If you want it done right, you have to brew it yourself!

Sorry about the delay in updating! Between vacation, a convention, and some other "unforeseen issues" I haven't had much time to update. It seems like things are back to (ab)normal now though.

John Blohm emailed me with word that he needs to sell a 14.4 cubic foot Frigidaire chest freezer with a Johnson Control temperature control unit. Both are under two years old and in excellent condition. He would like to get $200 for them. If you are interested zing John an email.

Steve Olson sent a couple messages (a long time ago, sorry Steve!) with news that his quest for total world beer domination continues unabated. He took three firsts and a second at the 2000 Land of the Muddy Waters Homebrew Competition and first, second, and third at the BUZZ Boneyard Brew-Off. Now, Steve, about that Imperial Stout . . .

Please note that the meeting time for the July club brew is the second Tuesday of the month instead of the usual first. The reason for this is that the first Tuesday is the Fourth of July. Thanks to Chuck Golueke for volunteering to be our brewmaster!

Yours truly will be on vacation from tomorrow until the 12th. Try not to mess up the joint while I'm gone . . .

Richard "gak" Stueven sent along the latest installment of the Egan Brewing News. Better hurry over if you want any of his Tripel. There's only 14.25 barrels left! I also assume that Gallagher's pizza buffet special is NOT $595.

See you at Egan tomorrow!

Egan brewmaster Richard "gak" Stueven sent along this plea:

WANTED: a volunteer or two to help with our bottling run this Saturday, June 3, starting around 11:00am. Successful applicants will receive free beer and lunch as compensation.

Give me a call on [email the webmaster for the number] if you can help! Thanks . . .

And after your bottling session and a sumptuous repast, stick around for the club meeting!

I made a starter of my Brettanomyces culture for my lambic recently. Even though the vial had been in my fridge since October, the starter took off within 12 hours. I've never seen a yeast produce as much C02 as this one has. Amazing. In other news, I recently purchased an entire bag of pale ale malt. Expect some serious brewing.

The results of the AHA National Homebrew Competition Great Lakes regional can be found here. No Rackers advanced, although I don't know if any Rackers entered. Bill Reis of my "other" brewclub, the Oconto County Brew Club, took third in the Light Ale and a first in the Dark Lager categories.

I got my barleywine brewed, using the entire yeast cake from my Alt. I had to rush out to True Value to get a blowoff tube because the kraeusen filled up the carboy, even though I had about 2.5-3 gallons of headspace. Pretty impressive. I took pictures.

Steve Olson sent along the recipe for his Best-of-Show-winning APA, which I posted on our Titletown Open winning recipes page. I will be brewing that beer this summer.

In my never-ending quest to make this your full-service brewing website, I've been a busy beaver adding content for you to peruse! First of all, I just realized that I never got the Spring 2000 newsletter online. Instead of asking Mike for a copy, I fired up my scanner and OCR'd it. It worked pretty well, actually. You can see the fruits of my labors here.

I got the winners from the Titletown Open VI from Mike, and I posted them on our Titletown Open Winners page. Congratulations to Steve Olson, Kyle Loos, and Scott Carlson for their Best-of-Show-winning American Pale Ale! I was fortunate enough to sample some of it at the competition and it is spectacular--probably the best APA I've ever had.

Tomorrow, I'm brewing another batch of my Olde #9 Barleywine (which stole a Third Place ribbon in the competition). Five gallons of barleywine. Mmmmmm . . .

Get this kids, I actually brewed yesterday! The weather cooperated and now I have a five gallon batch of Altbier in the primary. It had less than a two hour lag time (active starters are Good Things). I hit my gravity target spot on so hopefully this will be good! Next week: barleywine.

And no, I don't have the results from the contest yet. I'll post them as soon as I get them.

Hey kids! Tomorrow's the day--Titletown Open VI. Judging will begin between 10 and 10:30 A.M. Stewards and other helpers are asked to be there by 9:30 A.M. for instructions. Join us at Egan Brewing/Gallagher's of DePere.

Just a reminder all entries are due today! No entries (except judge's entries) will be accepted on Saturday. Get your beers down to Gallagher's of DePere tonight.

SANKE-STYLE HALF BARRELS AVAILABLE!

The Green Bay Rackers Homebrew club has obtained a LIMITED SUPPLY of stainless-steel half barrels that are no longer usable for beer kegging. They are available at a cost of $25.00 each under the following conditions:

1. Person MUST arrange to pick these up at a De Pere location. We WILL NOT ship these half barrels
2. These are in AS IS condition. No warranty inplied or given.
3. These are sold as complete barrels. Purchaser is required to do their own modifications such as cutting off the tops, welding of nipples, etc.
4. These cannot be used to keg beer. The valve stems will be rendered inoperable by the supplier prior to our obtaining the kegs, as they cannot legally be refurbished for kegging purposes.

These kegs are in LIMITED supply and will go on a first-come, first served basis. Contact Mike at mconard@itol.com if interested.

Happy national homebrew day, everyone! Unfortunately my last keg of homebrew died this week so I will not be able to toast the day properly. Hoist one in my general direction.

There's a new issue of Egan Brewing News posted. Make sure to check it out!

Club brew tonight! Be there! Don't make me resort to violence . . .

Well, my "behind the scenes" work on Rackers.Org is done--even the updating of the old news. We had so many pages that it was getting too much to have in one directory, so I created separate ones for the old news, meeting pictures, newsletters, and Titletown Open info. Check all the links you can and report any broken ones to me.

A couple miscellaneous notes:

• My hops are growing like mad. I had to trim back about 20 shoots (off only two mounds!) today. Here's to hoping for a bountiful harvest.
• The Society of Oshkosh Brewers have a new website up which makes my little HTML endeavor here look downright lame.
• Remember that the compost bins go on sale this Saturday!
• Remember to email Mike Conard if you need corny kegs or would like to help with the Titletown Open
• The club brew is next Tuesday at the Musicians Union Hall! Be there!

Soon I'm going to be making some behind-the-scenes changes on the site. Hopefully, they will go unnoticed by you, our faithful readers. If you happen to come across a broken link, email me and I will fix it ASAP. BTW, all the links pointing to anything on this site in the "old news" pages will be broken until I get everything switched over, so you don't have to email me about those :)

The man who never met a homebrew competition he didn't like, Steve Olson, has racked up (pun intended) some more victories at the BOSS Challenge, taking a third with an APA, a second with an Eisbock, and a first and honorable mention Best of Show with his Imperial Stout. This, of course, makes me feel like a Bad Brewer since I won't even have a beer to enter in the Titletown Open at this rate. Kudos, Steve!

Steve Olson continues to kick butt and take names in competitions. In the Palm Beach Draughtsmen's Hurricane Blowoff, Steve took first in the Strong Ales and runner-up Best of Show with his American Barleywine, first place in English Bitters with his Strong Bitter, and second place in the English Pale Ales with his IPA. Congrats, Steve! Bring more beer to the next meeting! :)

I've had a number of emails about the composting bins asking for more information and what the bins look like. Instead of doing a very poor job of trying to describe them, I scanned in the ad for them. You can view it as a 172K .jpg file here.

Just a little piece of advice from me to you: don't let kegs sit around for months before you clean them. I just cleaned three kegs and one of them required far too much elbow grease to get clean. Ick. I also dumped the remaining two gallons of my club experiment brew. Whatever bug took over it kept fermenting it. My guess is that the keg had about 30 psi inside it when I released it to open it up. Barf!

In good news, I sampled a cyser I made a long time ago (a year and a half?) for the first time. It is rather nice actually. Nice apple and honey flavor with a pleasing dryness. Good thing I made 2.5 gallons!

I feel the need to brew coming over me. I plan on brewing an Altbier very soon to take advantage of the unseasonably cool temperatures. Once that is done in the primary, I'm going to whip up a batch of my barleywine and put that wort on the dregs from the Alt. Kaboom! Must . . . have . . . more . . . barleywine.

I found out at city hall yesterday that Brown, Winnebago, Oconto, Manitowoc, and Outagamie counties and the Oneida Nation will be selling composting bins on April 29 from 8:00 A.M. to 2:00 P.M. These would be really handy for us hop gardeners. Email me for the pick-up location near you!

Troy Thuma has agreed to be our brewmaster for the May Club Brew. Thanks Troy! Also, Fred Matzke, can you send me your recipe from the March Club Brew? Thanks!

I got a flier in the mail from Homebrew Market in Appleton about their upcoming National Homebrew Day festivities on Saturday, May 6, from 10:00 A.M. to 6:00 P.M. Here's the schedule of events:

• 11 A.M.: Yeast Starter Seminar
• Noon: New/Intermediate Brewing Demo
• 1 P.M.: Mead-Making Seminar
• 2 P.M. Wine-Making Seminar
• 3 P.M.: Recipe Formulation Seminar
• 4 P.M.: Soda-Making Demo
• 5 P.M. Homebrew "Judging" (read: sampling)

The flier also says there will be an all-grain brewing demo too, as well as industry reps and local brewmasters on hand. For more information, give them a call at 1(800)261-BEER.

Believe it or not, I am still a member of the Rackers. I had all my work done to come to the meeting on Saturday, but there were some, um, "issues" right before I was about to leave. Thus, I was AWOL. At any rate, we need a brewer for May's club brew! If you are interested, email me ASAP! We get to learn from your expertise, you get five gallons of beer free. 'Nuff said.