The Homebrew Club of Silicon Valley
The Sudzers represented well at the Northern California Homebrewers Festival in September with about 20 members in attendance and 13 outstanding brews on tap! Plans are already underway for NCHF 2013, with the theme “Space: The Beer Frontier.” Cheers!
A couple of club members are working on doing a Homebrewing 101 presentation at the Morgan Hill Library on October 11. As part of our preparations, we put together a list of excellent homebrewing books and DVDs available at any Santa Clara County Library District library. For your reading and viewing pleasure: http://is.gd/homebrewlist. Cheers!
We had a fantastic September meeting – lots of guests since we had Master Cicerone Nicole Erny presenting! Here’s what you missed if you weren’t there…
New Sudzers T-Shirts are here! $20/Men’s, $25/Women’s (this is at cost!)
NCHF Planning – members going to NCHF had a quick planning session with Mike Conant, our NCHF Chair this year. If you weren’t at the meeting and haven’t seen any of the emails this week and you ARE going to NCHF, email Mike (or Derek or myself) immediately so we can get you on the distribution list!
Third Thirsty Thursday – September 20th at Harry’s Hofbrau San Jose (390 Saratoga Avenue, San Jose); show up between 6 – 7 pm, leave whenever!
The summer party was a huge success – many thanks to Jim for loaning us the fun house and for Nick on taking excellent care of the fun house!
Plan on a fall club brew day later this year – making lots of the infamous Dark Matter Russian Imperial Stout again!
Nicole Erny, Master Cicerone gave a fantastic presentation to the group on “Focus on Flavor”. We all learned many interesting facts about palates, how to train your palate and how to develop a better vocabulary when describing beer, food, wine, etc. If you are an AHA member, you can login to the NHC conference site and view the same presentation materials Nicole showed us.
Homebrew Tasting: (due to the large group and length of the meeting, we did not use our rating system on the homebrews presented); you’ll also note a few entries from the Worts’ canned fruit challenge…
Reminder to homebrewers for future meetings – bring your recipe with you!
See you at Thirsty Thursday, NCHF or our October 5 meeting!
7:30 Nicole Erny, Master Cicerone – “Focus on Flavor: Taste (And Describe) Beer Better”
Sudzers Meeting Minutes
August 3, 2012
Upcoming Events:
Nathan – Pilsner; average rating: members would buy a pint
Matt & Mike – Vienna Lager; members would buy a pint
Elan – Kombucha ale; members would buy a taster
Jim – Hefewiezen; members would buy a pitcher
Doug – Saison; members would buy a pint/pitcher
Bobby – Citra Pale Ale; members would buy a pitcher/keg
Derek – Citra Pale from More Beer Sale Brew Day; members would buy a pint
Kathy – Amber ale; members would buy a pint
Mike – Pale; members would buy a pitcher
David – Porter; members would buy a taster/pint
Liza – Breakfast Stout; members would buy a pint/pitcher
Tyler – Imperial Barley Wine; members would buy a pint
Tom – DIPA; members would buy a keg **Tom had the best beer tonight**
Reminder to homebrewers – bring your recipe with you!
A grand time was had by all at the Sudzers Summer Party at the “fun house” on August 18. Many fine homebrews and commercial beers were enjoyed, lots of tasty food was consumed, much swimming was done, and plenty of ping pong, billiards and pinball were played by the 30+ Sudzers in attendance. Cheers!
August notes are coming soon. In the meantime, here’s July! In other news, hope to see you Thursday evening 8/16 at Original Gravity Public House at 66 S. 1st Street in San Jose for Sudzers Thirsty Third Thursday. Email moresimcoe@sudzers.org for details.
But now, on to the meeting notes…
The style of the month was IPA, so we had a full house with 34 brewers and beer enthusiasts!
Derek, Keith and Steve updated the group on NHC and what fun and education was had by all. Derek brought one of the commemorative conference beers to share with the group… Wry Smile Rye IPA.
We also hosted a brew day July 14 during More Beer’s twice yearly sale. Derek brewed up an extract Citra wheat pale ale, Keith and Steve made a red velvet cake ale (which Steve made up a special recipe red velvet cake to be used in the mash), and Doug and his crew brewed up “Supernatural Anesthetist” – based on Three Floyd’s Zombie Dust, a Citra-hopped Imperial Pale Ale. We also had fun serving up many brews for our members and tons of great food thanks to Chris. Talked to lots of people, so we’ll see if we have some new guests in August!
Harry’s Hofbrau saw a handful of Sudzers on July 19 for Third Thirsty Thursday – great beers still on tap. Facebook claims Pliny is back on tap.
Derek asked the group for ideas for presentations at upcoming meetings. Ideas ranged from brewing with different grains, exploring hrms, water profiles, adjuncts, beer and food pairing and other technical discussions. If you have anythink you’d like to present or talk about, email moresimcoe@sudzers.org.
Work is progressing on the Sudzers.org website. If you’ve got something to contribute, email Keith and he’ll set you up with a password. Also, if you’re on facebook, be sure to like the Silicon Valley Sudzers page https://www.facebook.com/
We used a new rating scale for homebrew tasting. After tasting and discussing the beer, the group then gives their personal opinion on whether they’d a) dump the beer, b) buy a taster, c) buy a pint, d) buy a pitcher, or e) buy a keg! This helped everyone give and get feedback, whether you’re a beer appreciator or experienced judge and kept the meeting moving along. We spent about 90 minutes reviewing the 12 homebrews brought to the meeting. The brewers, both old a new, received some great feedback!
See the bottom of the photo below for fancy illustrations of the rating system. Congrats to Linda for the most “I’d buy a Keg” ratings for her IPA! The two beer names obscured by the flash are Linda’s Hoppy IPA and Antwerp Afternoon, a first homebrew (Saison) from our first-time guest Fuad!
Most important news next…we have a date for the Sudzers Summer Party! Save the date for Saturday, August 18. The Sudzers summer party is a family-oriented event, held at the “fun house” across the street from Nick’s. Thanks to Jim for allowing us the use of his truly fun house! For those of you who haven’t been there, there’s a pool, pool tables, pinball machines etc. Stay tuned for more details, but block off the afternoon of August 18th now!
Lastly, NCHF (Northern California Homebrewers’ Festival) is coming up September 21 and 22. If you didn’t get your tickets but have a beer you’d like us to serve, let me know and I’ll see if we a)have room to transport it and b) have room to serve it! If you’ve got your tickets or are on wait list, we’ll be creating a separate email list soon to start hammering out all the details! Only 8 weeks from today until the event!
Next meeting: Friday, August 3 at 7pm at Nick’s. Style of the month is Light Lager (including Helles and Dortmunder). Hope to see you there!
Silicon Valley Sudzers get a shout out in Metro Silicon Valley’s 2nd annual beer issue, covering the up and coming South Bay craft beer scene: http://www.metroactive.com/features/craft-brew-south-bay.html
as well as examiner.com’s article on the same topic: http://www.examiner.com/article/july-2012-taking-inventory-of-the-san-jose-area-craft-beer-establishments
Cheers!
Sudzers Derek, Robin, Keith, Michelle, and Steve C. made the trek to Seattle for the 2012 National Homebrewers Conference. As always, club night was the signature event:
Tickets to NHC sold out in record time this year (less than a day!). Time to start thinking about Philly in 2013…