May's Meeting: In a Word ... Tasty!

Well, if you could not make the May Homebrewers club meeting last night, you missed out on some delicious offerings! We gathered in the Dubliner starting at 7pm, and many of us grabbed some dinner and a pint while waiting for the crowd to grow.

In all, we had 17 people last night including spouses. In no particular order: Bill D., Jon S., Jon D. & Autumn, Dave J. and Brandy, Justin & Jess, Dave F. and Laura, Pat, Jim R., Nate, Eli, Tom W., Tom van D., and Craig. And of course, our extremely efficient and friendly bartender, Caroline. A big thanks to her for the assist last night, and for the artwork and possible new logo for the club.

We started tasting at 7:45 and were finished up by 9:30 or so. Here is the list from last night:

• Bill D.: all-grain Hefeweizen
• Jim R.: all-grain amber lager
• Jon S.: extract pumpkin ale
• Muckney Brewing: extract ginger-sesame ale
• Tom W.: extract pale ale
• Craig: extract amber lager
• Dave F.: partial mash porter
• Jon D.: extract coffee stout
• Nate: all-grain Belgian quadrupel
• Eli: extract American strong ale
• Pat: all-grain IPA
• Erick (absent): extract IPA

In all, a very successful evening! Some of us are gathering at 2:30 this Saturday at the Coney to go to the Pints for Pets brewfest in Altoona. Tickets and places on the van are still available! Contact us if interested.

Anyone up for a Pint for a Pet??

It's drawing near, Pints for Pets that is. If you're interested, contact Nate or myself for more information. Oh, the quick and dirty:

Saturday, May 17th
4 PM to 8 PM
Blair County Ball Park, Altoona, PA
$25/ticket in advance, $30 at the door

We're getting close to having a van full, so be sure to get in contact as soon as possible.

Also, Don't forget about our Grand Tasting event at 7 PM on May 13th at The Coney. Be sure to bring the significant other and some brew to share.

Cheers,

Dave

Speak of the Devil . . . .

After having a conversation about Four Sons Brewery in Titusville last night, Lew sheds a little light on the subject.

The Skinny - Four Sons Brewpub will open under a new name on or around June 1st under the watchful eye of Voodoo head brewer Matt Allyn. Read about it here.

I smell a road trip.

Cheers,
Dave

April Meeting Notes

Ten of us gathered at The Coney last night to share in this obsession we call homebrewing. After the usual chatter and pint-purchasing, we were treated to a Powerpoint presentation by Jim Resh of his all-grain setup which can only be described as a pilot brewery. It was great to see what ingenuity and a little elbow grease can create. A big thanks to Jim for sharing.

Following a brief round of questions on the presentation we moved on to the night's homebrew offerings. We had five offerings this month. Two were brough by Joe Trimarchi, his first and second batch by the way, one an Imperial Light Ale and the other a Red Ale, both extract batches. Dave and Justin at
Muckney Brewing offered up two partial mash brews, G-man's XLTPA and Rising Sun Ginger-Sesame Red Ale. Jon offered up a tasty treat in his Celebes Coffee Stout. Thanks to all for bringing brews to share.

Upcoming Events:

• FEBTOBERFEST!! - in May. May 13th to be exact at 7:00 PM at The Coney. Bring a guest and a few homebrews to share. Check back for updates.
• Pints for Pets - May 17th, 4 to 8 PM at Blair County Ball Park. Tickets are $30, plus yet-to-be-determined DD van fee. Please contact us if interested.

Again, thanks to Jim for the presentation and to those who brought beer.

Join or Die!!

In the spirit of HBO's mini-series John Adams (not so much Samuel Adams), we would like to invite all those of legal drinking age to The Coney tomorrow evening, Tuesday, April 8th at 8 PM for IHC's monthly meeting. Following a brief program, we will have our usual homebrew tasting. If you would like to bring something to share, please do so.

Just a reminder that our May gathering will be Tuesday, May 13th at 7:00 PM for this year's incarnation of Febtoberfest. (Better late than never.) We hope you're brews for this special event are fermenting away. Please feel free to bring your significant other.

Hope to see you all tomorrow.

Cheers,
Dave

Notes from the March Meeting

Last night we had another successful meeting of the Indiana Homebrewers Club at The Coney. Thanks to the article by Sam in the Gazette last month, we had six new members join us. A big welcome to: Denny, Deb, Bob, Pat, Joe, and Jeff. In total, 16 people were present last night.

After the normal pleasantries and securing of appetizers and pints, the meeting began with a bit of business.

• Nate passed around a photocopy of an article from Brew Your Own magazine on the hop shortage, which included a handy chart for hop substitution.
• The group decided that our big tasting of members' homebrews will be during the May meeting. We'll try to hold the Upstairs and perhaps start at 7pm on that Tuesday.
• More information on the upcoming "Pints for Pets" beer festival was given: It will be Sat. May 17 from 4-8pm at the Blair Co. ballpark (Altoona), with 30 breweries represented. Ticket price is $30, with all proceeds going to the Central PA Humane Society. If there is enough interest, we will try to rent the Coney van for passage to and from the beer festival. For more information, please visit www.pintsforpets.com (you can see the brewer list there!)
• Now that we've grown a bit, we may transition from this blog to an actual website so that we can archive meeting notes, include pages with brewing tips (like the hop substitution guide, recipes, etc.) and other information that we have more control of - rather than using Blogger for everything.
  

After "business", we had several homebrews to try, including a Guinness-like stout from Ray S. (brewed with some extra brown sugar and a bit of allspice), a pale ale from Tom W. (second homebrew batch), a clone of Dogfish Head Raison d'Etre from Bill D., Eli's steam beer (second homebrew) and his IPA, and Erick L.'s dry-hopped IPA (first homebrew, with a bit of assist from Nate).

After the homebrews, we also had a growler each of East End Best Bitter and East End Dubbel Trubbel (donated by Justin and Nate).

A big thanks to Caroline, our bartender for the evening, and the Coney for hosting us.

For those who could not join us this month, we hope to see you in April!

Beer/Wine Tasting - Jeannette

Here's an email sent to the Homebrew Club about a local (sort of) event that some of us may be interested in attending ...

Hello, I read your article in the Gazette, and am planning on coming to the next meeting. In the mean time, I wanted to let your members know about an informal beer/wine tasting at a local homebrew shop. The location is Duncan True Value in Jeanette, which is a hardware/homebrew store. People bring their own creations and share them, with rather informal popular voting. They usually get around 100 people. The owner has been giving out door prizes and prizes to the highest vote getters. In recent years, the number of brewers has been falling
off in favor of vintners. I'd like to see that turn around.

The date is 8-Mar, starting at 6:30.

Hope to see some of you there.

-Tony Matous