The Brewsletter

August 2008

 

 

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

www.hrbts.org

 

 

The President’s Podium – Jason Kuller

 

Howdy Brewers and Tasters!  I want to give a big thanks to Matt and Heather Murphy for hosting our July meeting in their great back yard complete with swimming pool.  Everyone had a great time and we really appreciate their hospitality!  Now that summer is in full swing, I hope that everyone is making the most out of it and enjoying all of the fun to be had in our neck of the woods and abroad.  From Floyd, Va. (the site of my most recent trip to Floyd Fest where we had a backstage trailer with 200 plus gallons of free homebrew) To Portland, Or. (where CJ and Diane just drank most of the beer in the city) our members our getting out, getting down and making the best of this most exciting time in the world of craft brewing.  While the InBev/AB takeover is huge news in the corporate and industrial brewing world and it is a little sad to see such an American institution taken over by a foreign conglomerate, hopefully it won’t affect the passionate momentum and creativity of the craft brewing scene that we are so lucky to be a part of.  As long as we keep on drinking great homebrew and artfully crafted beer from independent breweries and let the guys in boardrooms worry about the mass produced industrial lager I think we will be just fine.

 

Speaking of drinking great homebrew and craft beer, I can’t think of a better time or place than Saturday August 23rd at the home of Will and Jonna Walker.  This will be the site and date of the Annual HRBTS picnic that we all look forward to each year.  This year’s shindig will feature the awesome hospitality of the Walker’s that we all know so well and include:  outdoor games, a kiddie pool, a row/sail boat, a canoe and a beach nearby.  The club will also be providing grilling essentials and almost definitely the expertise of grillmaster Will keeping it real on the grill.  Club members are encouraged to bring snacks, side dishes, desserts etc. as well as any backyard games or picnic party favors.  The Walker’s have also graciously offered to have any and everyone camp out in the backyard and keep the party going in to the wee hours, so bring your camping gear, musical instruments, campfire songs and ghost stories for a guaranteed good time.  On a final note the club will be awarding 3 pts for 1 keg or equivalent of homebrew that is brought to the picnic for our drinking pleasure so if you get started right now you still have time to brew a picnic beer for all to enjoy (go brew now and finish reading the newsletter later!)

 

Cheers – Jason

 

Editor’s Note:  We cannot sanction putting down the newsletter to brew – but can encourage you to get another tasty homebrewed beverage and read on.

 

Meeting Location – Diane Catanzaro

Wednesday, August 6th at 7 pm

 

Pool Party!!

 

Dog days of summer are here, but amid the humidity, the rising gas prices, and the fleas, HRB&TS has a plan to help you bark less, wag more….just grab your swimsuit and some homebrews and head to the HRBTS’ Aug 6 meeting…. it’s a pool party!!!  We will meet at the Kempsville home of Ron and Jeannine Jones. Yes, we are very fortunate to have another month of sippin’ and swimming at a poolside HRB&TS meeting. We can discuss the club’s picnic plans, debate the merits (?) of lawnmower beers, share brewing tips, ride the big noodle in the pool, and practice our can-openers as well as our bottle-openers.

The meeting will commence at 7:00 pm. The HRB&TS will provide grilling basics for both carnivores and vegetarians, and condiments. Side dishes/munchies are welcomed. Take advantage of the opportunity to take a dip in the pool! Bring or wear your swimsuit and a towel.  Kids welcome….a lifeguard may even be provided after 8 pm!

 

Bring some homebrews or retail beer to share with your fellow club members! And do bring an extra brew to bestow on our hospitable hosts, Ron and Jeannine, as thanks for having us over!

 

 

Competition Corner – Patti Messier

 

This month’s judging was held at Doug and Diane Boyd’s home!  It was a rainy and stormy night but everyone brightened up with the thought of lawnmower beers!   Our dedicated judges (Tom Byrnes, Doug Boyd, and J.P. Messier) traveled in the brutal rain and were pleasantly surprised by the excellent selection of outstanding beers.  They sipped and tasted and adjectives were thrown around, such as bug spray and band-aids.  After the deliberations, the results were as follows: 

 

First Place, JP Messier with his Kolsch, good for three HRBTS Cup points;  

Second Place (tie), JP Messier with his Bavarian Pilsner and Tom Byrnes with his Blonde Ale, good for two HRBTS Cup points each; 

 

So the race has continued….we are 2/3 of the way there!!  Eight down and four to go!  Keep brewing … it’s still anyone’s cup!!!    JP can still be beat….

 

Please note that the August judging will be held on August 27, which is the fourth Wednesday of the month!  Location will follow!

 

 

2008 HRBTS CUP STANDINGS (as of July 23)

 Name of Brewer(s)

Total Points Accumulated

 

J. P. Messier

25

Tom Byrnes

11

Jason Kuller

7

Doug Boyd

3

Chris Jones/Diane Catanzaro

3

Tim Hobbs

2

This could easily be you….

…if you get brewing!

 

 

 

2008 HRB&TS CUP BREWING SCHEDULE

Month

Style

Category/Sub

AHA Event - Deadline

January

(Dec 19 )

 

Stout

 

13A, B, C

 

---

February

(Jan 23)

Strong Ale

Russian Imperial Stout

 

19, 13F

 

---

March

(Feb 20)

 

Porter

 

12

Yes

03/21/2008

April

(Mar 19)

 

Extract

 

All

Yes

~April 2008

May

(Apr 23)

Clone – St. Georges Brewing

India Pale Ale (IPA)

 

14

 

---

June

(May 21)

 

Weizen/Weissbier

 

15A

 

---

July

(June 18)

 

Mead

 

24, 25, 26

Yes

07/25/2008

August

(July 23)

 

Lawnmower Beer

 

2, 6B, 6C

 

---

September

(TBD)

 

Imperial Anything

 

All

Yes

~September 2008

October

(Sept 17)

 

Dopplebock

 

5C

 

---

November

(Oct 22)

 

Extra Special/Strong Bitter

 

8C

 

---

December

(Nov 19)

Christmas/Winter Specialty Spiced –

Must Use Cinnamon

 

21B

 

---

2009 HRB&TS CUP BREWING SCHEDULE

Month

Style

Category/Sub

AHA Event - Deadline

January

(Dec 17)

 

Oatmeal Stout

 

13C

 

---

February

(Jan 21)

 

Scottish 60, 70, 80

 

9A, B, C

 

---

March

(Feb 18)

 

Belgian Blonde

 

18A

 

---

 

Quit throwing away your used yeast vials! – Patti Messier

 

Hey, all you brewers out there!  We need you to save your used White Lab Yeast vials HRB&TS will begin collecting your empty vials and redeeming them with White Labs to earn some great prizes for our raffles.  JP Messier will be collecting them at the monthly meetings as well as the judgings.  So gather those empty vials and hand them off to JP at the next meeting!

 

Beer Recipes

 

Kolsch – JP Messier, 1st Place Lawnmower Beer

Recipe Specifics

 

Batch Size (Gal):

5.00

Wort Size (Gal):

5.00

Anticipated OG:

1.047

Plato:

11.66

Anticipated SRM:

6.3

    

  

Anticipated IBU:

37.2

  

  

Wort Boil Time:

60

 Minutes

  

 

Grain/Extract/Sugar

 

%

Amount

Name

Origin

Potential

SRM

71.4

5.00 lbs. 

Pilsner LME

Generic

1.035

7

7.1

0.50 lbs. 

Wildflower Honey

Generic

1.035

0

10.7

0.75 lbs. 

White Wheat

Belgium

1.040

3

7.1

0.50 lbs. 

CaraPils Malt

France

1.035

10

3.6

0.25 lbs. 

Vienna Malt

America

1.035

4

 

Hops

 

Amount

Name

Form

Alpha

IBU

Boil Time

1.00 oz. 

Saaz

Pellet

5.00

24.6

60 min

1.00 oz. 

Saaz

Pellet

5.00

12.6

30 min

 

Yeast

White Labs WLP029 German Ale/Kolsch, 1000 ml Yeast Starter

Primary Fermentation – 52 degrees

Laagering – 36 degrees

 

 

Last Hookah Australian Blonde – Tom Byrnes, 2nd Place Tie Lawnmower Beer

A ProMash Recipe Report

BJCP Style and Style Guidelines

06-B Light Hybrid Beer, Blonde Ale

Min OG:

1.038

Max OG:

1.054

  

Min IBU:

15

Max IBU:

28

  

Min Clr:

2

Max Clr:

5

 Color in SRM, Lovibond

 

Recipe Specifics

 

Batch Size (Gal):

5.00

Wort Size (Gal):

5.00

Total Grain (Lbs):

13.50

  

  

Anticipated OG:

1.078

Plato:

18.8

Anticipated SRM:

6.3

    

  

Anticipated IBU:

44.6

  

  

Brewhouse Efficiency:

75

 %

  

Wort Boil Time:

60

 Minutes

  

 

Pre-Boil Amounts

 

Evaporation Rate:

15.00

 Percent Per Hour

  

Pre-Boil Wort Size:

5.88

 Gal

  

Pre-Boil Gravity:

1.066

 SG

16.2 Plato

 

Grain/Extract/Sugar

 

%

Amount

Name

Origin

Potential

SRM

74.1

10.00 lbs. 

Pilsener

Belgium

1.037

2

7.4

1.00 lbs. 

Cara-Pils Dextrine Malt

  

1.033

2

7.4

1.00 lbs. 

Corn Sugar

  

1.047

0

7.4

1.00 lbs. 

Crystal 20L

America

1.035

20

3.7

0.50 lbs. 

Wheat Malt

America

1.038

2


Potential represented as SG per pound per gallon.

Hops

 

Amount

Name

Form

Alpha

IBU

Boil Time

1.00 oz. 

Pride of Ringwood

Whole

10.00

39.3

60 min

0.50 oz. 

Pride of Ringwood

Whole

10.00

5.2

15 min

0.25 oz. 

Pride of Ringwood

Whole

10.00

0.0

0 min

 

Yeast

White Labs WLP008 East Coast/Alt Ale Yeast

Mash Schedule

 

Mash Type:

Single Step

  

Grain Lbs:

12.50

  

Water Qts:

12.50

Before Additional Infusions

Water Gal:

3.13

Before Additional Infusions

Qts Water Per Lbs Grain:

1.00

Before Additional Infusions

 

Rest

Temp

Time

Saccharification Rest:

150

90 Min

Mash-out Rest:

170

10 Min

Sparge:

169

40 Min


Total Mash Volume Gal: 4.13 - Dough-In Infusion Only
All temperature measurements are degrees Fahrenheit.

Notes

 

Last beer brewed at Tim Hobbs' house. Thanks Tim for all those brewing sessions.

 

Awards

 

2nd place HRBTS

 

 

Bohemian Pilsner – JP Messier, 2nd Place Tie – Lawnmower Beer

Recipe Specifics

 

Batch Size (Gal):

5.00

Wort Size (Gal):

5.00

Anticipated OG:

1.054

Plato:

13.36

Anticipated SRM:

8.3

    

  

Anticipated IBU:

43.5

  

  

Wort Boil Time:

60

 Minutes

  

 

Grain/Extract/Sugar

 

%

Amount

Name

Origin

Potential

SRM

87.5

7.00 lbs. 

Pilsner LME

Generic

1.035

7

3.1

0.25 lbs. 

Melanoidin Malt

German

1.033

35

6.3

0.50 lbs. 

Carapils Malt

Belgium

1.034

2

3.1

0.25 lbs. 

Aromatic Malt

Belgium

1.036

25

 

Hops

 

Amount

Name

Form

Alpha

IBU

Boil Time

1.00 oz. 

Saaz

Pellet

4.30

20.7

60 min

1.00 oz. 

Saaz

Pellet

4.30

15.8

40 min

1.00 oz. 

Saaz

Pellet

4.30

7.0

20 min

1.00 oz. 

Saaz

Plug

4.30

0.0

0 min

 

Yeast

White Labs WLP802 Czech Budejovice Lager

Primary Fermentation – 52 degrees

Laagering/Dry Hop – 1 oz. Saaz Plug, at 36 degrees

 

Highlight on Member – Tom Byrnes

 

Chief Gus Retires

 

On July 25, 2008 HRB&TS treasurer, Gus Gustafson, retired from the Navy marking the end of a distinguished 28 year career.  The ceremony was held aboard the Wisconsin and combined military tradition with a touching tribute to his family. Several HRBTS members were in attendance.  Gus, we are all grateful for your services and appreciate the sacrifices that you have made on our behalf.  May your “Fair Winds and Following Seas”, bring you only the finest malt barley, hops and craft brews.   Judging from all that rum aboard the USS Constitution on her maiden voyage, you have a lot of brewing to do.  We look forward to  those future brewing sessions as JP needs the competition.     Tom

 

 

 

Brew News – George Will

 

Beer: Is There Anything It Can't Do?

WASHINGTON -- Perhaps like many sensible citizens, you read Investor's Business Daily for its sturdy common sense in defending free markets and other rational arrangements. If so, you too may have been startled recently by an astonishing statement on that newspaper's front page. It was in a report on the intention of the world's second-largest brewer, Belgium's InBev, to buy control of the third-largest, Anheuser-Busch, for $46.3 billion. The story asserted: "The (alcoholic beverage) industry's continued growth, however slight, has been a surprise to those who figured that when the economy turned south, consumers would cut back on nonessential items like beer. ... "

"Non what"? Do not try to peddle that proposition in the bleachers or at the beaches in July. It is closer to the truth to say: No beer, no civilization.

The development of civilization depended on urbanization, which depended on beer. To understand why, consult Steven Johnson's marvelous 2006 book "The Ghost Map: The Story of London's Most Terrifying Epidemic -- and How It Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World." It is a great scientific detective story about how a horrific cholera outbreak was traced to a particular neighborhood pump for drinking water. And Johnson begins a mind-opening excursion into a related topic this way:

"The search for unpolluted drinking water is as old as civilization itself. As soon as there were mass human settlements, waterborne diseases like dysentery became a crucial population bottleneck. For much of human history, the solution to this chronic public-health issue was not purifying the water supply. The solution was to drink alcohol."

Often the most pure fluid available was alcohol -- in beer and, later, wine -- which has antibacterial properties. Sure, alcohol has its hazards, but as Johnson breezily observes, "Dying of cirrhosis of the liver in your forties was better than dying of dysentery in your twenties." Besides, alcohol, although it is a poison, and an addictive one, became, especially in beer, a driver of a species-strengthening selection process.

Johnson notes that historians interested in genetics believe that the roughly simultaneous emergence of urban living and the manufacturing of alcohol set the stage for a survival-of-the-fittest sorting-out among the people who abandoned the hunter-gatherer lifestyle and, literally and figuratively speaking, went to town.

To avoid dangerous water, people had to drink large quantities of, say, beer. But to digest that beer, individuals needed a genetic advantage that not everyone had -- what Johnson describes as the body's ability to respond to the intake of alcohol by increasing the production of particular enzymes called alcohol dehydrogenases. This ability is controlled by certain genes on chromosome four in human DNA, genes not evenly distributed to everyone. Those who lacked this trait could not, as the saying is, "hold their liquor." So, many died early and childless, either of alcohol's toxicity or from waterborne diseases.

The gene pools of human settlements became progressively dominated by the survivors -- by those genetically disposed to, well, drink beer. "Most of the world's population today," Johnson writes, "is made up of descendants of those early beer drinkers, and we have largely inherited their genetic tolerance for alcohol."

Johnson suggests, not unreasonably, that this explains why certain of the world's population groups, such as Native Americans and Australian Aborigines, have had disproportionately high levels of alcoholism: These groups never endured the cruel culling of the genetically unfortunate that town dwellers endured. If so, the high alcoholism rates among Native Americans are not, or at least not entirely, ascribable to the humiliations and deprivations of the reservation system. Rather, the explanation is that not enough of their ancestors lived in towns.

But that is a potential stew of racial or ethnic sensitivities that we need not stir in this correction of Investor's Business Daily. Suffice it to say that the good news is really good: Beer is a health food. And you do not need to buy it from those wan, unhealthy-looking people who, peering disapprovingly at you through rimless Trotsky-style spectacles, seem to run all the health food stores.

So let there be no more loose talk -- especially not now, with summer arriving -- about beer not being essential. Benjamin Franklin was, as usual, on to something when he said, "Beer is living proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy." Or, less judgmentally, and for secular people who favor a wall of separation between church and tavern, beer is evidence that nature wants us to be.

georgewill@washpost.com

Copyright 2008, Washington Post Writers Group

 

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