Green Bay Rackers--January '00 Newsletter

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Strange Brew Review

The Newsletter of the Green Bay Rackers - - January 2000

Time to Pay Club Dues!

It is once again time to pay your club dues. Dues remain at $20.00 for the entire year and you get discounts of 5% at Life Tools and 10% at both Homebrew Market in Appleton and at Lakeshore Hobby Homebrew in Kewaunee. Membership also gets you a reduced price on your first entry in the club's contest.

Please send your club dues to Mike, at 1021 Juneau St., Kewaunee, WI 54216, not to John. Membership cards will be printed up by Mike and mailed out as they come in. Remember, you will need your card to get your discounts at the homebrew stores.

Club Meeting

The next club meeting will be held at the Egan Brewing Company on Saturday, February 12th - which is the second Saturday, rather than the first Saturday of February. The change has been made necessary by fact that Egan's is having their beer dinner on February 5th. Hope you'll attend!

Egan's to Host Multi-Club Meeting

Richard Steuven has announced that he would like to host a regional multi-club meeting. He is inviting the Chilton brewing club, the Rackers, the SOBs, and the Oconto County Brewing Club to meet at Egan's on Saturday, March 4th. Richard hopes that this might become an annual event.

This grew out of the fact that the Chilton club now has rotating hosts for their club meetings, and no longer formally elects officers. He feels that Egan's hosting their next meeting will provide a great opportunity for all of the clubs to get together and discuss some possible joint projects.

Richard and I talked about the possibility of a beer festival, possibly to be held in July at the Hilton Hotel. We also discussed the possibility of a "beer camp" in August or September out at Slab City Brewing Company - we had already talked with Bill at Slab City about the possibility of doing this.

This would mean that the Rackers would be having two business meetings in a row. We could potentially forego the April meeting, which would be the month that we will now be hosting the brewing contest anyway. Look for some discussion on this at the February meeting.

Richard will be contacting the other brewing clubs about his meeting.

Meetings & Events

Club Meeting
Saturday, February 12th
Egan Brewing Company

Club Brew
Tuesday, March 7th
Musician's Union Hall
Brewmaster: TBA

Multi-club Regional Meeting
Saturday, March 4th
Egan Brewing Company

Blessing of the Bock
March 19th ?
Milwaukee

Madison Big/Huge Competition
March 26th ?

Goose Island Real Ale Festival
March 25-26th
Chicago, IL

AHA National Competition
1st Round entries due
April 5th - 14th

Club Homebrew Competition
Friday, April 28th Staff training) &
Saturday, April 29th
Egan Brewing Company
De Pere, WI

Editorial - Time for a new meeting place!

I think its time that the Green Bay Rackers choose a new permanent meeting place. This club has had a stable membership for a long period of time, and we have had a significant increase in meeting attendance over the past couple of years. When it was first formed, there were no brewpubs in the area and since some of the members had ties to the Musician's Union hall - the selection of the hall as a meeting place was a natural and easy fit. The Musician's Union has been very good to us and the charges for use of the hall have been extremely reasonable. My call for a change in our regular meeting place has nothing to do with the Musician's Union or the facility. I am grateful to them for the use of the facility we have had over the years. But in keeping with the spirit of the hobby and the presence of brewpubs, I feel that it is appropriate for us to consider making one of the brewpubs in Green Bay our permanent meeting place.

I propose that the Rackers consider making the Egan Brewing Company our routine meeting place and the "Home of the Green Bay Rackers". Egan's restaurant manager and brewer have been extremely gracious to us. While past management charged us $25 for each use of the room, Tim & Richard have allowed us free use of the room whenever we have wanted it. Further, they have expressed their desire to have the Rackers use their facilities for any other functions we want, such as the brewing contest. Tim has constantly reminded me that I am to feel free to contact him regarding sponsorship of any events we wish to hold. I feel that such support of our club deserves our attention and business.

Legend's does not have a private meeting room. That makes their facility less than desirable for our club meetings. In terms of the premises-produced beverages at Legend's, I don't think they enhance the aesthetic portion of our hobby that is so important to us.

While Titletown does have a private meeting room, they charge us for use of it. The upstairs area at Titletown is not private enough for our club meetings, and the fact that we have been chased out of that area every year in the past two years RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF OUR HOMEBREW CONTEST, makes it clear to me that our efforts and presence are little more than an inconvenience for some of the management at Titletown.

The Green Bay Brewing Company's new facility does also have possibilities as a meeting house, but currently lacks the food availability that we desire. I don't see the choosing of a permanent home for the club as precluding our going to the other brewpubs for other purposes or for the occasional change in venue for a meeting place. But, I feel our choosing a permanent home is in our best interest and will allow us a platform to advertise our projects and be visible to the beer appreciating community. I am going to ask that we discuss this on the agenda of the first business meeting of the year in February. I hope that you, my fellow members, will consider this proposal favorably.

Editorial opinions published in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the Green Bay Rackers Club.

Technical Brewing

I have received several copies of catalog from Beer & Wine Books, a division of Engineering Press out of Austin, TX. They sent me about 13 copies of their 1999 catalog listing all of their titles and short synopses of each publication. Any member who would like one can contact me. These are strictly on a first-come, first-served basis. From my brief review, the prices appear comparable to other sources of these books. A listing on their titles can also be found on their website at www.beerandwinebook.com.

Siebel Institute It is with sadness that I announce that the Siebel Institute has closed as of mid-January and is no longer offering brewing courses.

New Malting Company I just received a letter from a new malting company in Arizona called the Arizona Micro Malting Company. They are producing a single malt product from Arizona- produced barley. The malt is a two-row Harrington pale malt. They are billing this malt as having "many of the attributes of a well modified floor malted British barley". They add no chemicals or additives, strictly barley and water in the malting process and are calling it a "hand-crafted malt". They provide an individual lot analysis sheet with each shipment of malt.

The company is offering the malt in 50 lb. bags at a cost of $2.20 per pound, with a $0.50 discount per pound to any brew club on orders of fifty pounds or more. This makes the cost of a fifty pound bag about $85.00 plus shipping & handling. Heck of an expensive bag of malt in my opinion!

UC Davis Catalog I have received the UC Davis catalog for 2000-2001 Master Brewer Program. See me if you want to look it over.

Lab Equipment Needed Richard Steuven is trying to set up a lab at Egan's. I have an incubator I am donating to him, but he has other equipment and needs to get the entire lab set up. I have a list of stuff he gave me that he would like and I told him that I'd put out the word that if anyone has any old lab stuff that you are not using, you may wish to donate them to a good cause. I'm hoping that once he gets his lab set up, we might be able to start a yeast bank kept at Egans, so if you can help out, it would be appreciated!

Recipies

This ale recipe is an adaptation of a recipe I got from Sterling Blake in North Quincy, MA. It is a nice light ale in the Belgian style. Though a bit light-bodied for the style, I like the blend of the spices combined with the light body as a summer beer. I have taken the liberty of changing the yeast he originally brewed with, since I prefer liquid yeast cultures to dry yeast. But, try this one out!

Ingredients for 5 gallons:

6.6 lbs. Northwestern Light Extract
1 lb. of orange blossom honey
1-1/2 oz. crushed coriander seed
1 oz. of Hallertau hops
1/4 tsp. of Irish moss
Zest of two Mandarin oranges

Add malt and honey to the water and begin the boil. All 1/2 oz. of the hops at the start of the boil. Add 3/4 oz. of coriander seed after 15 minutes. At 45 minutes into the boil, add 1/4 oz. of hops. Add the rest of the coriander and the orange peels at 55 minutes into the boil. Add the last of the hops at knock out.

Boil Time: 60 minutes

Yeast: any liquid Belgian Ale yeast

OG: 1.053
FG: 1.015

Ferment at room temperature for 4 days, then rack to the secondary fermenter and keep at room temperature until fermentation is completed.

While you may wish to carbonate artificially, I like to bottle condition. Since Belgian ales are typically a little higher conditioned that other ales, I use about 1-1/2 cups of light, dry malt extract dissolved in about a quart of warm water. I also tend to bottle this beer in wine bottles with champagne corks and wire cages - more for effect than out of necessity - but it really adds to the visual appeal. I serve this beer in wine glasses, small snifters, or thistle glasses. This particular recipe won a blue ribbon at the Wisconsin State Fair back in 1995. I don't brew it as often as I should, and each time I do I chastise myself for not brewing it more often. Give it a try!

Club Competition

It is not too early to start thinking of the club contest and what beers you want to get planning on for this year's competition. There will be significant changes in this year's contest structure.

New Categories We will be using the BJCP guidelines, since these are the only guidelines left. The AHA adopted the BJCP guidelines for all sanctioned competitions as of 1/1/2000. These will be published with the competition rules, but I suggest you check them out at the AHA or BJCP websites.

New Award Structure There will not be any Pale, Amber, or Dark categories any more. We will have 7 groups of beers and will be awarding a first, second, and third place beer in each of 7 categories:

American Style Ale/Lager
German Pale Ales/Lagers
Belgian/French Ales
German Amber/Dark Beer
British Pale/Brown Ales
Brit/Scot Dark & Strongs
Wierd Beers

We will be awarding ribbons to the place winners in each category.

The 21 beers who place in each category will advance to a second flight where they will undergo a second round of tasting and scoring on a modified scale. The top seven beers will advance into the Best of Show round. In the best of show, a BOS, Second BOS, and Third BOS will be chosen. The BOS will receive either a tap handle trophy, the second and third place beers will receive medals. The People's choice award will consist of only the 21 beers which place in the first flight of competition. People's choice award will consist of a certificate.

New Place We will be hosting the competition at Egan Brewing Company in De Pere.

New Time Frame Beers will be due at the Egan Brewing Company on FRIDAY night, instead of Saturday morning. The only exception will be judges who choose to enter the competition and will not be arriving until they judge on Saturday. This will allow us to get the beers registered and sorted early, start the judging earlier, and allow more time for the judging.

New Organization I will need a more formal organization to assist with the contest this year, since I really want to publicize the heck out of it and make it a more efficient operation. To do this, we will need about 12 people to make the contest work properly. I will be looking for people to serve in the following roles:

Supply Coordinator - 1
Advertising Director - 1
Registrar/Computer - 1
Assistant Registrars - 2
Chief Steward - 1
Stewards - 7

I hope to have volunteers for these positions and we will be meeting a couple of times prior to the competition to get things organized. Stewards will be needed during the competition itself.

New Name With the change in location, I'd like to consider a change in the name as well. Not that TITLETOWN OPEN is inappropriate for a Green Bay Competition - but I'd welcome a new name for the contest that reflects our club. How about the RACK OFF 2000? (Ed. note: Like Hell)

Contests & Festivals

Chicago Beer Society's
REAL ALE FEST
March 25/26
Goose Island Brewing
Chicago, IL
$70.00 for one night's lodging and bus travel- contact Devon Tours in Appleton by March 1st
CONTEST:
Entrants to provide 3 gallons of "real ale", unfiltered and carbonated by secondary fermentation in the serving container. Contact Mike Conard for contest details.

N.E.W. Beer Festival
Saturday, April 1st
Monarch Gardens
Appleton, WI
$18.00 Advance
$22.00 at the door
Contact Homebrew Market
(800) 261-BEER or HBMarket3@aol.com for tickets (MC/Visa)

2000 BOSS Challenge
Homebrew Contest
AHA Sanctioned Contest
Saturday, April 15
Blue Island, IL
Entries accepted 3/30-4/13
JSadow1@email.msn.com for questions & info

6th Annual
GREEN BAY RACKERS HOMEBREW COMPETITION
Saturday, April 29th
(tentative date)
Entries due on 4/28/2000
Egan Brewing Company
De Pere, WI

Screaming Corny Keg Deal

See this page for all the details.