Author: Sudzers

Happy St. Paddy’s Day! Here are the notes from the March 1 Sudzers meeting.

Special guest speaker Tom Boheme talked about the San Jose Cooperative Brewery and Pub that is in the works. Individuals can buy into the co-op for $150 in order to receive member benefits, including a vote in selecting what is brewed, potentially dividends, and of course bragging rights. The plan is to serve a standard set of brews, with rotating seasonals created and brewed by co-op members. Critical mass to launch is 2000 investors, they have just over 100 now. The next board meeting of the co-op is March 23 – visit their meetup page for details. The membership application form and disclosure agreement are available for download for anyone interested.

Derek talked about the upcoming BBQ smoked beer competition event featuring six Sudzers-brewed beers incorporating BBQ smoked malts. The event will held on a Sunday in April at Slow Hand BBQ in Pleasant Hill (now set for April 14 – mark your calendars!) Stay tuned for more details. We are hopeful that The Brewing Network will be able to join us for the competition.

A gentleman whose name I can’t remember talked about an opportunity for Sudzers to have a brewing demo or other way to promote the club at the Palo Alto Concourse d’Elegance classic car show on June 30. If anyone is interested in doing so, let Derek know.

Steve Casselman and Keith McKay presented a session on how to use the categories of the Beer Judge Certification Program (BJCP) scoresheet to evaluate beers. As a follow up, we did a guided discussion on three of the evening’s beers, reviewing the Aroma, Appearance, Flavor, Mouthfeel, and Overall Impression of each.

The March Thirsty Third Thursday meetup will be held at Harry’s Hofbrau San Jose on March 21. For the April 18 meetup, we’ll go to Harry’s Hofbrau Redwood City. Next club meeting will be 7 pm April 5 at Nick’s house.

The homebrews from the March meeting included:

Sudzers co-Chief Communications Officer Derek Wolfgram contributed four reviews of locally brewed porters and stouts to the Los Altos Town Crier’s monthly Food & Wine section. Read more:

Pass a St. Paddy’s pint: Locally brewed alternatives offer take on Irish tradition

Read about new breweries, bottle shops, beer bars, tasting rooms, and events, including the inaugural Silicon Valley Beer Week!

http://www.examiner.com/article/roundup-of-south-bay-beer-news-and-events-for-march-2013-and-beyond

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

Agenda for this month’s meeting includes:

7:00 Social Time

7:15 Club Business

• Special guest Tom Boheme from San Jose Co-op Brewpub
• 2013 Club events
• Smoked BBQ Beer Project
• Thirsty Thursday Destination – March 21

7:30 Homebrew evaluations

• Reminder: Bring your recipe – club members will have lots of questions!
• Sign your beer in on the whiteboard along with your name and statistics (IBU, ABV, etc. – optional, but helpful in determining tasting order)

After homebrew evaluations: more social time/informal commercial brew sharing

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, April 5

The Bistro in Hayward hosted the ever-popular 13th annual Double IPA Festival yesterday, and the Festival just keeps getting bigger and better. Yesterday’s tap list included 59 Double IPAs (with only two clocking in under 8% ABV) and 23 Triple IPAs (with two topping out over 12%), and over half the brews in both categories were listed at 100+ IBUs.

Several Sudzers attended the event to enjoy the hoppy goodness, and we were delighted that former Sudzers Homebrewer of the Year Guy Cameron of Russian River Brewing, got to collect two medals for Russian River brews.

In addition to the public tasting and voting for the People’s Choice award (which was a three-peat for Kern River Citra Double IPA) the Bistro also has a panel of well-established judges do a blind tasting of all of the beers at the festival. The results for 2013 were as follows:

Double IPAs
1st Place: The Roustabout, Societe Brewing
2nd Place: Double Jack, Firestone Walker Brewing
3rd Place: Pliny the Elder, Russian River Brewing

Triple IPAs
1st Place: Pliny the Younger, Russian River Brewing
2nd Place: Notorious Triple IPA, The Boneyard
3rd Place: Simtra Triple IPA, Knee Deep Brewing

Complete tap lists for your enjoyment:

Erstwhile South Bay beer scribe Andy Lee has put together a listing of some key South Bay events during SF Beer Week. Hope to see you at some of these excellent events!

Derek reported that there were some issues with SF Beer Week promoting an event centered around homebrewed beers, so the group is seeking a date in March for its BBQ beer competition event at Slow Hand BBQ in Pleasant Hill. Marcus is in touch with folks from the Brewing Network about the possibility of a live broadcast or other coverage/promotion/partnership. Attendees will pay an entrance fee that will include various Slow Hand BBQ meats, as well as an opportunity to sample and judge the best beer for pairing with BBQ among the six beers brewed with BBQ smoked malts (more info about this project).

Even without our BBQ Beer event, SF Beer Week does still have quite an impressive array of events planned, including the Bistro Double IPA fest on 2/9, Meet the Brewers on 2/16, and numerous special events at Harry’s Hofbrau San Jose, including a Stone Tap Takeover with Mitch Steele on 2/13, Firestone Walker XVI component tasting on 2/15, and an IPA festival including Pliny the Younger on 2/17. A few events have been added to the Sudzers calendar, but plenty more are on the SF Beer Week website. If you’re planning to go to an event, feel free to post something to the email list encouraging others to join you.

February’s Thirsty Third Thursday meetup will be held at Freewheel Brewing in Redwood City on 2/21. Club members usually drop in for TTT any time between 6:30 and 9:00 pm.

In addition to the usual array of tasty food served at our meetings, a special shoutout to Adrienne for making a delicious chipotle mac n cheese incorporating Liza’s Jalapeño Chile Ale from the January meeting. Adrienne also shared an impressive list of the brews and locations she and Gary visited in Portland recently.

Many people remarked on the particularly high quality of homebrews presented at the February meeting. Kudos to all of the brewers for an outstanding job!

Fuad & Anna’s Irish Brown Ale (5.2% ABV / 25 IBU)

Charles’s Unsmoked Porter (6.1% ABV)

Tom’s Oatmeal Coffee Stout (6% ABV)

Chris’s Het Goede (The Good) Belgian Blonde (7.3% ABV, 19 IBU), which has been entered into a competition for possible production and distribution, and which club members also suggested should be entered into NHC

Marcus & Tyler’s WheatWine (7.5%, 25 IBU), brewed with Ben Dobler from Widmer at the Explore Your Craft event in SF in October (more info about this project)

Linda’s Hoppy IPA (9.2% ABV, 208 IBU calculated!)

Jeff’s Belgian Quad (10% ABV)

Derek’s RyeWine (7.7%, 50+ IBU) – part 1 of a series – Derek, Dan, and Raghu are all brewing beers single hopped with Belma and using Wyeast Thames Valley yeast, and with 50% rye (Derek), 50% blue corn grits (Raghu), and 50% wheat (Dan).

Derek’s McSwinerson’s Scotch Ale (9% ABV, 29 IBU) – one of the six brews from BBQ beer project

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

Agenda for this month’s meeting includes:

7:00 Social Time

7:15 Club Business

• 2013 Club Dues (for those who didn’t pay in January) $25 (cash)
• Smoked BBQ Beer Project – Derek Wolfgram / Chris Ringer
• SF Beer Week
• Thirsty Thursday Destination – February 21

7:30 Homebrew evaluations

• Reminder: Bring your recipe – club members will have lots of questions!
• Sign your beer in on the whiteboard along with your name and statistics (IBU, ABV, etc. – optional, but helpful in determining tasting order)

After homebrew evaluations: more social time/informal commercial brew sharing

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, March 1

How LinkedIn’s “Hacker-In-Residence” Transformed An Ordinary Job Into A “Dream Job”

Congrats, Matthew! Read the full article.

Keith and Mike, co-Homebrewers of the Year, received the newly engraved Sudzer Cup from new co-Presidents Tyler and Nathan 

Nick presented the annual club financial report, which shows a reasonable cash balance at year-end, but we did spend more than we took in during 2012 (you can help offset this imbalance at the February meeting by purchasing one of the few remaining club t-shirts!). Paid memberships were up significantly – about 50% over the prior year. The officers decided to raise dues slightly from $20/year to $25/year for 2013, still a bargain when you take into account special rates for club events, bottles of the club brew Dark Matter Russian Imperial Stout to be distributed some time during the year, and of course the 10% discount at the MoreBeer Los Altos store. A number of memberships were sold in January, and we will collect dues in February from anyone interested in paying who didn’t get a chance in January.

Derek and Chris R. described the Sudzers/SlowHand/Slosberg Collaborative BBQ beer project, which involved co-smoking about 20 pounds of two-row malt along with various meats in the smoker at Slow Hand BBQ in Pleasant Hill on New Year’s Day. Six beers have been brewed with the smoked malts, and the tentative plan is for them to be served along with Slow hand BBQ at a ticketed event at Slow Hand on February 10 (the first Sunday of SF Beer Week). Most of the brewers reported that the smoke aroma was quite distinct in the mash if not the boil kettle, and preliminary tastings of wort did not provide much smoke aroma but definitely did have some tasty smoke flavor on the finish. Derek brought a bit of remaining brisket-smoked malt to the meeting for people to smell and taste.

The beers brewed include:
McSwinerson’s Scotch Ale (brewed by Derek with rib smoked malt)
Lunch Meat Altbier (brewed by Marcus with rib smoked malt)
Angry Leprechaun Irish Red (brewed by Chris R. with brisket smoked malt)
Smoke & Mirrors Porter (brewed by Tyler with brisket smoked malt)
Smokin’ Wheat American Wheat (brewed by Santiago with chicken/bacon smoked malt)
Abbey Wit’ Smoke Witbier (brewed by Santiago with chicken/bacon smoked malt)

The club decided to rotate the locations of Thirsty Third Thursday meetups in 2013, although Harry’s Hofbrau San Jose will certainly remain in the rotation. The January 17 meetup will be at Harry’s Hofbrau Redwood City. People usually arrive anywhere from 6-8 pm depending on work schedules and other commitments.

Homebrew tastings were slightly down, with only 9 homebrews to taste from the 30+ homebrewers in attendance (no doubt everyone has made brewing more a new year’s resolution and we’ll see more at the February meeting!) Brews included:

• Derek’s Cream Ale (non-Flanders portion of a split batch)
• Fuad & Anna’s Oat Pale Ale
• Liza’s Jalapeño Chile Ale
• Derek’s Belgian Strong Amber
• Jim & Jason’s Denogginizer Clone (which several attendees preferred to the Denogginizer J & J kindly brought for a side by side tasting)
• Tom’s Imperial IPA
• Chris R’s Barleywine (aged for 8 weeks in a Balcones barrel)
• Keith & Steve’s Red Velvet Cake Ale with Brett B
• Rob’s Schwarz-Grätzer (for which he has already kindly shared the recipe)

Next meeting date will be February 1, 7:00 pm at Nick’s House