First time attendees Shirley, Paul, Jack, Angel, Lara, and Gerry were welcomed.
The June 19 Thirsty Third Thursday meetup will be held at Clandestine Brewing in San Jose. Clandestine is a new brewery opened by four local homebrewers, and initial reports about their beers are exceptional. They are not normally open on Thursday evenings, but are willing to open especially for the Sudzers on June 19 – let’s make it worth their while!
Also on the evening of June 19, Derek W and Doug W, along with Andy C from the Headquarters Homebrew Club, will present an Intermediate Homebrewing workshop, sponsored by Palo Alto City Library, at the Lucie Stern Community Center in Palo Alto.
Following the tasting on May 16 of the first twelve “off flavors” in the Siebel tasting kit, the club will taste the remaining twelve flavors on June 27. This event is limited to paid club members.
As a reminder, the July meeting will be moved from the first Friday to the second Friday to avoid the July 4 holiday. The July 11 meeting will be the judging for the club’s second Session Beers competition. Ribbons will be awarded for the top 3 beers in the hop-forward category, as well as the top 3 non-hop-forward beers. Beers must be 5% ABV or less to be eligible for entry.
Following the success of the brewing demonstration at last year’s KraftBrew Fest in San Jose, the Sudzers have been invited back as a partner in this year’s fest, which will be held August 2 at the Gordon Biersch production facility in Japantown. Dan Gordon has agreed to a collaboration with the Sudzers for this event – the club will brew an Oktoberfest lager to be served side by side with Gordon Biersch’s Oktoberfest at a tapping party in late September. Justin, Jim W, and Rich K volunteered to bring their equipment to brew on August 2.
Charles S provided an informative presentation on carbonation, including the science behind force carbonation and bottle conditioning. He provided a number of side by side samples of beers that he had carbonated both ways, including a Belgian brown ale, Biere de Garde, Tripel, and Belgian Blond. All of the beers were outstanding, but particularly for these Belgian styles the desirable flavor profiles were more pronounced in the bottle-conditioned versions. Charles’ presentation slides will be made available on the website.
Homebrew evaluations included:
Chris L’s ESB
Nic M’s Brown Ale
Nic M’s Black IPA
Mikael & Bill’s Red Bread Red Ale
Steve H & Derek H’s 3 Threads Coconut Porter
Derek H & Steve H’s Sleight of Hand Belgian Black IPA (a homebrew clone of the commercial Sierra Nevada Beer Camp Beer #94 developed by Derek H and his team)
Rich K’s Smoked Scotch Ale
Shirley T’s Presentable Chocolate Porter
Justin V’s Brett Belgian Stock Ale
Mike C’s Hoptos IPA
Tim T’s Farewell to Xilinx Rye IPA
Charles S’s Blazing World IPA
Adam C’s Barrel Aged Dubbel