Bistro Double IPA Festival 2013 recap & winners

The Bistro in Hayward hosted the ever-popular 13th annual Double IPA Festival yesterday, and the Festival just keeps getting bigger and better. Yesterday’s tap list included 59 Double IPAs (with only two clocking in under 8% ABV) and 23 Triple IPAs (with two topping out over 12%), and over half the brews in both categories were listed at 100+ IBUs.

Several Sudzers attended the event to enjoy the hoppy goodness, and we were delighted that former Sudzers Homebrewer of the Year Guy Cameron of Russian River Brewing, got to collect two medals for Russian River brews.

Guy & his medals

In addition to the public tasting and voting for the People’s Choice award (which was a three-peat for Kern River Citra Double IPA) the Bistro also has a panel of well-established judges do a blind tasting of all of the beers at the festival. The results for 2013 were as follows:

Double IPAs
1st Place: The Roustabout, Societe Brewing
2nd Place: Double Jack, Firestone Walker Brewing
3rd Place: Pliny the Elder, Russian River Brewing

Triple IPAs
1st Place: Pliny the Younger, Russian River Brewing
2nd Place: Notorious Triple IPA, The Boneyard
3rd Place: Simtra Triple IPA, Knee Deep Brewing

Complete tap lists for your enjoyment:

February Meeting Notes

Derek reported that there were some issues with SF Beer Week promoting an event centered around homebrewed beers, so the group is seeking a date in March for its BBQ beer competition event at Slow Hand BBQ in Pleasant Hill. Marcus is in touch with folks from the Brewing Network about the possibility of a live broadcast or other coverage/promotion/partnership. Attendees will pay an entrance fee that will include various Slow Hand BBQ meats, as well as an opportunity to sample and judge the best beer for pairing with BBQ among the six beers brewed with BBQ smoked malts (more info about this project).

Even without our BBQ Beer event, SF Beer Week does still have quite an impressive array of events planned, including the Bistro Double IPA fest on 2/9, Meet the Brewers on 2/16, and numerous special events at Harry’s Hofbrau San Jose, including a Stone Tap Takeover with Mitch Steele on 2/13, Firestone Walker XVI component tasting on 2/15, and an IPA festival including Pliny the Younger on 2/17. A few events have been added to the Sudzers calendar, but plenty more are on the SF Beer Week website. If you’re planning to go to an event, feel free to post something to the email list encouraging others to join you.

February’s Thirsty Third Thursday meetup will be held at Freewheel Brewing in Redwood City on 2/21. Club members usually drop in for TTT any time between 6:30 and 9:00 pm.

In addition to the usual array of tasty food served at our meetings, a special shoutout to Adrienne for making a delicious chipotle mac n cheese incorporating Liza’s Jalapeño Chile Ale from the January meeting. Adrienne also shared an impressive list of the brews and locations she and Gary visited in Portland recently.

Many people remarked on the particularly high quality of homebrews presented at the February meeting. Kudos to all of the brewers for an outstanding job!

Fuad & Anna’s Irish Brown Ale (5.2% ABV / 25 IBU)

Charles’s Unsmoked Porter (6.1% ABV)

Tom’s Oatmeal Coffee Stout (6% ABV)

Chris’s Het Goede (The Good) Belgian Blonde (7.3% ABV, 19 IBU), which has been entered into a competition for possible production and distribution, and which club members also suggested should be entered into NHC

Marcus & Tyler’s WheatWine (7.5%, 25 IBU), brewed with Ben Dobler from Widmer at the Explore Your Craft event in SF in October (more info about this project)

Linda’s Hoppy IPA (9.2% ABV, 208 IBU calculated!)

Jeff’s Belgian Quad (10% ABV)

Derek’s RyeWine (7.7%, 50+ IBU) – part 1 of a series – Derek, Dan, and Raghu are all brewing beers single hopped with Belma and using Wyeast Thames Valley yeast, and with 50% rye (Derek), 50% blue corn grits (Raghu), and 50% wheat (Dan).

Derek’s McSwinerson’s Scotch Ale (9% ABV, 29 IBU) – one of the six brews from BBQ beer project

February Meeting this Friday

Hello Sudzers!  Just a quick reminder that our next meeting is this Friday at 7pm at Nick’s house.  Need the address or directions?  Please email moresimcoe@sudzers.org

Agenda for this month’s meeting includes:

7:00 Social Time

7:15 Club Business

  • 2013 Club Dues (for those who didn’t pay in January) $25 (cash)
  • Smoked BBQ Beer Project – Derek Wolfgram / Chris Ringer
  • SF Beer Week
  • Thirsty Thursday Destination – February 21

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.

See you Friday! Next upcoming club meeting – Friday, March 1

 

January Meeting Notes

Keith and Mike, co-Homebrewers of the Year, received the newly engraved Sudzer Cup from new co-Presidents Tyler and Nathan 

Nick presented the annual club financial report, which shows a reasonable cash balance at year-end, but we did spend more than we took in during 2012 (you can help offset this imbalance at the February meeting by purchasing one of the few remaining club t-shirts!). Paid memberships were up significantly – about 50% over the prior year. The officers decided to raise dues slightly from $20/year to $25/year for 2013, still a bargain when you take into account special rates for club events, bottles of the club brew Dark Matter Russian Imperial Stout to be distributed some time during the year, and of course the 10% discount at the MoreBeer Los Altos store. A number of memberships were sold in January, and we will collect dues in February from anyone interested in paying who didn’t get a chance in January.

Derek and Chris R. described the Sudzers/SlowHand/Slosberg Collaborative BBQ beer project, which involved co-smoking about 20 pounds of two-row malt along with various meats in the smoker at Slow Hand BBQ in Pleasant Hill on New Year’s Day. Six beers have been brewed with the smoked malts, and the tentative plan is for them to be served along with Slow hand BBQ at a ticketed event at Slow Hand on February 10 (the first Sunday of SF Beer Week). Most of the brewers reported that the smoke aroma was quite distinct in the mash if not the boil kettle, and preliminary tastings of wort did not provide much smoke aroma but definitely did have some tasty smoke flavor on the finish. Derek brought a bit of remaining brisket-smoked malt to the meeting for people to smell and taste.

The beers brewed include:
McSwinerson’s Scotch Ale (brewed by Derek with rib smoked malt)
Lunch Meat Altbier (brewed by Marcus with rib smoked malt)
Angry Leprechaun Irish Red (brewed by Chris R. with brisket smoked malt)
Smoke & Mirrors Porter (brewed by Tyler with brisket smoked malt)
Smokin’ Wheat American Wheat (brewed by Santiago with chicken/bacon smoked malt)
Abbey Wit’ Smoke Witbier (brewed by Santiago with chicken/bacon smoked malt)

The club decided to rotate the locations of Thirsty Third Thursday meetups in 2013, although Harry’s Hofbrau San Jose will certainly remain in the rotation. The January 17 meetup will be at Harry’s Hofbrau Redwood City. People usually arrive anywhere from 6-8 pm depending on work schedules and other commitments.

Homebrew tastings were slightly down, with only 9 homebrews to taste from the 30+ homebrewers in attendance (no doubt everyone has made brewing more a new year’s resolution and we’ll see more at the February meeting!) Brews included:

  • Derek’s Cream Ale (non-Flanders portion of a split batch)
  • Fuad & Anna’s Oat Pale Ale
  • Liza’s Jalapeño Chile Ale
  • Derek’s Belgian Strong Amber
  • Jim & Jason’s Denogginizer Clone (which several attendees preferred to the Denogginizer J & J kindly brought for a side by side tasting)
  • Tom’s Imperial IPA
  • Chris R’s Barleywine (aged for 8 weeks in a Balcones barrel)
  • Keith & Steve’s Red Velvet Cake Ale with Brett B
  • Rob’s Schwarz-Grätzer (for which he has already kindly shared the recipe)


Next meeting date will be February 1, 7:00 pm at Nick’s House

 

January meeting this Friday

Happy 2013 Sudzers! It’s time for our January meeting!!

Agenda:
7:00 Social Time
7:15 Club Business
7:30 Homebrew evaluations

If you bring homebrew to share, enter it on the whiteboard along with your name and statistics (IBU, ABV, etc. – optional, but helpful in determining tasting order). Also don’t forget your recipe! There will be questions on ingredients, your process, etc!

We’ve been averaging 30 attendees or so per meeting, so if you are bringing homebrew, please bring enough that everyone could get an ounce or two – if you’ve got enough. Some members bring a growler (if they keg), others bring 2 bombers or 4 12-ounce bottles. If you’ve only got a little, we can instruct everyone to take a taste and couples can share. Also let us know if the beer is bottle conditioned so we make sure everyone pours correctly and doesn’t shake up the bottles!

Don’t have any homebrew to share? Please bring a snack to share instead.

Need directions or have additional questions? Please email moresimcoe (at) sudzers.org

See you there!

Los Altos Library Homebrewing Workshop January 6

Derek Wolfgram, past president and co-Chief Communications Officer of the Sudzers, along with Andy Carroll, President of the HeadQuarters homebrew club in Campbell, are presenting an overview of beer history, ingredients, styles, equipment, techniques, and recipes at the Los Altos Library on January 6, 2013 at 2:00 pm. The program also provides sources of additional information on homebrewing, such as local homebrew clubs, homebrew supply stores, books and DVDs available from the library, and online resources. Further informal discussion about beer and brewing will follow the program at Maltby’s at 4:00 pm.

Print or download the slide deck from the program at Los Altos Library.

 

SlowHand/Slosberg/Sudzers Smoked BBQ Beer Collaboration

On Tuesday, January 1 at 10 am, a few of us will be getting together at Slow Hand BBQ in Pleasant Hill to enjoy some outstanding BBQ and to create our own smoked malt, using Slow Hand’s smokers to smoke the grains along with the barbecue meats. The intent will be to produce homebrewed smoked beers to pair with Slow Hand BBQ at an event during SF Beer Week. If you’re interested in joining in the festivities and lending a hand with the smoking on Tuesday, please email Derek at derek dot wolfgram at gmail dot com. If you can’t come, but might be interested in creating a brew, please also let Derek know that. Read on to learn more…

Slow Hand BBQ

Pete Slosberg introduces the concept:
“One of my good friends, Dan Frengs, used to be a beer sales guy for many years and then decided on a career change and entered the BBQ business.  I am a big proponent of Dan’s BBQ and I unequivocally can say that his BBQ is the best on the west coast.  He started out with a mobile smoker going to events, but now has a permanent restaurant in Pleasant Hill, next to Concord, called Slow Hand BBQ.  I had a craving so I was there this week.  We chatted about things including SF Beer Week for this coming February.  He would love to do something and get people exposed to his goodies. I suggested that he do the obvious, pairing BBQ with smoked beer, but with a twist.  Take smoked beer to the next level.  With his smoker and meats, create special smoked malts the reflect each of his meats, e.g. smoke some malt with the wood smoke, but also the aroma of the smoking BBQ ribs, then another for Brisket, then……. He would then have an event pairing his BBQ with each of the “special smoked” beers.

When Pete’s suggestion went out to the Sudzers, Derek, Chris R., and Tyler all expressed interested in producing beers using the barbecue smoked malts. Chris R. also contributed a significant amount of knowledge of smokers and how to produce the best results in smoking our own malts, even citing Modernist Cuisine in determining how to get the maximum impact based on temperature, wood choice, timing, and technique.

We’re all looking forward to tasting Slow Hand’s barbecue, as well as the accompanying smoked malts we will produce, Derek has tentatively recommended several styles for brewing to pair with the meats, each of which may have different proportions of smoked malts and other specialty grains (some of which we may also create by oven-roasting some of the smoked malts):

  • Brisket Smoked Stout or Porter
  • St. Louis Ribs Smoked Scotch Ale
  • Baby Back Ribs Smoked Brown Ale or English Mild
  • Pulled Pork Smoked Altbier, Amber Ale or California Common

Stay tuned for more information after phase 1 is completed on Tuesday. Happy New Year indeed!

January meeting moved to the 11th

In order to accomodate everyone’s schedules around the holidays, we are moving the January 2013 meeting back one week, so it will be 7:00 pm on January 11. No meeting January 4. Regular meetings will still normally be held the first Friday of the month.

Also, in order to facilitate more exciting club sponsored activities in 2013, annual dues will be increased to $25. Please bring cash with you to the meeting on January 11 if you are interested in being a paid member, which entitles you to a 10% discount at MoreBeer Los Altos, special treats like your own bottles of the 2012 club brew Dark Matter Russian Imperial Stout, and special member prices on club events.

Also, there are still just a few Sudzers t-shirts left if you have a little extra holiday gift cash laying around… $10 for the old skool green-on-black shirts, $20 for the new-fangled beige shirts with the integrated circuit design, and $25 for the new design on a ladies’ shirt.

Look forward to seeing some of you at Harry’s tomorrow for Bruery pint night on Thirsty Third Thursday, and many of you at the meeting on January 11.

Hoppy Holidays to you and yours!