Sensory Training kit update

The good news is that the kit is in. The bad news is that they recommend using all of the perishable samples within 60 days (I think 90 will probably be safe), so we'll need to complete the kit over the next 3 gatherings (6/20, 7/17 and the following meeting).

Sampling of the kit was not planned for 6/20, but it appears that there will be very good attendance, so we'll start the sampling then. Siebel recommends that each sample be introduced to approximately 1 liter of relatively neutral beer and then poured for sampling. That's a bit less than 3 beers per sample to get the proper dilution, so everyone bring a 6 pack of their favorite cheapo BMC (Budweiser/Miller/Coors) swill on 6/20 to mix with the samples! :D

Please bring $20 (no checks, grain or hops accepted :D) with you on 6/20 to cover the cost of the kit.

As a follow up, some of you still need to confirm attendance for the tours and the brewing sessions on 6/20. I have a potential club member from the Marysville area who would like to attend the tours, but I have told him that I need to make sure that there is an open spot first. If I do not hear from some of you by the end of next week I will contact you individually. If I do not hear back from you then I will assume that you will not be attending either the tours or the brew session.

Please update your status for 6/20 by leaving a comment here or by emailing me at kyle.klaiber@gmail.com.

Who's brewing what on 6/20?

Before we dig into who's brewing what, I want to remind anyone that is planning on riding down to the tours with me that I'm leaving my house at 8am at the latest. If you're not there then you'll need to drive yourself down. So far there are 3 riding down with me and I still have room for 3 more.

Let's get a list together of who's brewing on 6/20 and what they will be brewing. Let me know if you will be brewing and what you plan on brewing and I will update this entry accordingly. So far I know that the following people will be *brewing* on 6/20:

John - 10g German Ale
Chad James -
Kyle - 5g Hopacles '09, 5g or 10g English IPA
Lowell - 5g or 10g Brown Porter, 5g Rauchbier

Anyone is welcome to brew. Extract, PM, AG - it doesn't matter. Here are the things that I have and/or can provide some access to during the brew day:

Marion city water (I've never had any water issues with my beers)
2 Digital Thermometers
3 digital timers
refractometer
3/8" & 5/8" ID tubing
3/16" ID tubing (beer line)
2 picnic taps (in case anyone wants to bring kegged beer to share)
Misc. brewing equipment (auto siphons, funnels, mash paddle, etc.)
5.5g kettle for heating strike/sparge water
Iodophor
Digital scale (reads to 100th of an oz or in grams)

If you need something that you do not see above, please bring it along with you. If you *ARE* going to brew, you will need to provide your own ingredients (grain, yeast, hops, extract, fining agent, etc.), propane, burner, boil kettle, MLT/HLT and primary fermenters (carboys, buckets).

Sensory Training Kit

The Sensory Training kit has been ordered and should arrive early next week. The total cost for the kit (including shipping) is $195.60, as they only ship it next day air in an effor to keep the contents cool ($35.60 for shipping). Let's call it $20 per person (or $30 per couple) for those that want to participate in sampling the kit and whatever is contributed over the $195.60 will go into the club fund for future events.

We will sample a couple of these off flavors in our July meeting at Kyle's house on 7/17 starting at 6:30 pm. If you need the address, please email me at kyle.klaiber@gmail.com.

In addition to starting the sensory evaluation kit, we will be reviewing the following BJCP styles:

9 - Scottish and Irish Ale
9A - Scottish Light 60
9B - Scottish Heavy 70
9C - Scottish Export 80
9D - Irish Red Ale
9E - Strong Scotch Ale

10 - American Ale
10A - American Pale Ale
10B - American Amber Ale
10C - American Brown Ale

As always, spouses are welcome to attend and if you would like to bring someone new, please contact Kyle or Emily before doing so. With 4 young children you can never be too careful.

Food dishes and commercial/homebrewed examples of the styles that we will be reviewing are also welcome. Follow the links above to the BJCP style guidelines for names of commercial examples of beers in these styles.

Tour/Brew Update #2

AB tour is set to start at 9am on 6/20, and the GB tour is set for 11:30.

So far I have the following as attendees, please let me know if this list needs to be adjusted, as I will need to give them a definite headcount before the tours.

Kyle/Emily
Lowell
John
Brett/Beth
Ned
Tony/Alice
Bill
Rod
Chad
Jason & wife
Aaron

I will be ordering the tasting kit today. We can take 1 or 2 flavors per meeting and set aside some time to discuss them, or if anyone else has ideas regarding this please speak up!

Email notifications for updates

If you would like to receive an email notification when a new entry has been added to the MALTZ Homebrew site, please let me know in the comments section here, or shoot me an email at kyle.klaiber@gmail.com.

You don't have to sign up for a blog to leave comments. If you have a gmail account, or any other OpenID account with sites like AOL, Facebook, Microsoft, MySpace and Yahoo, you can use it to log in and leave comments.

Please check back here once a week or so for updates if you do not wish to be notified via email, or you might miss something!

AB/GB tour updates

I heard back from both AB and GB and the tours are a go for 6/20. The AB guy still needs to get back to me regarding a start time, but it will either be at 9 AM or at 10 AM. He said that the tour typically lasts 2 hours, depending on how many questions there are.

I can get 6 people in my truck in addition to my wife and I. Anyone who wants to meet at my house beforehand and then ride with me is welcome, just let me know.

The tour at Gordon Biersch in the Arena District will immediately follow the AB tour, then the REAL FUN begins! AG Brew session at my house. If you need the address, email me. I'm hoping that we will be able to get started at about 2pm.

I'm going to crush my grains beforehand so that we can hit the ground running when we get back from the tours and we should have wort heating to a boil around 90 minutes later. I still haven't decided what I will be brewing yet but I will try to get in at least 3 batches, and John will be brewing as well. This will be a great learning opportunity for those who are looking to make the move to all grain. If you are unable to make the tours, but would like to attend the brew session, get me a phone number and I will call you when we leave, that way you're not sitting and waiting in my driveway on the chance that the tours run a little long.

I will pick up some normal picnic fare (burgers, hot dogs) to grill up while the mash(es) are going. Please either bring a dish to share with the group, or pitch in for the burgers and dogs.

I plan on leaving GB immediately after the tour to get back to the house and brew. If you want to eat at GB (link on the right of the page) feel free to do so, just make sure that you have a way to get home or to my house. I realize that from 9am to 2 pm is a bit of a stretch, but with grain already crushed, I'll be cooking burgers and dogs within 30 minutes of getting back to the house.

As always, comment, email or call with questions.

6th Annual SODZ British Beerfest Competition

I was sent this information by the SODZ president and wanted to pass it along. I will not be able to attend, but wanted to pass the information along.

http://www.sodz.org/BBF%202009%20Flyer.htm

AB/GB tours and 6/20 brew day

***Summary - both tours and brew day on 6/20, meetings will continue on weekends***

Thanks to everyone who replied to let me know which dates did and didn't work for you regarding the tours. There was only 1 person who stated that they would not be able to make the tours on 6/20 and all other dates had multiple members who would not be able to make it, so I have sent off emails to my contacts at both Anheuser Busch and Gordon Biersch to see if we can get the tours scheduled for Saturday, 6/20.

I have requested that the AB tour start somewhere between 9 am and 10 am. Once I receive confirmation from AB regarding how long the tour will last, I will try to coordinate the GB tour to follow approximately 30 minutes later (that should give us plenty of time to get from Worthington to the Arena District).

I'm *guessing* that each tour will take approximately 1 hour, but I haven't had that information confirmed yet.

We will also be doing a group brew day at my house on 6/20 after the tours. We should be able to get back to my house and be started by 2pm or so at the latest, possibly earlier depending upon how long the tours last. This will be a great opportunity for some of you to observe all grain brewing, as there will be at least 3 batches going.

I realize that this makes for a long day, but please don't feel like you need to stay for everything. For those of you interested in seeing the AG process, you can come back to my house after the tours, hang out for 60-90 minutes and just about everything you need to see. Once the boil starts, it's not much different than what you're doing now (minus any extract and/or steeping) - add hops, fining agent, chill and pitch.

The consensus on meeting nights is to stay with weekend evenings, so that's what we will do. Having said that, I am booked so solid with my kids and softball that I will not be organizing any club activities between now and the tours on 6/20. If anyone else would like to take the lead and plan a meeting between now and then, please let me know.

Tentative 6/20 brew day

This is subject to change, but I'm going to try to get a group brew day at my house on 6/20. Since it's still 7+ weeks out I don't have an idea of what I'll be brewing yet. I typically start brewing around 9:00 am and I always do at least 2 batches, sometimes more.

Anyone else who wants to bring their equipment and brew a batch of their own is welcome to do so!

As this date approaches I'll pull some recipes together and probably do a brew to match up with a BJCP category review at a future meeting.

If you are interested in attending, please let me know by commenting on this post.

-Kyle

MALTZ notes for May 2009 - contact policy update

In addition to the Anheuser-Busch tour, I also have a tour of Gordon Biersch lined up as well. I should know for sure by Wednesday, but right now the plan is to do both tours on 6/6 starting at AB in the mid-morning, then going to GB.

If I'm able to finalize everything for them, the tours will replace our normal monthly meeting for May.

Feel free to email individuals, I just don't want to see the emails to every member continuing as they have. As we grow and get more members, all those emails are going to get way too confusing.

(...and yes, I see the unfortunate irony in sending out an email to everyone asking them to stop sending emails to everyone lol)