Meeting Tonight

Yes, that is right. We are having a meeting tonight at 8 PM at The Coney. Be there, and bring some homebrew if you'd like.

Cheers,

Dave

Oh, What A Night!

Tonight, we celebrated our first year anniversary at as a homebrew club by hosting Bill Kroft of Marzoni's Brick Oven & Brewing and his good friend and homebrewer Mark Dellinger. We met at 7pm at the Coney for our monthly meeting, with 11 regular club members in attendance.

We started with introductions and a brief history of Marzoni's (and Bill's brewing history). Next, we sampled some homebrews from three of our members: Ray S. brought a Honey Porter, an extract recipe that had a pound of honey in five gallons; Pat S. brought a 'normal' IPA, then followed with an apricot extract infused IPA - both all-grain recipes; and Eli brought a year-old, very dry cider. All four contributions were delicious.

After those, we cracked open two of Mark's homebrews, which included a heavily hopped smoked porter (awesome Rauchbier) and the one that Nate has been waiting for ... a saison with tons of Brett! Both were very tasty, but the 2005 "bretted" saison was absolutely outstanding!

Last, but not least, we cracked open the four different beers that Bill brought along: the Belgian Witbier and Oktorberfest (seasonals) and the two year-round offerings, Stone Mason Stout and Avalanche IPA.

Finally, as a rare and special treat, Bill brought along a bomber full of his very special and not-available-to-the-public Eis-Barleywine. In short, he took 10 gallons of the five-year anniversary barleywine (around 11% abv), froze it, and extracted 4 gallons of liquid from that. The result was an intense and very HOT alcoholic barleywine concentrate that was phenomenal tonight ... and what will turn into what I can only imagine as Heavenly in a few years. Kudos, Bill!

In all, quite a successful meeting!

October Meeting - Our First Anniversary & Special Guest

Join us this Tuesday, October 14 at 7 pm (note the time change) at the Coney for our 1st Anniversary homebrew club meeting. As a special treat, we'll have Bill Kroft, the brewer at Marzoni's Brick Oven & Brewing, join us with some growlers of his terrific beers.

As usual, feel free to bring some homebrew to share.

See you Tuesday!

August Meeting Tonight

Tonight at 8pm, please join us at the Coney for our August meeting. We'll catch up on some brewing news, and enjoy a few homebrewed beers.

Meeting Tonight

8:00 PM
The Coney
Pints/homebrew conversation/general BSery

See you there!!

-Dave

July Meeting

Come to The Coney on July 8th and join us for our monthly meeting. This month's topic. . . .yet to be determined, but I can promise you there will be homebrewed beer there, and lots of general BSery.

Cheers,

Dave

Johnstown Brewing Closed

The story can be found here.

State College Brewfest Details

A few quick words on the 11th State College Microbrewers and Importers Exposition this year.

When: Saturday, August 16, 2008
Where: Penn Stater Conference Center, State College
Times: 12-4pm for regular session ($45); 7-10pm for Connoisseur session ($75)
Website: www.scbrewexpo.com

Please note that the website CONTAINS SOME ERRORS, in that there is still information from last year posted on some of the pages.

No information yet as to what is offered at the Connoisseur session.

Tickets go on sale June 15 at the Hotel State College.

More details will be provided as they come in.

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

Notes from the February Meeting

Last night, the club met for its February meeting that has been postponed from last week due to the weather. The off-schedule might have discouraged a few from making it out, and so a few regular members were not in attendance.

However, we'd like to warmly welcome three new members: Jim, Sam, and Eric. It seems both the place mat ad and the Gazette article were effective recruitment ventures!

In total, we had 12 members in the Dubliner for the meeting. After everyone grabbed a pint and socialized for a bit, we began the program. Our program was given by Dave Juart, who shared his experience in using a small 2 gallon cooler to do counter top partial mashing. This extra step adds just a bit more time in the extract brewing schedule, but has the benefit of adding more control and complexity to the flavor and fermentables that one normally doesn't get with extract brewing.

Dave got several questions followed by lively discussion on the technique. Thanks, Dave!

Following the presentation, Nate made a few announcements regarding upcoming events:

• Febtoberfest is currently booked at the Coney for Saturday, March 22. It was brought to my attention that several of us forgot that this is the Saturday on Easter weekend. The deposit was put down, but if that Saturday is a conflict for a large percentage of the membership, thereby preventing them from attending, then we may have to push the event back to the next available weekend. An email will be sent this week regarding.
• We need to find out how many members are committed to attending, with and without their significant others; we'll try to keep the costs as low as possible, but that will depend on participation and which food items we select
• Club name?? So far, all we have been given is the "Trubadours". Are there other nominations?
• Pints For Pets - the first annual brew festival to be held at the Blair Co. ball park on May 17 from 4-8pm. $30 admission, with all monies going to the Central PA Humane Society. If interest is high, we'll see about organizing transportation.

After the official business, we got down to the tasting of three homebrews:

1. Excelsior Stout, courtesy of Jon Defibaugh, a sweetish milk stout with a very creamy body!
2. Batch XI, courtesy of Muckney Brewing (Dave Juart, Justin Tanaka), is a "kitchen sink", Stone 11th Anniversary-inspired ale - described as an extra dark IPA. Very hoppy!
3. Dark & Mysterious, courtesy of Muckney Brewing also, was a cinnamon porter and the first recipe written entirely by Mr. Tanaka. Quite a wallop of spice in that one!

After the tasting, as usual, several people stuck around for another round and some good discussion. In all, another successful meeting!

A Few Braved the Streets ...

Thanks to those few who braved the elements and the roads last night to hold down a table at The Coney in case some members or new recruits showed up! We'll pick up again next Tuesday (2/19) with the same scheduled program.

February 12 Meeting Postponed: Inclement Weather

Tonight's Indiana Homebrewers Club meeting is postponed until next Tuesday, Feb. 19 at 8pm due to the inclement weather.

By meeting time, there is a strong possibility of snow turning to freezing rain, making both driving and walking a bit dangerous.

An email was sent to the membership list, and the Coney will be informed in case anyone calls there to ask.

Sorry for any inconvenience this may cause, but the 'board' felt that attendance would probably be lower than normal, and that safety could be an issue in such conditions.

Gazette Article on Homebrew Club

A big thanks to Sam Kusic from the Indiana Gazette for his article today on the club. For those who get the paper, check out today's page 4.

Probably the only drawback to the article is that there is no contact information for readers, other than to come to the Coney, but I think it was well written - it elevates beer and homebrewers without making us sound too snobby or like total drunks ;)

Article?

Well, apologies for getting everyone all excited this week ... I'm sure by now you've opened the Gazette to find no homebrew club article, but rather a grown man with a KISS doll collection.

Presumably, the article will still run (Sam talked to the four of us last week), but we don't know if it'll be during the week, next Sunday, or next month now. The whole point was to get some interest up for our meeting on Tuesday and tie in with the ads last month. Keep your fingers crossed - we'll keep you posted!

February Meeting Announcement

The next Homebrewers Club meeting will be held on Tuesday, Feb. 12 at 8pm at the Coney. The program will include a brief instruction/discussion by Dave Juart on how to add more complexity and variety to extract brewing by using a counter-top partial mash step.

We'll have a small homebrew tasting, as usual, and some general discussion on a new club name and some updates on Febtoberfest.

Look for the homebrew club article in this Sunday's Indiana Gazette!

Hell With The Lid Off

A phrase once used to describe Pittsburgh from the early steel-town days, this moniker is now used for an annual barleywine festival. From the East End Brewing newsletter ...

"HELL WITH THE LID OFF" RETURNS... The biggest and baddest barleywine festival the Eastern US has to offer is back - and it’s right here in Pittsburgh. Kelly’s Bar and Lounge with again be the site of the largest collection of Barleywines available under one roof (including East End Gratitude 2007... possibly some older vintages too). Two days, four hour sessions, with beer friendly food, barleywines old and new, domestic and imported, big and bigger, and small manageable samples make this one of my favorite events of the year. Tickets go on sale Growler Hours (at East End Brewing) and at Kelly’s next week - $35 in advance, $45 at the door. Feb 23: 4-8pm (sold out last year), Feb 24th: 2-6pm. If you need directions or other info, call Kelly’s at 412-363-6012.

If there is enough interest, perhaps we should see about getting a van up for this trip ... Tim at The Coney has expressed willingness to help our group coordinate events like trips to local festivals. There'd be an additional charge, of course, but it beats a DUI ticket after drinking barley wines (typically from 8-12+% ABV)!

Notes from the January Meeting

Tonight was another successful meeting of the club! Just about 15 of us showed up tonight at the Coney, including one new member. Welcome Ray!

A reporter and photographer from the local paper (Indiana Gazette) showed up. WE got some pictures for a future article, and Sam, the reporter, stayed for most of the meeting.

We started by watching a DVD on all-grain brewing, brought by Bill. After the presentation, we sampled four different beers supplied by: Dave, Justin, Eli, and Tom.

Information will be upcoming for February's meeting and "Febtoberfest".

Gazette Notice for Tuesday

In case anyone missed it, the next Indiana Homebrewers meeting was announced in Saturday's Indiana Gazette on the bottom left of page 4 (under the obits).

Happy New Year!

Welcome to 2008!

Hopefully, your holiday season was enjoyable, relaxing, and safe. And hopefully, you've all made a Brew Beers Resolution for 2008! That's right - a Brew Beers Resolution; to brew more beer and to drink better (not more) beer in 2008. We all want to watch those waistlines and get healthier, but a nice homebrew now and again is part of a balanced and joyous lifestyle :)

We'll be sending out an email shortly about next week's meeting: Tuesday, Jan. 8 (the Second Tuesday) at The Coney.

I just got the new place mat today from New Century Impressions, and below is a picture of our club ad. It was printed on 20,000 place mats that you'll see in some of Indiana's fine establishments - including, of course, The Coney.

Look for it the next time you're out!