Author: Sudzers

Hello Sudzers! Our March meeting will be held Friday, March 7 at 7 pm
at Nick’s house. Need the address or directions? Email
moresimcoe@sudzers.org. Don’t forget to carpool if possible to make
sure there’s enough parking to go around.

If you would like to pay your 2014 dues, entitling you to many club
benefits, including a 10% discount at MoreBeer and member-only events,
please bring $25 cash.

Because of the large number of homebrews that have been brought to
recent meetings, the officers have decided to implement a cap on the
formal evaluations. We will only have 15 beers presented per meeting
(of course, others may be brought and shared and critiqued during
social time before or after the meeting, but we will not pass them
around to every attendee). The first 15 brews (limit one per brewer)
entered on the whiteboard will be part of the formal tasting. If fewer
than 15 brewers bring beers, we can open up opportunities for brewers
to present a second beer.

7:00 Social Time

7:15 Club Business

-Report on Gordon Biersch tour with Dan Gordon (if anyone wants to
write up a blurb/provide some pics for the website, that would be
great!)
-Upcoming events:
-March 8 Santa Cruz bus trip
-Thirsty Third Thursday
-Members-only off flavor tasting
-April brew day – host needed
-National Homebrewers Conference
-Homebrew club bowling competition with other clubs
-Session ales competition in July – get your ideas ready now!

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.

Last night’s episode of Chopped had BeerCandy (founded and produced by Sudzers Steve C. and Susie C.) in the ingredient baskets for all three courses – Hop Drops, Beer Taffy, and Stout Beer Jelly. Did I mention “Beer Taffy candied bacon?” If you didn’t see it last night, visit
http://www.foodnetwork.com/shows/chopped/1800-series/beer-here.html
for additional showtimes. Congrats, Steve and Susie!

 

Tyler shared membership survey results that have helped set the agenda for Sudzers activities this year – most popular items were a beer/food pairing dinner this fall, a club session beers comp this summer, a BJCP style big beer competition open to all Bay Area brew clubs (3 styles: DIPA, Barleywine, Russian Imperial Stout), more club brew days, off flavor tasting (tentatively scheduled 3/20), and possible project day to make mash paddles or tap handles.

Bob the welder visited the meeting. He does food grade stainless welding for reasonable prices, and club members have been very satisfied with his work. He lives in East Bay but can do South Bay pickups, especially if people coordinate asking for multiple jobs. You can email Bob at tomkiewicz.b at gmail.com.

Sf beer week – members were encouraged to ping the email list if they found any great events

Nick has arranged for a private tour of the Gordon Biersch production facility in San Jose with Dan Gordon himself on February 28. Details to come by email.

Because of sf beer week, lousy weather, etc., we had a light turnout of about 20 attendees. However, the norm has been twice that, and parking for meetings has become a challenge. Folks are encouraged to carpool if at all possible.

Nick has supply of sturdier caps that fit starsan bottles if you’ve had problems with breakage of the factory caps. You can get them from him at the next meeting.

Club bus trip to Santa Cruz – see Derek H for registration. Looks like we are going to fill a 30-ish passenger bus. Because some venues are small and they are close together, the plan is to use the bus to shuttle people back and forth rather than just making one stop at each brewery. Derek H is accepting payment via PayPal – see his email for details. Thanks to Mike C for coordinating with breweries, Tim T for securing a bus, and Derek H for handling sales!

Derek W shared samples of the new “draft beer” flavored jelly bellies, and Nick shared some of BeerCandy’s much-more-enjoyable hop drops.

Nick talked about the triple second runnings black IPA he brewed with Marc Andre on the Dark Matter brew day in November. Three different brewers made batches of Dark Matter, and the second runnings from the first mash tun were run through the second mash tun, which was then used to sparge the third mash tun. The resulting wort was boiled with several ounces of experimental hops from Peter Licht at Hermitage, and produced a 6% black IPA. The plan was to do an international toast via Skype with Marc Andre in Montreal, but he was unavailable. We drank the beer anyway.

Other homebrew tastings:

Derek W’s Kona Big Wave clone

Jeff’s Bee More Specific honey wheat ale using honey from Provence to bottle condition

Adam’s American Strong Ale

Steve and Derek H’s Red IPA

Mikael & Bill’s Dogfish 60 Minute clone

Justin’s Imperial Belgian Red Ale with tamarind

Justin’s Tripel

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sudzers Chief Communications Officer Derek Wolfgram’s latest column in the Los Altos Town Crier explores the role of craft beer in San Francisco’s Fancy Food Show.

http://www.losaltosonline.com/special-sections2/sections/food-a-wine/46703-

Hello Sudzers! Our February meeting will be held Friday, February 7 at
7 pm at Nick’s house. Need the address or directions? Email
moresimcoe@sudzers.org.

If you would like to pay your 2014 dues, entitling you to many club
benefits, including a 10% discount at MoreBeer and member-only events,
please bring $25 cash.

Because of the large number of homebrews that have been brought to
recent meetings, the officers have decided to implement a cap on the
formal evaluations. We will only have 15 beers presented per meeting
(of course, others may be brought and shared and critiqued during
social time before or after the meeting, but we will not pass them
around to every attendee). The first 15 brews (limit one per brewer)
entered on the whiteboard will be part of the formal tasting. If fewer
than 15 brewers bring beers, we can open up opportunities for brewers
to present a second beer.

7:00 Social Time

7:15 Club Business

Upcoming events:
-SF Beer Week!
-2/20 Thirsty Thursday destination
-March 8 Santa Cruz bus trip
-March 20 Members-only off flavor tasting
-April brew day host needed

7:30 Roundtable discussion topic: brew software, online brew tools,
and mobile devices – bring ideas to share

7:45 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.

While this award was previously reported back in September, the certificate came in the mail today. Congratulations once again to the Sudzers, whose fellow homebrew clubs voted that the 22 Sudzers beers on tap at the Northern California Homebrewers Festival were, on average, the highest quality beers of over 40 clubs present. 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. Cheers!

Welcome to all of the new members who joined us for the January meeting – we had a great turnout with 45 attendees and 18 homebrews to taste!

A few upcoming events were discussed:
-Since we met one week later than usual this month, we will also move out Thirsty Third Thursday meetup back one week and celebrate Firsty Fourth Fursday at Original Gravity in San Jose for the release party for Santa Clara Valley Brewing’s New Almaden Imperial Red Ale.
-New events are being added every day to the calendar for SF Beer Week from February 7 to February 16
-Mike Conant is planning a brewery bus trip to the Santa Cruz coast on March 8 – stay tuned for details

Due to the large number of attendees and homebrews, the discussion of brewing software was postponed until the February meeting.

Sudzers CFO Nick provided the annual financial report, detailing all of the major income sources (memberships, t-shirt sales, BBQ beer competition event) and expenditures (summer club party, rare bottle tasting, t-shirts, Dark Matter ingredients). The club’s revenues slightly outpaced expenditures, so the financial picture for the club is good (especially with the 32 memberships paid for 2014 at the meeting!)

Homebrews evaluated and enjoyed included:

Frank’s Hefeweizen

Frank’s Maibock

Paul’s Dunkel

Rob’s Hoppy Blonde

James’ AAPL Pale Ale

Charles’ Avante Garde

Doug’s Amber Ale

David’s Prickly Pear Saison

James’ Some Kind of Honey Porter

Sam’s Troubled Porter

Mikael & Bill’s Magnum Bucks Porter

Jim & Jason’s Breakfast of Champions Oatmeal Milk Stout with Cinnamon and Toasted Coconut

Mikael & Bill’s Torpedo Clone

James’ Last Day IPA Pliny Clone (!)

Nic’s Pliny Clone (!!)

Jim & Jason’s Pliny Clone (!!!)

Adam’s Barleywine

Derek’s 2 year old Bourbon Barrel Aged Barleywine

 

Reviews of five California-brewed red ales from Sudzers Chief Communications Officer Derek’s column in the Los Altos Town Crier. Cheers!

Mike presented an excellent primer on Brewing Water at the November Sudzers meeting, including information on chlorines and chloramines; pH, alkalinity, and hardness; managing water flavor profile; and acidifying sparge water.

The full presentation is available for your edification and enjoyment.

Hello Sudzers! Our January meeting will be held Friday, January 10 at
7 pm at Nick’s house. Need the address or directions? Email
moresimcoe@sudzers.org.

As a reminder, club dues are collected on a calendar year basis, so
please bring $25 and arrive as close to 7 as possible if you would
like to pay your 2014 dues. We have made a slight change to the
structure this year as a result of the huge recent growth in
membership (We had 18 paid members in 2011 and 52 in 2013!) Membership
will now be $25/person with no “complimentary” spouse/partner/family
bonus members.

You may want to bring cash for T shirts as well – there are just a
handful of the 2012 beige shirts with the integrated circuit design
($20) and the 2013 black shirts with the Space Invaders theme ($15) left.

7:00 Social Time

7:15 Club Business

Annual Financial Report – CFO Nick
Upcoming events:
-1/16 Thirsty Third Thursday – location?
-SF Beer Week!
-Members-only off flavor tasting – to be scheduled in 2014 – Tyler
-potential March Santa Cruz coast brewery bus tour – Mike C
-potential March homebrew event for charity – Robin

7:30 Roundtable discussion topic: brew software, online brew tools,
and mobile devices – bring ideas to share

7:45 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) Tyler and I are both planning to bring
big barleywines,
so if anyone else would like to join in our “winter warmer” theme,
please feel free!

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