Chesapeake Pale and the Washington Porter. For collectors, his Tavern Ale six-pack holders have the words “inaugural beer” stamped right on the side. Bottle artwork is very impressive. Mike at Bon Vivant tells me that the first batch of the Tavern Ale has a very high gravity. So be sure to check out these beers and their website www.williamsburgaleworks.com. Once they get settled in, our officers will contact the brewery to arrange for a Club visit. Best of luck , Mike, it is good to see you back in the brewing saddle again!!

Looking forward to seeing you at the November meeting and hopefully at one of these beer events. Tom

November Meeting Location – Diane Catanzaro

On November 1^st, the HRB&TS will meet at the Gordon Biersch Brewery Restaurant in Virginia Beach’s Town Center.

Come early (around 7 pm) and join fellow club members as we work our way through the German lagers for which Gordon Biersch is known. Sip the heavenly hefeweizen, marvelous marzen, salubrious schwarzbier, or another of the six brewed-on-premises beer. The beers are well crafted by HRB&TS charter member Allen Young, and every beer is dead-on true to style. Brewed, no lie, with magical yeast from the Wein-freakin-stephan Institute, along with classic German malts and noble Hallertau hops. And then, there’s spundig, a German phrase that describes the process by which their beers are naturally carbonated through the gas produced during fermentation, not force carbonated with carbon dioxide. This natural spundig-icity results in fine bubbles that linger longer in your beer. These beers travel directly from the lagering vessel to the bar taps, without seeing the light of day or getting exposed to air. If this beer was any fresher, we’d have to take out a restraining order!

Eating ahead of time would definitely be a mistake. Save your appetite and join us around 7 in the private dining area, because the food here is really good and there are lots of tasty choices. The garlic fries are a signature dish. The Brewer’s Feast has a bunch of cool appetizer thingys like calamari and tex-mex egg rolls . Salads of many kinds, including hummus-goat cheese and gorgonzola-pear salads, grace the menu. Lemon-ginger crusted salmon. Cashew-chicken stir-fry. Creative pizzas. From finger-food-appetizers to full entrees, the food is well-prepared and attractively served, and an excellent value.

So, see you on Wednesday! Meeting starts at 7:30. Gordon Biersch is 4561 Virginia Beach Blvd. Virginia Beach, VA 23462, phone: 757-490-2739. http://www.gordonbiersch.com/restaurants/index.php?pg=location&sub=loc&location_id=29

Directions from everywhere: Take I-264 to the Independence Blvd - Pembroke exit in Virginia Beach. Navigate Independence Blvd for about 1/2 mile, then turn right at the big intersection onto Virginia Beach Blvd. Down a block or two, when you see Gordon Biersch on the corner, if you turn right onto that very street (and into the Town Center complex) there are ample parking lots and garages as well as on street parking.

Competition Corner, August 2006 – “C.J.” Jones

We had our Club Thanksgiving beer judging on October 18 at Tom and Kate Byrnes home in OV. This contest was one of the more interesting contests that we scheduled for the year, because it was really a wide open category, limited only by one’s imagination. If your beer was thematically tied in with Thanksgiving, then it was a legit entry.

And we had nine of them, which was an unexpectedly high turnout. Beer made with hazelnut, pumpkin and pumpkin pie spices, ales crammed with cranberries, there was a little bit of everything for us to try and then evaluate.

To digress for a moment, you may think these judging sessions are just about sipping beers, to which I say, “Nay”, these meetings are filled with intellectual discourse. For instance, intellectual discourse #1, was “Why is the sink full of olives?”, which got us as a group into a discourse about fruit, bathroom fixtures, gregarious neighbors, and the probable fat content of a G & T – do you get more calories from the olives or from the gin?

By far, the most cerebral discussion was one about the early onset of puberty among some children being triggered by the high hormone level of commercially produced chickens; chances are, the U.S. Congress feeds pages a lot of chicken. That, in turn, lead to a discussion about asbestos being placed in chicken feed, and the possible uptake of that mineral into the meat that you eat. There were those present that insisted that a calcium/magnesium silicate mineral was bioaccumulated in the breast of yonder chicken, but I, Biology Major, ODU, Class of ’76, shot that down with one irrefutable fact – if there’s asbestos in a chicken breast, then why can I burn it in the oven? Aha! So, I encourage you to come to judging sessions, and be up on your current events when you arrive.

Back to the judging story. We had four folks step up to the plate and test-drive the nine entries: Tom Byrnes; Jason Kuller; J. P. Messier; and Will Walker. They sat down, pencils in hand, and got to sipping.

When the totals were tallied, here’s how things stood:

First Place, Brian Edgar with his Cranberry Frenzy, good for three HRBTS Cup points;

Second Place, C.J. and Diane Catanzaro, with a Pumpkin Saison, good for two HRBTS Cup points; and

Third Place, Jason Kuller, with a Cranberry Bitter, earning him one HRBTS Cup point.

The current HRBTS Cup standings are in the table, following this text. The year’s competition winner is going to be one of three folks, with one contest to be judged, the Belgian beer contest in November. You have to admit, it is pretty interesting when things come down to the wire.

By the way, it isn’t to late to get cracking on next year’s competition. Although the year’s contest beers haven’t been completely selected (see the schedule; two of the twelve are scheduled already), you know we’ll have a pale ale contest, a wheat beer contest, a mead session, that sort of thing. So get brewing this winter, and you’ll be a step ahead of everyone else come 2007.

2006 HRB & TS CUP STANDINGS (as of 26 October 2006)

Name of Brewer(s)	Total Points Accumulated
Chris Jones and Diane Catanzaro	21
J. P. Messier	18
Jason Kuller	15
Brian Edgar	12
Victor Perotti	11
Doug Boyd	7
Tom Byrnes	7
Curt Aasen and Ron Jones	6
OVBC	4
Phil Swanson	4
Mike and Melissa Pensinger	4
Richard Pidgeon	3
Tim Hobbs	1
Bill Berry	1
This could easily be you ….	…. if you get brewing

2006 HRB & TS Cup Competition Schedule

Cut this out and tape it to your refrigerator along with those pictures drawn by your children!

Month (2006 unless stated otherwise)	Beer style name (and 2004 BJCP beer style category number)	Beer judging date ; usually two weeks before Club meeting)	Winner goes to an AHA Club Only Contest?
July	Meads (24, 25, 26)	21 June 2006	Yes
August	Stouts (13)	19 July 2006	Yes
September	Fruit beers (20)	23 August 2006
October	Octoberfest (3B)	20 September 2006
November	Thanksgiving Ales (an ingredient is associated with the Thanksgiving holiday) (23)	18 October 2006
December	Belgian beers (16, 17B-F, 18)	15 November 2006
January 2007	Holiday Season beers (21B)	20 December 2006
February 2007	Barleywines (19B & C)	24 January 2007
March 2007	To Be Determined (TBD)	21 February 2007

About the HRB & TS

The Hampton Roads Brewing and Tasting Society is dedicated to promoting the enjoyment of home brewing. The annual dues are $20 per individual and $25 per family. Members are encouraged to support the reasonable enjoyment of beer and observe the laws of the Commonwealth of Virginia, the Federal government, and the Golden Rule. Persons attending HRB & TS meetings and events are solely liable for actions attendant to their participation. HRB & TS maintains a NO SMOKING policy during all meetings so that members may better enjoy fine beers. Smoking is permitted in meetings held in restaurants in the facility’s designated smoking areas.

Visit the HRB & TS online at www.hrbts.org.