Silicon Valley Sudzers Homebrew Club

This will be our 4th annual fall Club Brew Day, and the third that will feature the famous Dark Matter Imperial Stout.

Brew Day will last from 8 am until approximately 3:00 at Keith’s house in Milpitas. Email moresimcoe@sudzers.org for address/directions.

I’m attaching a copy of the (updated) recipe for your enjoyment and future use.

We have borrowed Dan R.’s giant cooler mash tun and 26 gallon brew kettle, so we will be doing one massive brew instead of two separate 10 gallon batches.

Everyone is encouraged to bring food and/or beer to share. You can RSVP at https://www.facebook.com/events/489051504467747/

Wow, what an unexpected surprise. Heretic night at Harry’s. Met brewer, Jamil, who explained about awesome Evil Cousin IPA. Brewed with Apollo and Columbus, but mega-dry hopped with Centennial, and yes…SIMCOE! Tons of it. Not just once or twice, but almost continuously over the brewing process. As he explains, leaves hops in suspension rather than settling to the bottom. He just checked over at BevMo and they have it refrigerated in bottles with “brewed-on” date. But he says you gotta get it while it’s fresh, effective hops can go from 100 down to 80 over a couple of months. Sudzers bus trip visited brewery shared with E.J. Phair in Pittsburg, but no one from Heretic was there. Jamil was nice enough, though, to leave enough cases of Evil Twin for everyone to take home a couple bottles. Was never impressed with it, but now I have a new respect for Heretic after tonight. Also tasted Torment, served in 8 oz tulip glasses. “Belgian candi sugar notes” is an understatement, very sweet. Not surprised with 10% alcohol.

On October 25, Sudzers Tyler and Marcus joined Widmer Brothers brewer Ben Dobler for a homebrewing demonstration in the Explore Your Craft event in San Francisco. In honor of our region and Widmer’s reputation for wheat beers, Tyler and Marcus developed a recipe called “Wine Country Wheat, ” a wheat wine with honey and grape juice. Tyler reports that the brew is currently fermenting away, and we all hope to try it soon!

The meeting was relatively light on business, but heavy on homebrews!

Sudzers who attended NCHF gave a report about how much fun we had and how well-received our beers were.

October Thirsty Third Thursday to be held at Harry’s Hofbrau San Jose on October 18

Fall brew day discussion – we will begin brewing Dark Matter Imperial Stout on an annual basis each fall. This year’s brew day to be held in November at Keith’s house, date TBD [date is now set for November 24]

Christmas party discussion – regular December meeting will be cancelled, but the club Christmas party will be held at Nick’s house, date TBD [date is now set for December 8]

At the Christmas party, in addition to the famous gift exchange, voting will occur for club officers and Homebrewer of the Year (who gets his or her name engraved on the prestigious Sudzer Cup).

There may be some vacant officer positions, so this is a good opportunity to step forward. If you are interested in running for any office (President/CEO, VP/COO, Treasurer/CFO, Chief Technology Officer, or Chief Communications Officer), please let Derek, Tyler, Nick, Keith or Robin know. Also, if you have anyone you think should be nominated for Homebrewer of the Year, please let one of the officers know.

And then there were homebrews! While attendance was down to about 25 Sudzers at this month’s meeting, we had 18 homebrews to evaluate. Tasting notes on all 18 were not captured, but the brews were, in no particular order:

Robert’s West Coast Session Trappist Ale
Rob’s Gluten Free Raspberry Beer
Rob’s Colonial Ale with pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, molasses, and spruce tips
Tyler’s Imperial Red
Mike’s Patriotic Plum Porter
Mike’s British Redcoat Bitter
Doug H’s German Alt
Derek’s Dubbel
Derek’s Belgian Golden Strong
Charles’ British Strong Ale
Charles’ Citra Pale Ale
Fuad’s American Wheat
Steve’s many-years-aged Belgian Sextuple
Keith’s Oaked Black English IPA
Keith’s German IPA
Steve and Keith’s Red Velvet Cake Ale 2.0
Linda’s Dubbel
Santiago’s Belgian Strong

Robert (as a first time attendee!) and Tyler got the most votes for “I’d buy a keg” on the club rating scale of dump/taster/pint/pitcher/keg.

November meeting will be Friday, November 2 at Nick’s house.

Cheers!

As part of the Morgan Hill Library‘s fall series of programs on homesteading, they included a program on homebrewing basics on October 11 from 7-9 pm. Sudzers Mike Conant and Derek Wolfgram, along with The HeadQuarters homebrew club President Andrew Carroll, presented an overview of beer history, ingredients, styles, equipment, techniques, and recipes. In addition, the program provided sources of additional information on homebrewing, such as local homebrew clubs, homebrew supply stores, books and DVDs available from the library, and online resources.

After two hours of talking about beer, presenters and attendees adjourned to El Toro Brewing Co. just down the road from the library for additional discussion and more beer education.

Print or download the slide deck from the program at Morgan Hill Library: Backyard Brewing.pdf

Club events are always posted on the calendar on www.sudzers.org, but we wanted to highlight a few upcoming events. See the calendar for times, locations, and other details.

• October 18: Thirsty Third Thursday at Harry’s Hofbrau San Jose
• November 2: Monthly Sudzers meeting at Nick’s house
• November 15: Thirsty Third Thursday, location TBD
• November 24: Fall Brew Day at Keith’s house – more details later, but know that we plan to brew an awful lot of the club recipe Dark Matter Imperial Stout!
• December 7: Monthly Sudzers meeting will be cancelled but fear not because..
• December 8: Annual Sudzers Holiday Party at Nick’s house. Again, more details later…

Cheers!

The Sudzers represented well at the Northern California Homebrewers Festival in September with about 20 members in attendance and 13 outstanding brews on tap! Plans are already underway for NCHF 2013, with the theme “Space: The Beer Frontier.” Cheers!

A couple of club members are working on doing a Homebrewing 101 presentation at the Morgan Hill Library on October 11. As part of our preparations, we put together a list of excellent homebrewing books and DVDs available at any Santa Clara County Library District library. For your reading and viewing pleasure: http://is.gd/homebrewlist. Cheers!

We had a fantastic September meeting – lots of guests since we had Master Cicerone Nicole Erny presenting!  Here’s what you missed if you weren’t there…

New Sudzers T-Shirts are here! $20/Men’s, $25/Women’s (this is at cost!)

NCHF Planning – members going to NCHF had a quick planning session with Mike Conant, our NCHF Chair this year.  If you weren’t at the meeting and haven’t seen any of the emails this week and you ARE going to NCHF, email Mike (or Derek or myself) immediately so we can get you on the distribution list!

Third Thirsty Thursday – September 20^th at Harry’s Hofbrau San Jose (390 Saratoga Avenue, San Jose); show up between 6 – 7 pm, leave whenever!

The summer party was a huge success – many thanks to Jim for loaning us the fun house and for Nick on taking excellent care of the fun house!

Plan on a fall club brew day later this year – making lots of the infamous Dark Matter Russian Imperial Stout again!

Nicole Erny, Master Cicerone gave a fantastic presentation to the group on “Focus on Flavor”.  We all learned many interesting facts about palates, how to train your palate and how to develop a better vocabulary when describing beer, food, wine, etc.  If you are an AHA member, you can login to the NHC conference site and view the same presentation materials Nicole showed us.

Homebrew Tasting: (due to the large group and length of the meeting, we did not use our rating system on the homebrews presented); you’ll also note a few entries from the Worts’ canned fruit challenge…

• Jim – Cherry Berlinerweiss
• Santiago – Gluten Free Saison, made with sorghum and brown rice syrups
• Chris Ringer – Apricalt, and Apricot-flavored northern German Alt beer
• Keith – Blackberry Schwarzbier
• Steve & Keith – Red Velvet Cake Ale 1.0, an ale made with a special cake recipe modified by Steve Casselman, trying to get that baked cake flavor into the beer; Version 2.0 is in secondary right now.
• Marcus – Night Man (fighter of Day Man), Oatmeal Stout
• Mike & Matt – Porter; 1^st 10 gallon batch, 1^st dark beer, 1^st beer in kegerator, lots of 1^st’s here!
• Morgan – Eviler Twin, More Beer Evil Twin kit, added American oak chips soaked in 2 oz. rye whiskey and Falconer’s Flight hops to make it “eviler”
• Jim & Jason – Blind Pig Clone; added oak chips in secondary; only 14 days old
• Derek – Cask aged American Barley Wine – boozy!

 Reminder to homebrewers for future meetings – bring your recipe with you!

 See you at Thirsty Thursday, NCHF or our October 5 meeting!

• New Sudzers T-Shirts ($20 Men/$25 Women)
• Third Thirsty Thursday – September 20
• NCHF Update

7:30 Nicole Erny, Master Cicerone –   “Focus on Flavor: Taste (And Describe) Beer Better”