June's Club Meeting

This month's meeting will be held at The Coney at 8pm. Our discussion this month will center around the pros and cons of traditional all-grain sparge methods (fly & batch) versus a no-sparge method. Reminder: The next club competition is set for the August meeting, where everyone is invited to bring a Scottish ale (any weight) ... but no Scotch ales.

Porter Competition

On Tuesday, February 21, the club met at PA BBQ for the porter competition. Eighteen club members came and over two hours we tasted 10 different variations of porter - from traditional, lighter brown porters (or London porters) to coffee porter to smoked porter to robust porter.

A big thanks to Ray for opening up his restaurant to us after hours and for providing some great barbecue and snacks to enjoy while tasting.

Our next meeting will be on Tuesday, March 13 at 8pm at the Coney.

Happy Anniversary to Us!

Tonight's homebrew club meeting marks the 4th Anniversary of our first meeting. Hard to believe that!

Tonight's meeting will be held at the Coney at 8pm.

Our next homebrew club competition will be set for the February 2012 meeting - the style is porter. Robust, imperial, Baltic ... doesn't matter. Brew a porter and share with the club in February!

August Club Meeting - Our First Intraclub Competition!

On Tuesday, August 9, we will meet at PA BBQ (2045 S. 6th St.) at 8pm for the Indiana, Pennsylvania Alesmiths (IPAS) first ever intraclub homebrew competition.

In May, it was suggested by club member Bill D. that we should all brew the same recipe and have a big tasting to see how each of us approached brewing. Bill handed out a recipe for a rough clone of Geary's (both extract and all grain) and we decided to set August as D-Day (drinking day).

Not sure yet how many people took up the challenge, but probably at least 10 folks will be bringing their beer for tasting on Tuesday. Though we've been meeting at the Coney on a regular basis, club member Ray S. (owner of PA BBQ) offered to host this special event after the restaurant is closed for the evening. It promises to be an education!

January 2011 Club Meeting

Our first 2011 club meeting will be Tuesday January 11 at 8pm at the Coney. Starting this month, we'll be getting back into more topical discussions at the start of the meeting before we start any homebrew tastings.

This month's discussion leader will be Dave Juart (topic TBA).

If you'd like to run a meeting/topic discussion, please contact Nate or Dave via email or at the meeting.

Let's have a great 2011!

September Homebrew Club Meeting

Oops! It's been a while since this has been updated. My apologies! The club is still going strong, however. In April and May, we had meetings with 20 members, and July and August came close with numbers in the high teens. Great to see such a strong turn-out for the club!

This month, we have a slight change in our venue. One of our members, Ray, is also owner of PA BBQ - now the only BBQ restaurant in Indiana. The club will meet on Tuesday, Sept 14 at PA BBQ, starting after 7pm. This is a BYOB event, whether homebrew or a commercial example. Ray will provide a small buffet of ribs, pulled pork, and some other goodies, and asks only for a $5 payment to cover the cost of food. Thanks Ray!

Next month, we'll be back to the Coney as usual.

February/March Club Meetings

Despite the bad weather and threat of more snow, we did have our normally scheduled February meeting at the Coney.

About a dozen folks showed up, and we tasted three homebrewed offerings.

We also decided that we will now be known officially as the Indiana Pennsylvania Alesmiths (IPAs), and Nate will register our club with the American Homebrewers Association.

Our next meeting will be Tuesday, March 9 at 8pm at the Coney.

January 2010 Meeting

Sorry for the lack of posts over the last few months ... we'll try to do better in 2010.

The club met on Jan 12, 2010 at 8pm at the Coney with several members in attendance and several homebrewed examples.

A suggestion was brought forth by Bill Dietrich to name the club the Indiana Pennsylvania Alesters (IPAs), and that we should think about getting 'official' glasses for our tastings. In addition, several people suggested starting the process of becoming recognized by the AHA in the future.

Our next meeting will be on Tue Feb 9.

September Meeting

Hope that you are getting back into the swing of a new school year - whether IUP's or the local elementary/high schools. For those who don't have to worry about such things anymore - hope you're enjoying some great early Fall weather and the Indiana Co Fair.

This is a reminder that our Sept club meeting will be Tue Sep 8 at The Coney, starting at 8pm. The topic for this month will be 'evaluating beer'. Many of us really enjoy our homebrew and other beer on a level that others don't quite get. But what does it take to judge a beer? How good are we at picking up subtle notes of ingredients and off flavors? If we smell or taste something - can we describe it accurately? At this meeting, let's talk about the process of evaluating beer - from appearance to aroma to taste. We can also discuss how beer judges score a beer within style guidelines, and perhaps we can think about some of our members submitting some beers to upcoming contests!

As usual, please bring some homebrew to share if you have any.

See you Tuesday. Enjoy the Labor Day weekend.

Update: 9/9/09 Great meeting last night - 16 people showed up, including three new folks. We got to try NINE homebrews and discuss beer evaluation. Hope to see you all next month!

August Homebrew Club Meeting

Join us on Tuesday, August 11 at The Coney, 8pm for our monthly homebrew club meeting. We'll discuss the upcoming Steel City Big Pour festival in Pittsburgh, share some homebrews, and talk about various homebrew-related topics.

UPDATE: Aug 12 - Great meeting last night - four homebrews to try out. We were also informed that Steel City Big Pour is already sold out for both sessions. We'll have to plan earlier next year!!

July Meeting

Join us on Tuesday July 14 at The Coney, 8pm for our July homebrewing club meeting. We'll welcome a new member, Mike, who plans to share his first homebrewed beer. The Coney also now has Leffe Brune on tap, which is a nice Belgian dark ale. If you have some beer to share, please bring it.

As for a discussion topic, let's talk about packaging: bottling, kegging, counter pressure bottle fillers, corking, etc.

Hope to see you next Tuesday!

May Homebrew Club Meeting

Join us on Tuesday, May 12 at 8pm at The Coney for our monthly meeting. This month, Tom Lieb will be our guest and will show us how to build picnic cooler mash/lauter tuns and a hot liquor tank.

We'll also have some extra guests this month from the Brewpub and Brewery Operations class.

As usual, if you've got some homebrew to share, we welcome the chance to try it.

April Homebrew Club Meeting

Join us on Tuesday, April 14 at 8pm at The Coney for our April homebrew club meeting. Our guests this month are three IUP undergraduate chemistry students who will be presenting a research project on water chemistry related to beer brewing. Come find out which beer we should be making based on the Indiana Borough water profile!

As usual, bring some homebrew to share.

March Club Meeting

This month, our topic will be wheat beer - whether American, Belgian, or German. As usual, bring some homebrew along to try (doesn't have to be a wheat beer, of course).

We'll meet as usual at the Coney, on Tue Mar 10 at 8pm.

See you there!

Thanks to Jon (and a reminder)

Last week's homebrew club meeting was a success, and we'd like to thank Jon for coming up from Philly and sharing some pics of Earth Bread + Brewery with us, along with two growlers of great beer (the Wee Heavy, Yo and the De Raine Pore).

As a reminder, there is still a space or two available for the van this Saturday for our South Side pub crawl. Tentative spots include East End (not on the South Side, I know), Piper's Pub, Fat Heads, Smokin' Joes, and The Sharp Edge (again, not on the South Side). More details will be forthcoming for those going on the trip, but we're probably going to be leaving on Saturday mid-afternoon from The Coney.

February Meeting

This month's meeting will include a special presentation by club co-founder emeritus, Jon Defibaugh. Jon is coming in all the way from Philadelphia, where he works as assistant brewer extraordinnaire at Earth Bread + Brewery. He'll be showing us some pictures of the operations and sharing some growlers of their wares.

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

The meeting starts at 8pm in the Dubliner (side bar) of The Coney.

January Meeting

Hey, don't forget we have our January meeting tonight at the Coney at 8pm. Dave J. will be talking about extreme beers. Bring some homebrew to share or grab a pint of Marzoni's Avalanche, Penn St. Nikolaus Bock - or there is still some Anchor Xmas ale left over.

See you there!

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.