A New Blog Site

We've created a new blog site for the homebrew club! From now on, please check us out at http://TheIPAs.blogspot.com. Our next homebrew club meeting (our stout brewing competition) will be Tue Feb 12 at 8pm. The location will be announced shortly, but will be either at The Coney or at The Ironwood Grill.

Happy Anniversary to Us!

Our October 2012 meeting (tomorrow night, 8pm at the Coney) marks our 5th anniversary as a homebrew club! Thanks to all our members who continue to make great beer and great meetings. See you there.

Great Meeting Last Night

The September homebrew club meeting last night was a tie for the largest attendance - 21 of us showed up to the Coney for an enjoyable evening. In all, there were 7 beers, 2 meads, and a cider to try. John Cucarro was one of our new members last night, who is organizing the Oktoberfest for Downtown Indiana. This event will be held on Sat. Sep 29 on North 7th St from 2-6pm. Tickets are $25 in advance, and will get you a bratwurst sandwich, three beers from Church Brew Works, several small tastes of other Church beers, live music, and much more. In addition to the membership last night, we also hosted Heather from the Indiana Gazette. She stayed for almost two hours talking to several members about their homebrewing experiences, beer styles, etc. Look for her article in the Sun Sep 30 'leisure' section. See you next Month

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.

February's Club Meeting Moved to 21st

Because of conflicting schedules for many of our members due to Valentine's Day - our February club meeting (porter competition!) will be postponed one week. We will meet on Tuesday, February 21st at 8pm at PA BBQ (South 6th St.) to enjoy a host of porters.

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!

First Club Competition A Success!

The following is a summary of the evening, written by Bill D., who included the text below into an email to Geary's Brewing Co. in Portland, ME.

On Tuesday evening, August 09, Patrick Scanlon won the Geary's Pale Ale competition of the Indiana Pennsylvania Alesmiths (IPAs) homebrew club held at Ray Schamus's Pennsylvania Barbecue in Indiana, PA.

In April, 2011, Bill Dietrich, under the direction of president Nate McElroy, circulated copies of the recipe for the Geary's Pale Ale clone from "Clonebrews" ( T & M Szamatuiski, 1998, pg. 149). The objective was to have each member brew the same beer to see which came out best. Tom Montgomery of Montgomery Underground Winery, and our local homebrew supplier, made kits for both all-grain and extract brewers.

In all, there were thirteen brews to try plus a six pack of Geary's Pale Ale brought from the brewery on Bill's recent fishing trip to Maine.

The event was a success and all of the ales were very good. A first-time brewer and two brewers who had not brewed in a long time entered the competition. Twenty three beer enthusiasts tasted and voted for the best Geary's Pale Ale clone. The winner, Pat Scanlon, brewed an all-grain recipe on his home-built recirculating brew system. He was awarded a glass, some cozies and bottle opener from Geary's.

A good time was had by all.

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!

Getting Back to Basics for 2011

We'll be starting up our regular meetings again in a few weeks; the second Tuesday of each month, as usual.

The past several months have seen our meetings turn into more social gatherings with lots of homebrew tastings. They've been a lot of fun, for sure, but we've sort of devolved. Many members have suggested getting back to the original format of our meetings where we started each meeting with a topical discussion before we got to tasting.

Well, starting in 2011, we're going to do just that (thought let's not call it a resolution). Others have suggested also trying to enter more club members' beers into sanctioned competition, which we hope to do, too.

So if you've not been to a meeting for a while, or you'd like to join us for the first time, we'll see you on Tuesday January 11 at 8pm at the Coney.

Happy New Year!

Oct 2010 Club Meeting - Happy 3 Year Anniversary

Hard to believe, but we've been meeting now for three years!

Please join us on Tues Oct 12 at 8pm at the Coney for our October club meeting. If you've got some brew to share, bring it!

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.