Silicon Valley Sudzers Homebrew Club
The Homebrew Club of Silicon Valley
Derek Wolfgram from Silicon Valley Sudzers and Andrew Carroll from the HeadQuarters homebrew club will be presenting a workshop on homebrewing as part of the Belmont Library’s Oktoberfest Celebration at 3 pm on Saturday, Oktober 12.
Feel free to download the slides from the presentation.
Cheers!
Hello Sudzers! Our regular September meeting will be held Friday Oct. 4 at 7 pm at Nick’s house. Need the address or directions? Email moresimcoe@sudzers.org
7:00 Social Time
7:15 Club Business
–NCHF recap
-October 17 Thirsty Third Thursday: 6:30 pm tour of Hermitage Brewing
followed by a visit to the HBC Tap Room (1627 S 7th Street in San
Jose)
–GigaYeast brewing challenge
-Members-only off flavor tasting – date?
-Fall Dark Matter Brew Day – date?
7:30 Homebrew evaluations. Reminder: Bring your recipe – club members
will have lots of questions! Sign your beer in on the whiteboard along
with your name and statistics (IBU, ABV, etc. – optional, but helpful
in determining tasting order)
After homebrew evaluations: more social time/informal commercial brew
sharing
Always welcome: homebrews from any style to share. Don’t have any
homebrew on hand right now? Feel free to bring other interesting brews
you’ve picked up. Don’t have a beer to bring? Please bring some snacks
to share.
Reminder: the tasting for November 1 will only include beers brewed
with the GigaYeast Vermont IPA (aka Heady Topper yeast) and the brand
new GigaYeast Belgian strain. You may bring other beers to share, but
the formal tasting will be focused on the GigaYeast brewing
competition.
Once again, the Sudzers had an exceptional year at NCHF, particularly being voted as having the best beers of the festival by the other clubs in attendance. The instructions said that voters should choose not the club with the best single beer, or the club with the most beers, but the club with, on average, the highest quality beers. (We may also have had the most beers of any club besides Chico Homebrew Club, with 22 items available at the
Sudzers booth.) We will get a super fancy certificate in the weeks ahead in recognition of our awesome beers.
The highlights of our beer selection were Jim W’s Citrarillo IPA, the club’s Dark Matter Imperial Stout, Doug W’s Flanders Red (no relation to the barrel in the basement), Joe D’s
Pumpkin Pie Ale, and Derek W’s cask-conditioned Flanders Cream Ale, but every single beer was well-received. And of course, the keg of Russian River Hop 2 It was a hit as well.
The giant Sudzers tent came in very handy for the torrential downpour on Saturday afternoon… we had a nice space for people to hang out, and enjoy some snacks and brews.
The food at the Sudzers booth was incredible – tons of tasty smoked meats, pineapple pulled pork, sausages, veggie chili (someone picked out all the meat!), chicken
coconut curry, lasagna, celery and apple salad, slaw, brownies, chocolate chip cookies (with M&Ms, pretzels and potato chips inside).
There were the usual hiccups – we had to rearrange several booths on Friday afternoon to make room for our giant tent, since there were a record number of clubs in attendance, and the field was set up more narrowly than it should have been. All of our beer and serving equipment were not quite ready (or even at the Fest yet) when things
kicked off, but eventually we got it all up and running. There were also some adventures… Marc Andre had a very long, very refreshing nap… Nick got locked in a cabin restroom for an hour before being rescued (really!) You’ve got to have some stories to tell, right?
Thanks to all who participated in making the event a success – there ended up being about 30 of us from Sudzers – one of the strongest showings of any of the 40+ participating clubs.
We’re still looking for more pictures to post. If any attendees have any pictures to share,
please email Derek W.
It’s official! Dust off your brewing equipment as the Sudzers are doing their first GigaYeast brewing challenge. We are doing two categories: IPAs and Belgians.
The stipulation is that you must use the IPA and/or Belgian yeast strains that were distributed at our last meeting from GigaYeast. GigaYeast is fine with us propagating the strains for use in the contest. The Belgian yeast is not even commercially available so we will be the first to test drive the yeast.
Several of us are going to help propagate the strains for use in the contest. We will bring the strains to the meeting in October or can coordinate pick-ups in advance. I already have 12 samples of the Super Secret Belgian Yeast ready for you to use. Email me to coordinate pick-ups of the strain in Sunnyvale, Justin to coordinate East Bay, and Rueben for San Jose pick-ups.
For the November meeting we will focus on tasting only the Belgian and IPA contest entries (of course you will be free to bring other beers for social hour). We are hoping Loren from Gigayeast or the founder will be able to help judge the competition. If they are not able to join us we will ask you to bring a couple of bottles so we can provide them to Gigayeast.
Ribbons will be awarded for the top three places in each category.
Brew On.
Tyler
The September Sudzers meeting was a busy one. The new Space Invaders-themed shirts were distributed, we set a paid membership record with our 40th paid member of the year, we set a homebrew tasting record with 22 brews people brought to share, and we had a fabulous speaker from GigaYeast.
Club business included discussions of Northern California Homebrewers Festival planning (29 Sudzers will attend), selection of FreeWheel Brewing as our Sept. 19 Thirsty Third Thursday meetup destination, discussion of a members-only party in late September (you should receive details by email soon from Nick if you are a paid member), discussion of a members-only off-flavor tasting in October (details TBD). Nick will be hosting the annual fall Dark Matter brew day later this fall as well.
Loren Gibbs, Head of Production for GigaYeast in Belmont, talked about what’s involved in producing yeast for professional brewers and homebrewers. He talked about sourcing the yeast, how it is propagated, the variety of yeasts that GigaYeast sells, and some of the professional breweries that use GigaYeast. Loren brought a few samples of GigaYeast, which were distributed to those who successfully answered some yeast trivia questions, as well as the brewers with the highest-rated homebrews of the evening. President Tyler is coordinating a project to propagate two strains, the Vermont IPA and a new, as-of-yet unnamed secret Belgian yeast, for a club brewing contest. GigaYeast has blessed the project, and we are hopeful that Loren and/or Founder Jim Withee will be able to attend the November meeting to help judge the results.
September’s homebrews, in no particular order, were:
Nick’s About Damn Time Imperial Amber
Santiago’s French Saison
Santiago’s Belgian Saison
Santiago’s Rasbury Brown
Derek W’s Belle Saison
Derek W’s Breakfast of Champions Granola Stout
Nathan’s Summer Brew Day Extra Pale Ale (from the club brew day at MoreBeer)
Anna & Fuad’s Golden Banana Belgian Blonde (incidentally, the club wishes them the best in their move to Sweden to establish the first international chapter of SV Sudzers – with the SV standing for Sverige instead of Silicon Valley!)
Justin’s Pliny Clone
Justin’s All Brett IPA
Justin’s BBB American Brown
Justin’s Schwarzbier
Chris’s Crossfire Imperial IPA
Steve & Derek H’s Imperial Stout
Chris R.’s Can’t See the Wood for the Trees Scottish 80/-
Tyler’s No Simcoe IPA
Vern’s Double High C Monster Imperial Brown
Paul S’s Coconut Porter
Marc-Andre’s Grapefruit Wheat
Adam’s Arrogant Bastard Clone
Adam’s Spiced Saison
Dave’s Amber
The latest “Cheers!” column from Sudzers Chief Communications Officer Derek Wolfgram in the Los Altos Town Crier: http://www.losaltosonline.com/special-sections2/sections/food-a-wine/45517-local-brewmaster-describes-his-inspirations-local-brewmaster-describes-his-inspirations
Santa Clara Valley Brewing Co. brewmaster Steve Donohue, right, and Jake McCluskey of Market Beer Co., center, listen at a July 9 release party as former San Jose Mayor Tom McEnery discusses the history of the Peralta Adobe, the oldest building in San Jose and namesake of Donohue’s Peralta Porter.
Hello Sudzers! Our regular September meeting will be held Friday, September 6 at 7 pm at Nick’s house. Need the address or directions? Email moresimcoe@sudzers.org
Please note: the new Space Invaders – themed club shirts will be available for purchase for $15 apiece. We will distribute shirts to all who pre-ordered first, and there are also a few extras that were ordered. Please bring exact change (cash only) and arrive as close to 7 as possible so that we can get the shirt sales completed in time to get the meeting started.
7:15 Club Business
Upcoming events:
August 19 Thirsty Third Thursday destination
Northern California Homebrewers Festival
October members-only off-flavor tasting
7:30 Guest speaker: Loren Gibbs, production manager for GigaYeast, will share what the company is currently doing and what their future plans are. Jim Withee, Founder and CEO of GigaYeast, has also expressed an interest in doing a scientific talk on yeast or fermentation at a future meeting.
After the speaker: Homebrew evaluations. Reminder: Bring your recipe – club members
will have lots of questions!Sign your beer in on the whiteboard along with your name and
statistics (IBU, ABV, etc. – optional, but helpful in determining
tasting order)
After homebrew evaluations: more social time/informal commercial brew sharingAlways welcome: homebrews from any style to share. Don’t have any
homebrew on hand right now? Feel free to bring other interesting brews
you’ve picked up. Don’t have a beer to bring? Please bring some snacks
to share.See you Friday!
Next upcoming club meeting – Friday, October 4
On August 17th, 2013, the Sudzers did a public transit pub crawl in San Francisco with guidance of Beer Sherpa, Vern. Here are some photos that Nicole captured around stops 3 and 4, of 6 total. A good time was had by all. Cheers!
Sudzers member Mike C recently visited Sante Adairus Rustic Ales in Capitola, and wrote the following to share his enthusiasm for the 1.5 year-new, 7 bbl brewery down the street from his home:
My visit was inspired from my fellow home brewer Mike at Aptos St. BBQ while I was grabbing a sandwich there (the place has an awesome lineup of 40+ taps).
Just 2 miles away from my home in Aptos, I followed my friend’s directions to a small industrial warehouse at the end of a road. Signage was minimal, but the crowd gave away their location at the back of the lot. The purpose of my visit was made quite clear once I stepped inside.
I sampled 5 different beers – here are my notes:
Anaïs – my first pour… a pale amber, dry, fruity, very drinkable saison. The nose carried a bit of apricot, clove and banana; there was a bit of spiciness that I first picked out as clove but now I’d say is from the spelt used. I could have more, but only ordered a 6 oz pour in order to try the next…
Little Quibble – this was the best lower alcohol beer I’ve had in a long time. With 4 grains – barley, rye, wheat and oats, the cereal character of this farmhouse ale is pronounced, giving it a very satisfying finish. 4.8% ABV, this is a perfect afternoon-in –the-sun type of beer.
Chavez – on to their robust porter, this beer has an awesome chocolate flavor that dominates without overwhelming, balanced with the crystal malt for body and sweetness. My favorite pour of the visit.
West Coast IPA – A purist’s commitment to a Columbus IPA as a dank hop beverage, with Citra in the dry hop to add some floral character to the nose.
Fumare – A smoked saison – had to try it because the guy behind the bar designed the recipe (the rest were Tim’s, the head brewmaster) – the smoke was distinct but still let the farmhouse aroma and spiciness come through. Dangerously drinkable at 7% ABV
OK, I’m hooked. I now have a 7 barrel brewery down the street from me.
Life is good! The place was busy but not overcrowded. I felt a bit bad for the small winery next door – but all good, something for my wife to taste (she likes wine but not beer) right next door!
