Club Meeting Notes. September 19, 2017 GunWhale Ales - Cost

[indianajns]

Informative and fun meeting as usual, Had a good turnout with approximately 20 members in attendance. A large thank you to our hosts, Gunwhale Ales in Costa Mesa http://www.gunwhaleales.com/home/

Food:
Thank you to Hussam for bringing and delicious homemade Brezel'n and Landjaeger sausage.

Off Month "meeting"
Off month “non-meeting” was held August 17th at Out Of The Park Pizza in Buena Park. We had approx 15 members participate.

Club Brew Day
Club brew day was at Jon Ws on 8/19. Trevor Walls from RIIP brewing in Huntington Beach attended. Much beer knowledge was exchanged. http://riipbeer.com/

Upcoming Officer Elections
Elections are coming up. If you would like to hold an office elections start next month. Only President John is terming out, but all offices are open to current membership. Stay tuned to the forum for more information.

Southern California Homebrew Festival
The Southern California Homebrew Festival is May 4th-5th, 2018. Reservations for camp sites will happen in early November. Keep a look out for a forum post from Brad so members can inform Brad of their intention to procure a camp site and how many campsites they want. Brad is having a planning meeting on Oct. 14.

Brew Ha-HA Festival
The Brew Ha-Ha festival is this Saturday, September 23rd. https://www.ocbrewhaha.com/

AHA Membership
Club members who are not currently AHA members should consider joining. Membership entitlements include discounts at many brewery establishments, Zymurgy magazine, and the Brew Guru mobile app. Also many competitions require an AHA membership to enter. Importantly, if 75% of our club membership are AHA members we have our insurance premium waved! This would be a significant monetary savings for the club. You can join or renew here: https://www.homebrewersassociation.org/ ... -or-renew/

Beer brought for feedback:
Oatmeal Stout - Scott
Cream Ale and Red IPA - John
Hefe - Curtis
Pale Ale - Justin
Oktoberfest - Jim
Oktoberfest and Mexican Lager - Michael

Style Presentation:
Tim provided a tasty and informative style presentation; Blonde Ale and American Pale Ale:

The BJCP style category is Pale American Ale (18) and includes the subcategories of Blonde Ale (18A) and American Pale Ale (18B)

Blonde Ale
History
Blonde Ale originated in North America. Craft beer brewers created blonde ale as a moderate introduction for mass market American consumers used to traditional America mass market beers.
In other words, it is a very approachable beer for people new to craft beer.
It is intended to be a smooth, easy-to-drink beer with low fruity esters and just a touch of malt character.
In most areas this beer is designed as the least challenging beer in the brewery’s lineup.

American Pale Ale
History
Pale Ales are among the oldest of American craft styles and paradoxically, one of the least changed. Anchor Liberty, Sierra Nevada Pale, and Deschutes Mirror Pond have all been around for decades without changing.
US Pales adhere to a similar recipe of pale malt, a touch of crystal and Cascade hops.
Coors at one time invested in large acreage in Cascade hops because it was cheap and German stocks were depleted, but they didn’t like it because it didn’t provide the same refined, harmonizing note of the European strains it was originally designed to replace.
So, Cascade hops were on the verge of commercial failure if it were not for craft brewing.
Anchor put Cascade hops in Liberty in 1975 and Sierra Nevada in their Pale Ale in 1980.

[SamIam]

Nice work Greg, sounds like I missed a good one.

[lexuschris]

Sorry to have missed it ... was flying home from Denver. Hard to believe we are already talking about elections again, but this year has gone by fast!

BTW, I plan to be at OC Brew Ha Ha on Saturday .. is anyone else going? I got the big pass for the 12:00pm entry, and special edition pours. It would be great to meet up at some point there. (also remember, anyone can show up as a 'designated driver' and just pay a small fee at the door ... so if your sig-other wants to go and participate, they can drive you home afters!)


--LexusChris