November meeting minutes

It was great to see everyone at the meeting on Friday.  As a reminder, please get your nominations for Homebrewer of the Year to Derek or Tyler.  If you are interested in running for office please also let one of us know.  If you have presentation ideas for 2014, please let Tyler know.  Some ideas already suggested include a beer dinner (food with home brew pairings) or a broader contest (BJCP style comp).  So even if you aren’t running for office, you could still head a committee or help with an event.

Mike did a fantastic job presenting on Water.  We hope to have a link to the presentation posted soon.

Upcoming dates (visit the calendar on the right hand side of sudzers.org for details on any of these events):

11/21 GigaYeast Brewing Challenge – 7:00 P.M. Nicks – If you have entries please show up at 6:45 P.M. so we can get them logged in.  We welcome both those competing and anybody interested in judging.  Please bring a growler of the beer or an equivalent amount.

11/23 Dark Matter Bottling Day at Derek’s

11/30 Dark Matter Brew Day at Nick’s

12/7 Christmas Party / Gift Exchange at Nick’s

12/13 The membership voted to do a select bottle tasting instead of a pitcher tasting.  More information to follow *Members only event*

12/19 Third Thursday – Location TBD

12/27 Fridge Clean out get together

The off-flavors presentation and tasting has been moved to early next year.  Siebel moved their lab and all orders are back ordered for a month or two.

Cheers!

November 1 meeting to include talk on water chemistry + upcoming events

Hello Sudzers! Our regular November meeting will be held Friday November 1 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 officer elections/Homebrewer of the Year nominations

Upcoming events:

-11/21 GigaYeast brewing challenge update
-11/23 Dark Matter 2012 bottling day at Derek’s house
-11/30 Dark Matter 2013 brew day at Nick’s House
-12/6 regular meeting cancelled
-12/7 Christmas party/gift exchange at Nick’s house
-12/12 Homebrewing program for Palo Alto City Library
-12/13 Pitcher tasting event
-12/19 Thirsty Third Thursday
-12/27 Fridge cleanout meeting
-Members-only off flavor tasting – to be rescheduled

Presentation: Brewing Water Chemistry, presented by our very own Mike Conant

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.

hop cone

October meeting notes

The membership felt that the November 1 meeting was too soon for the Belgian/IPA GigaYeast Challenge.  We are going to judge the beers on the Third Thursday of November instead.  Thursday November 15th – 7:00 P.M. at Nicks.  For those of you that have not brewed yet you still have time.  We still have yeast available so let Tyler know if you need some to participate.  Ribbons will be presented to the top three places in each category.

October 17th – Third Thursday – Will be a hosted tour of Hermitage Brewing at 6:30 P.M. with pints to follow in the tap room

Fall Brew Day – It was suggested to do this on Black Friday after Thanksgiving or perhaps that Saturday – more to follow from Nick

Off Flavors Tasting – Also TBD in November

NCHF recap is posted on the website. The Sudzers were voted as having the best overall beers at the festival!

Next meeting will be Friday, November 1st.  Mike Conant will deliver a presentation on water.

Sudzers present Homebrewing workshop at Belmont Library, Saturday, Oktober 12

Derek Wolfgram from Silicon Valley Sudzers and Andrew Carroll from the HeadQuarters homebrew club will be presenting a workshop on homebrewing as part of the Belmont Library’s Oktoberfest Celebration at 3 pm on Saturday, Oktober 12.

2013-10-12 14.17.29

Feel free to download the slides from the presentation.

Cheers!

October 4 Sudzers meeting announcement

Hello Sudzers! Our regular September meeting will be held Friday Oct. 4 at 7 pm at Nick’s house. Need the address or directions? Email moresimcoe@sudzers.org

7:00 Social Time

7:15 Club Business
–NCHF recap
-October 17 Thirsty Third Thursday: 6:30 pm tour of Hermitage Brewing
followed by a visit to the HBC Tap Room (1627 S 7th Street in San
Jose)
–GigaYeast brewing challenge
-Members-only off flavor tasting – date?
-Fall Dark Matter Brew Day – date?

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.

Reminder: the tasting for November 1 will only include beers brewed
with the GigaYeast Vermont IPA (aka Heady Topper yeast) and the brand
new GigaYeast Belgian strain. You may bring other beers to share, but
the formal tasting will be focused on the GigaYeast brewing
competition.

hop cone

Sudzers voted as having best beers at Northern California Homebrewers Festival by other homebrew clubs

Once again, the Sudzers had an exceptional year at NCHF, particularly being voted as having the best beers of the festival by the other clubs in attendance. The instructions said that voters should choose not the club with the best single beer, or the club with the most beers, but the club with, on average, the highest quality beers. (We may also have had the most beers of any club besides Chico Homebrew Club, with 22 items available at the
Sudzers booth.) We will get a super fancy certificate in the weeks ahead in recognition of our awesome beers.

The highlights of our beer selection were Jim W’s Citrarillo IPA, the club’s Dark Matter Imperial Stout, Doug W’s Flanders Red (no relation to the barrel in the basement), Joe D’s
Pumpkin Pie Ale, and Derek W’s cask-conditioned Flanders Cream Ale, but every single beer was well-received. And of course, the keg of Russian River Hop 2 It was a hit as well.

The giant Sudzers tent came in very handy for the torrential downpour on Saturday afternoon… we had a nice space for people to hang out, and enjoy some snacks and brews.

The food at the Sudzers booth was incredible – tons of tasty smoked meats, pineapple pulled pork, sausages, veggie chili (someone picked out all the meat!), chicken
coconut curry, lasagna, celery and apple salad, slaw, brownies, chocolate chip cookies (with M&Ms, pretzels and potato chips inside).

There were the usual hiccups – we had to rearrange several booths on Friday afternoon to make room for our giant tent, since there were a record number of clubs in attendance, and the field was set up more narrowly than it should have been. All of our beer and serving equipment were not quite ready (or even at the Fest yet) when things
kicked off, but eventually we got it all up and running. There were also some adventures… Marc Andre had a very long, very refreshing nap… Nick got locked in a cabin restroom for an hour before being rescued (really!) You’ve got to have some stories to tell, right?

Thanks to all who participated in making the event a success – there ended up being about 30 of us from Sudzers – one of the strongest showings of any of the 40+ participating clubs.

We’re still looking for more pictures to post. If any attendees have any pictures to share,
please email Derek W.