The Brewsletter

Decembeer 2008

 

 

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

www.hrbts.org

 

 

President’s Podium – Jason Kuller

 

  I hope everyone had a terrific Turkey Day, eating too much, drinking just enough and having fun with family and friends.  Thanks to Magnolia Steak for hosting our November meeting, where the air was abuzz with the news of the recent election.  For our great country change is coming as we await the inauguration of Barack Obama and our homebrewing club also has change on the horizon as we elect our officers for the coming year.  While the competition leading up to the Presidential election was fierce, hardly a soul can be found at the debate halls of the HRBTS this election season.  To date we have had no official nominations for any of the positions in the club, I know there was discussion from a few people about stepping up at the last meeting but nobody has emailed me to confirm their intention to run.  It is through new leadership every couple of years that our club continues to grow and change and is able to remain one of the premier homebrew clubs in Hampton Roads. 

 

I would like to give a big THANKS to our officers for the past year who have generously given a little of their time to keep our club great: JP Messier, Vice President; Gus Gustafson, Secretary-Treasurer; Patti Messier, Competition Coordinator and Shana Pribesh, Newsletter Editor.  I also would like to thank Diane Catanzaro for her continued service as our marvelous meeting coordinator and our webmaster Victor Perrotti who continues to keep our website (that the club now owns) better than ever.  With that said it is now the opportunity for you to be a part of HRBTS history and step up to lead our great club. 

 

We are accepting nominations for all leadership positions and nominations will close 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 want 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 is to have a majority of the nominees selected prior to the December meeting.

 

 Finally I just want to thank the club for giving me the opportunity to be president for the last two years and I really look forward to many more years of great homebrew, great friends and great times.

 

A final Cheers - Jason

 

Meeting Location – Diane Catanzaro

 

Bier Garden

December 3rd at 7:30 p.m.

 

Our December meeting is at the beer destination rated 47th in the WORLD on ratebeer.com!

http://www.ratebeer.com/Places/Places-Top50.asp

 

You are wondering if we are flying to NYC? Munich? Brussels? Prague? No, nein, geen, ne. We are simply driving or taking the ferry to Portsmouth Virginia’s amazing Bier Garden!

 

The main dining room is reserved for us at 7 pm. Be sure to pick up a beer menu on the way in and/or visit the bar to get a bird’s eye view of the tap selection when you arrive, then get your groove on by ordering some of their amazing beers and German fare such as bratwurst, knackwurst, weiner schnitzel, leberkaese (German meatloaf), sauerbraten, linsen spatzel, and strammer max. Vegetarian options?  I recommend the vegetarian “special spaetzel” which is spaetzel with sautéed mushrooms and onions and melted cheese….very tasty and it’s like $7 or $8. They have a tasty lentil soup too. They have hamburgers, various sandwiches (reuben, chicken, turkey, veggie burgers, etc.), fried flounder, and a cheese and fruit plate. They also have a potato soup that is really good. It is different than normal potato soup and much better IMHO. Not so potato-ey. They should call it ‘better than potato soup’ but I don’t write the menu. It looks veg-friendly so I won’t mention that there is an oxtail involved in the preparation. Pretend I never told you.

 

Trappists, traditional lambics, saisons….this is a great place to expand your knowledge of beer by trying something different. And, you can always share with your friends (hint-hint)!!!  On tap the Bier Garden currently has some tasty treats like Tripel Karmelit, St Bernardus Abt 12, the Duchesse, Celebrator, Aventinus and Aventinus Eisbock, Schneider Edelweis, Weihenstephan’s St Vitus, Lindemann’s Framboise, and Brooklyn’s Black Chocolate Stout, and more. However, many Belgian beers are actually even better in the bottle, due to bottle conditioning, so be sure to get a copy of the beer menu and/or take a trip to the bar to look at the extensive bottled selection in the large fridge.

 

There are lots of great beers here you can’t get elsewhere in the area, so why not try something you haven’t had before or that you probably can’t get elsewhere? Some suggestions: Dogfish Head’s Palo Santo or Pangea, De Dolle’s Oerbier or Stille Nacht, the Duchesse’s kid sister and little bro Echt Kriek and Vichtenaar, Moinette, Petrus Pale, Hansen’s Gueuze, Cantillon Kriek, Rochefort 10, or Sami Claus are some ideas.

 

We have the main dining room reserved for our club meeting. The Bier Garden requests that you order your beers and food from “your table” so they can keep track of which tab your beer and food goes on.  IF you order beer or food while ‘traveling’ the room, be sure to let the server know specifically which table has your tab!!

 

Yes, we may bring homebrew, and please do! However, of course no commercial beers of any kind can be brought in. In addition to being illegal, it would be very, very silly.

 

The Bier Garden is located at 434 High St. in Olde Town Portsmouth (393-6022), right across from the Commodore Theater. This location is central to all of Hampton Roads and the Peninsula.

 

From VA Beach: Take 264 W to the Downtown Tunnel.  Stay in tunnel right lane and take first exit, at Effingham St.   Stay on Effingham several blocks, then turn right on High St.  The Bier Garden is at the corner of High and Dinwiddle. To park, turn right off High St. at end of block, onto Court St. Take the 2nd right onto County St.  See free parking lot on your right.  There is also on-street parking for the lucky.

 

From the Peninsula: Take the Monitor-Merrimac toward Portsmouth.  Take exit 9 onto Rt 164 toward Portsmouth.  From 164, follow signs to downtown Portsmouth. Turn left onto High St, and it is a few miles up on the left in the 400 block. Parking tips are above.

 

From Norfolk: Take the Downtown Tunnel to Portsmouth and exit onto Effingham Street right after the tunnel.  Follow directions above under ‘Va Beach.’ OR instead take the Midtown Tunnel, once through the tunnel keep straight/left toward Rt 58, once you hit High Street turn left and it is a couple of miles up High Street. See parking tips under ‘VA Beach.’  Or, hop on the ferry at Waterside and get off at High Street, and it’s a short walk to the Bier Garden.

 

From Chesapeake: Pretend you are going to take the Downtown Tunnel to Norfolk, but exit before the tunnel, onto Effingham Street.  Take Effingham toward Old Town Portsmouth, turn right on High Street and look for the 400 block. See parking tips under ‘VA Beach.’

 

 

Competition Corner – Patti Messier

 

This month’s judging was held at the lovely home of Rob Camlin, in nearby Chesapeake.  Once again, we had an abundance of judges!  Thanks for all of the participation!  Our six judges (Tom Byrnes, JP Messier, Mark Johnson, Rob Camlin, Matt Murphy and Doug Boyd) spent the evening sipping fine cinnamon winter warmers.  After the deliberations, the results were as follows: 

First Place, Chris Jones/Diane Catanzaro, good for three HRBTS Cup points; 

Second Place, JP Messier, good for two HRBTS Cup points; 

Third Place, Shawn Iman, good for one HRBTS Cup point.

 

 

So the race is over again and it is time to crown our winners!  Once again our HRBTS Cup champion for 2008 is JP Messier with a total of 40 club points this year!  With 14 points, 2nd place goes to Tom Byrnes.  3rd place goes to Jason Kuller with 11 points.  Congratulations to these fine brewers!

 

It’s great to see that we had 9 different brewers place in competitions this year!  Let’s step it up for next year and dethrone JP!

 

2008 HRBTS CUP STANDINGS (as of November 24)

 Name of Brewer(s)

Total Points Accumulated

 

J. P. Messier

40

Tom Byrnes

14

Jason Kuller

11

Chris Jones/Diane Catanzaro

9

Doug Boyd

6

Greg “Gus” Gustafson

3

Tim Hobbs

2

Mark Johnson

1

Shawn Iman

1

This could easily be you….

…if you get brewing!

 

 

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

 

First Place - CHRISTMAS DUBBEL – C.J. and Diane Cat

 

++++++++++

 

1 # Belgian Cara Munich malt

0.5 # Belgian Biscuit malt

0.25 # Chocolate malt

0.5 # Crushed wheat

0.25 # Oatmeal

 

All the above steeped at 155 F for 30 minutes, then removed.

 

++++++++++

 

7 # Munton and Fison Extra Light dried malt extract

1 # Belgian dark candii sugar

0.25 # Maltodextrin

 

Boiled for 60 minutes

 

++++++++++

 

2 oz Styrian Goldings (4.0 AAU/oz) for 50 minutes

1 tsp Irish moss for 30 minutes

1/2 tsp candied ginger for 25 minutes

1 tsp fresh grated ginger for 17 minutes; some added later, too

1/8 tsp ground Cloves for 15 minutes, some added with only 4 left

¼ tsp Allspice for 15 minutes, some added with only 4 left

¼ tsp Nutmeg for 15 minutes, some added with only 4 left

2 cinnamon sticks (2” each) for 12 minutes

1 cinnamon stick (2” each) for <12 minutes

1 oz Sweet orange peel for 10 minutes

1 bit of fresh ground black pepper for10 minutes

 

++++++++++

 

A variation of a Westmalle Dubbel recipe but we added spices to it; beer was bottled in October 2005, and won First Place in the HRBTS Cinnamon beer category judged in November of 2008; a pretty long shelf life for a homebrew!

 

Second Place – Cinnabon Brown Ale – JP Messier

Recipe Specifics

 

Batch Size (Gal):

5.00

OG:

1.072

SRM:

29.7

IBU:

30.0

Wort Boil Time:

90

 

Grain/Extract/Sugar

 

%

Amount

Name

Origin

Potential

SRM

8.9

1.00 lbs. 

Caramel Pils Malt

Belgium

1.034

2

53.3

6.00 lbs. 

Generic LME - Light

Generic

1.035

7

6.7

0.75 lbs. 

Victory Malt

America

1.034

25

6.7

0.75 lbs. 

Special B Malt

Belgian

1.030

120

6.7

0.75 lbs. 

Crystal 60L

America

1.034

60

4.4

0.50 lbs. 

Chocolate Malt

America

1.029

350

8.9

1.00 lbs. 

Brown Sugar

Generic

1.046

4

4.4

0.50 lbs. 

Biscuit Malt

Great Britain

1.035

35

 

Hops

 

Amount

Name

Form

Alpha

IBU

Boil Time

1.00 oz. 

Cascade

Whole

7.40

29.8

60 min

0.50 oz. 

Cascade

Whole

0.47

0.2

1 min

 

Yeast

White Labs WLP002 English Ale

Notes

 

lactose - 16 oz. at 15 mins.
cinnamon - 1 tbsp each at 60, 30, 1 and in secondary
vanilla bean - 1 bean at SD
lemon - 1 tbsp juice at SD



 

 

Third Place – Cantique del Noel – Shawn Iman

 

8 lbs light LME,

3 lbs amber LME,

3/4 to 1 cup corn sugar (as an alcohol "booster") in the boil, 

1 lb honey malt (steep),

1/2 lb chocolate malt (steep), 

1 oz cascade (60 minute boil),

1 oz cascade (last 30 minutes of boil for bittering).

 

Now for the last fifteen minutes of boil, you will steep:

     2-3 whole cloves, 1 tsp nutmeg, 1 oz bitter orange peel, 2 oz cinnamon.

 

I call this recipe Cantique de Noel (named after one of my favorite Christmas songs). Enjoy and Happy Thanksgiving.

 

 

 

 

Note from the Editor – Shana Pribesh

 

Want to be an officer in social club but have none of the pesky responsibilities?  You could be Newsletter Editor!!  One a month you put together the newsletter from stories sent to you by *other* officers and members.  It’s easy – but time for me to pass on the mantle because I have a two-year old that wants to ‘help’ (aka crash my computer) each month.  If this role interests you, talk to me at the next meeting or email me at editor@hrbts.org.

 

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.