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!