Author: Sudzers

Many fine events for you to enjoy:

http://www.examiner.com/article/silicon-valley-beer-events-for-june-2013-and-beyond

Cheers!

Cheryl, the awesome Community Outreach Librarian for the Palo Alto City Library, wanted to get the word out about a series of three classes being taught this summer by John Tucci, Gordon Biersch Palo Alto brewmaster.

All three programs are free, and they all start at Downtown Library in Palo Alto and then migrate to Gordon Biersch for beer tastings and a brewery tour. Best parking is at City Hall at 250 Hamilton Avenue in Palo Alto. Parking is free and unlimited after 5 pm.

Cheers!

Introduction to Beer
Date and Time: Thursday, June 13 at 7 pm
Location: Downtown Library, 270 Forest Avenue
Ages: For age 21 and over
Register: http://califa.evanced.info/paloalto/lib/eventsignup.asp?ID=5589
Learn how to distinguish the different types of beers to find your perfect brew. Registration is required.

Beer Geeks: The Techie Side of Beer
Date and Time: Thursday, July 25 at 7 pm
Location: Downtown Library, 270 Forest Avenue
Ages: For age 21 and over
Register: http://califa.evanced.info/paloalto/lib/eventsignup.asp?ID=5590
Learn the science of making beer. Registration is required.

Beer and Food Pairings
Date and Time: Thursday, August 8 at 7 pm
Location: Downtown Library, 270 Forest Avenue
Ages: For age 21 and over
Register: http://califa.evanced.info/paloalto/lib/eventsignup.asp?ID=5591
Learn how beer and food complement each other. Registration is required.

Hello Sudzers! Just a quick reminder that our next meeting is this Friday, June 7 at 7 pm at Nick’s house. Need the address or directions? Email moresimcoe@sudzers.org

7:00 Social Time

7:15 Club Business

Upcoming events:

• Mission pub crawl June 8 – Nick
• Thirsty Third Thursday June 20
• July meeting moved to July 12
• MoreBeer summer sale brew day July 13 – Nathan
• SV Beer Week brewing demo August 3 – Derek
• NCHF Sep. 20-21

Future presentations, incl. metalworking

7:30 Special Guest presentation by Marin Kasper from Shmaltz Brewing, including Genesis dry hopped session ale, Messiah nut brown ale, Hop Manna IPA, Rejewvenator Dubbel Doppel, and Bittersweet Lenny’s RIPA

After the Shmaltz presentation, Jim will present the Pliny The Younger clone brewed on the club brew day May 4.

After the PTY presentation, there will be additional social time/brew sharing. For this meeting, because of the special guest presentation, we will not do a formal round of homebrew evaluations, but feel free to bring homebrew and ask others for feedback during social time.

Reminder: Bring your recipe – club members will have lots of questions!

Always welcome: homebrews from any style to share. Don’t have any homebrew on hand right now? Feel free to bring other interesting brews you’ve picked up. Don’t have a beer to bring? Please bring some snacks to share.

See you Friday! Next upcoming club meeting – Friday, July 12

Good collection of beer at Smoke Eaters on De Anza Avenue in Cupertino Thursday night. I had the Coronado Idiot IPA which uses Citra hops that I first had at Yard House Santana Row. I really like this beer, passing up some other awesome double IPA’s.

Sudzers co-Chief Communications Officer Derek will be writing a monthly beer column in the Los Altos Town Crier to share profiles of local breweries, recommendations for local craft brews, beer and food pairing, upcoming beer events and much more. The first installment in the series is “Homebrewers create unique beers in Los Altos.” Cheers!

We had a pretty outstanding AHA Big Brew day at MoreBeer, with about 15 Sudzers in attendance at various times during the day, a group of about 25 Stanford grad students who joined us to learn about the brewing process, and a number of others who stopped by to talk about brewing and the Sudzers club. We were part of a nationwide event that featured over 4500 participants brewing over 9000 gallons of beer at 383 different sites on May 4! A full set of photos (thanks to Linda, Ron, and Derek) is posted on the Sudzers Flickr page.

The beer came in just above the target gravity, and the hop extracts worked their magic. Brewmaster Jim gets full credit for the recipe development (recipe and process notes available here) and the vast majority of the brewing labor. Thanks to everyone who came by and participated in the brewing process and/or brought snacks to share. Thanks to Tyler, Mike, Jim, Santiago, Charles, and Chris bringing beers to serve. Thanks also to Chris & Linda for showing up super early to help out, and to Professor Chris for giving the group of about 25 Stanford grad students who came for the day a nice introductory lecture on the homebrewing process. Thanks to the Stanford crew for buying 16 pizzas to feed the hungry masses, and to Robin for baking delicious brownies and mini chocolate chip cakes for dessert. As always, thanks to Gary & MoreBeer for ingredients and the opportunity to promote the store, the homebrewing hobby, and the club. And thanks to Nick for bringing some brews to share with Jim & Gary & Derek after everything was cleaned up and put away.

A report from Brewmaster Jim: Before yesterday I was a virgin to brewing with HERMS system, but Morebeer’s sophisticated 1100 all digital brew stand changed all that. I’ll probably look back years from now and remember my first time 😉 Fortunately, there were many people that helped avoid more difficulties that might have otherwise overshadowed the day. Of course there was the ever guiding Derek, but also Chris who instinctually understand how to set the stand up and get off to a good start.  And also, there was Charles, who knew just when to stop sparging to avoid an otherwise messy cleanup of the spent grain bed. The one thing that I wished we had captured on film, oops – old school, I mean digital, was the endless stream of young ladies that came by to have their picture taken stirring the mash. Perhaps next year. And most importantly to any tired and hot brewer at the end of a long brew day, A HUGE round of thanks to all that did an excellent job of helping clean up, including Rich, Derek, Nick, and Gary.

The yeasts are happily turning our efforts into an awesome beer, sitting comfortably at 64 degrees for the first three days of fermentation. The FG was higher than expected. Not knowing the expected mash efficiency, I planned for 70%. As it turned out, the efficiency was closer 76%. Consequently, rather than a FG of 1.089, the FG will come in around 1.097, after accounting for the second sugar addition at the end of fermentation. So, perhaps the brew should be called Pliny the Younger Stud. Regarding water treatment, Mountain View has really soft water and with the adjustments, the wort PH was 5.4 going into boil and Chloride:Sulfate ratio projected at .38, which should provide that definitive PTY hoppiness.  One bit of concern however, was the thermo-shock the yeasts experienced. By the time the beer made it to the fermentation chamber, it had warmed up to about 83 degrees. In any case, a healthy krausen developed within six hours and I added the second O2 dose early this morning.  I’ll bring the finished (completed NOT consumed), keg to the June club meeting. So, bring your growler and take some home to enjoy…

Logistical preparations were discussed for the AHA Big Brew Day event on May 4 at the MoreBeer store. Plans to brew 10 gallons of a Pliny the Younger clone recipe came together well, and there was a full lineup of homebrews ready to go on the club jockey box.

Our May 16 Thirsty Third Thursday was set for Trials Pub in San Jose. They typically bring in new British cask ales at the beginning of each week, but don’t tap them until they’ve settled midweek, so there should be fresh cask-conditioned brews on tap.

Club members were reminded about special guest Marin Kasper from Shmaltz Brewing who will speak and bring beers to share at the June meeting.

A San Francisco pub crawl with honorary Sudzer Pete Slosberg was tentatively set for June 8. More details to come.

The July Sudzers meeting will be moved to the 2nd Friday of the month, July 12, in order to avoid meeting on the July 4 weekend.

Co-president Tyler is coordinating an upcoming order of 8 gallon whiskey barrels from Woodinville Whiskey Co. Because of their production schedule, they will likely not have barrels ready to ship until early September. Contact Tyler if you’re interested in being included in a barrel order.

And, of course, plentiful homebrew tasting:

• Tom’s English Mild
• Audrey’s L.L. Apricot Wheat
• Derek’s Go Go Pale Ale
• Mike’s Two to Tango Pale Ale
• Rich’s Columbus IPA
• Rob’s IPA
• Anna and Fuad’s Citra SMASH IPA (in two versions, one with traditional dry hops and one with a vodka hop tincture added in secondary)
• Rob’s Brett IPA
• Joe’s J&J #2 Cider
• Tyler’s Oaked Dark Matter Imperial Stout
• Jim’s Pliny the Younger clone

Enjoy reading about the growth of the homebrewing hobby, the American Homebrewers Association Big Brew day, and the Silicon Valley Sudzers. Cheers!

http://www.theepochtimes.com/n3/35148-big-brew-for-national-homebrew-day/

Great article from the indomitable Andy Lee, including a shout out for the Sudzers’ participation in the AHA Big brew on Saturday, May 4. Cheers!

http://www.examiner.com/article/south-bay-beer-happenings-for-may-2013-and-beyond