Plans for 2010
By Mike Griesmeyer. Filed in Discussion |The Duke of Ale board will meet early in January to draw up plans for 2010. A partial list of proposed activities includes:
Competitions:
Identic-Ale experiment where everyone brews whatever style they want but must only use DeSmet hops.
Tastings of professional and amateur examples of the “style(s) of the month.”
Tours of local breweries (professional and amateur).
Bulk grain buys.
Various brewing process discussions/demonstrations
- Member Equipment/Processes
- BJCP Study Group presentation material
Please feel free use comments on this post to make suggestions for the coming year and to volunteer for activities and possible presentations at our meetings.
Monday, January 4th 2010 at 4:11 pm |
At some point in the coming months I will be putting on a presentation about my brewing process. I have also been working with the ABQ beer meetup group in hopes that we can get some more interaction between that group and ours. I know there is a lot of interest in homebrewing on their end and I think inviting those interested to the meeting where I give my presentation would be a good start. At this point I will talk more about some ideas we’ve been kicking around about having interested up-and-coming brewers participate in designing and brewing beer with DoA members who volunteer for this activity. I’ll be volunteering and I’m hoping a couple others will too. This seems like a great way to get more people interested and familiar with brewing and to grow our club and increase activity.
Monday, January 4th 2010 at 4:13 pm |
Also, on Friday Jan 29th there will be a low-key Full Sail beer tasting event which the beer meetup group will be attending. They would like to extend the invitation to members of the Dukes who are interested. The details haven’t been nailed down yet, so I will pass them along when I get them.
- Ben
Tuesday, January 5th 2010 at 3:53 pm |
What is this ABQ beer meetup group you speak of? Need a group to share my passion of beer with! Since the Dukes have moved the meetings to Wednesday, I don’t anticipate making any of those.
Cheers, Rob
Friday, January 8th 2010 at 12:48 pm |
We will pole the members about days for the meetings. Maybe we need to have the day rotate so that it is not a permanent miss for anyone. Obviously, there is no single day that will work for eveyone.
Mike
Thursday, January 14th 2010 at 8:16 am |
Oh, I understand that, I am mostly picking at the club. Actually my conflict is that my son’s racing club meets the first Wed also. He told me to alternate…pretty good suggestion from a 5 year old!
Tuesday, January 12th 2010 at 5:57 am |
I’d like to do a Saison tasting and discussion at one of the meetings. I’ve been brewing a few of these and tasting a wide variety of them, and I think it would be fun to bring a sample of my own Saison-like creations in to taste along side some commercial examples. I know Paul Mallory has been getting into Saisons recently too, and I’m sure he’d be interested in participating.
Thursday, January 14th 2010 at 8:19 am |
Yeah, brewing all kinds of saisons myself…I have a red table version about 4%abv on tap right now and brewing another one with a large percentage of oats and citrus hops this Friday. I am all for a saison tasting. I am recent convert to Wyeast 3711(french saison), it is an animal, nowhere near as finicky as the commercial Dupont strain and wonderful spicy character.
Thursday, January 14th 2010 at 7:35 am |
Last year, Rob organized a method de Champagne brewing with a strong Belgian beer and from all accounts it was a huge success. Who is interested in participating in a project like that this year?
Thursday, January 14th 2010 at 8:33 am |
It was an interesting project…the spiced version left a little to be desired but overall a success. There were several people at the time that said they would be interested in doing this again. I still have a couple bottles, I believe, if you wanted to try some at a meeting.
Thursday, January 14th 2010 at 9:19 am |
Shawn is definitely interested in participating.
Todd
Tuesday, January 19th 2010 at 8:37 pm |
What do you think about doing this at a more educational level, where the participants each bring their own beer to a bottling party and we put all the beer in champagne bottles with caps and then go through the riddling process (which would mean you would spin the bottles….). Then we could get everybody together for a party to pop the corks and add syrup and put the cages on. Then we could share the bottles (if desired) to get a feel for the effect of the “Method de Champagne” on different beer styles….
This would certainly be easier to organize in many respects and it wouldn’t all ride on my brewing system…. Plus we’d get to try a variety of different beers with this method.
Todd
Wednesday, February 10th 2010 at 2:29 pm |
That’s a good idea, would be interesting to try all the different styles, have everyone start collecting the right bottles!
Thursday, January 14th 2010 at 8:26 am |
Hey Todd, don’t forget we have a bourbon barrel…”potentially infected” bourbon barrel.
A few of us have tossed around the idea of group brewing a strong scotch ale where everyone primaries their own beer then tossing it in the barrel with some brettanomyces! Once that beer is done I think most of the bourbon character would be gone and we could do something like a Flanders red, then maybe a lambic style beer.
Thursday, January 14th 2010 at 9:03 am |
That sounds like music to my ears!
Lets do it!
What is in the barrel now? My understanding after reading Wild Brews is that you really don’t want it to sit exposed to the air for any period of time (too much acedtobacter builds up). I think he actually suggests filling it with water and adding sodium meta-bisulphite if you have to let it sit….
I’ll add the bourbon barrel to the list of activities and solicit brewers to participate.
Todd
Thursday, January 14th 2010 at 10:21 am |
It just has water in it right now, I was going to drain and refill with meta-bisulphite until we are ready to fill it. Changing out the water will get rid of some bourbon character also. At the next meeting see how many people would be interested in brewing a wee heavy for this.
Thursday, January 14th 2010 at 2:43 pm |
Okay, I have a list of potential activities that I’d like to see the response for. If you are interested in any of these, please respond and please let me know how much you’d like to participate if we go ahead with it.
Club Brews (ala Big Brew but on our own schedule)
Saison Tasting
BJCP study course and/or exam
Low-scoring in EBC/SF beer tasting
Barrel Brews (Wee Heavy Scottish first, then Flanders Reds & sours)
Method de Champagne beer
Hammel Museum Tour/Event (Socorro Springs)
Christmas Ales (could start now so they’d actually be ready by Xmas)
Food+Beer pairing events
Beer Experiments (like identic-ale, but focused on other ideas)
Beer Festival organized by the club
Participation in Pro Brewer’s Cask ale Festival
Brewery tour of NM breweries (individually, or together by bus)
Balloon Fiesta brewing event (of some kind)
(other….)
Thanks!
Todd
Thursday, January 14th 2010 at 3:53 pm |
I would participate in all of them except the BJCP study course…(given I have no schedule conflicts)
Not sure what Low scoring is…
while I love the idea of a homebrew festival, I don’t think it is feasible, especially insurance-wise….
and, I think to participate in the Pro Brewer’s cask ale festival we would have to brew the beer on premise(I do have 2 casks though)
Thursday, February 11th 2010 at 7:44 am |
I have a suggestion for a club brewing project. I recently purchased a book from Great Britain titled “Old British Beers and How to Make Them”. Basically they researched old brewers’ logs and developed homebrew recipes. Some of these recipes date back as far as 1743, ie a porter made with 100% brown malt. The book even describes how to take today’s well modified malts and make historical pale amber/amber/brown malts. Today’s brown malt is not the same as traditional brown malt. So maybe we could find a few people to make their own malt and brew a traditional beer.
I will be doing this regardless, so even if no one is interested in brewing these, maybe I could give a presentation at a club meeting.
Cheers, Rob