We had a decent turn out with approximately 12 members in attendance. A HUGE thank you to Scott at Windsor Homebrew Supply for hosting and donating two different beers for our style presentation and one bonus beer! Scott is a great guy and if you haven't checked out his shop, please do yourself a favor and get over there. He has a great selection of supplies and a bunch of local beers in bottles/cans.
2017 Holiday Party:
Another BIG thank you to Derrin for opening up his home and hosting the holiday party. It was a great turnout and many fantastic beers were shared!
2018 Officers:
President: Curtis
VP: Greg
Treasure: Brian B.
Secretary: Will
Style & Competition Coordinator: Tim S. and Justin
T-Shirt order:
We are doing a new run of t-shirts and need to finalize our group buy numbers. So if you would like to purchase one or a few, post a reply in the t-shirt order thread here: http://www.brewcommune.com/forum/viewto ... f=2&t=3380
NHC 2018:
Homebrew Con will be held June 28-30, 2018, in Portland. The important dates are:
Application Period January 23 to January 30
Beer Registration Period February 5 to February 14
First Round Shipping Window March 19 to March 30
First Round Judging April 6 to April 22
Check out https://www.homebrewcon.org/ for more details.
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 check out Justin's post about joining AHA here: http://www.brewcommune.com/forum/viewto ... f=8&t=3382
Southern California Homebrewers Festival:
SCHF 2018 will take place at the Veil Lake Resort on May 4-5. This is a fantastic event and is always bragged about being one of the best events you can attend every year. Brad has a post up about the event here: http://www.brewcommune.com/forum/viewto ... =11&t=3337. If you didn't manage to get a site reservation, there are usually people willing to share sites if you throw a little money their way, or beer.
Witbier is the style for the bragging rights only competition at SCHF. We are still a few months out from the fest, so you have plenty of time to plan. There will be a post about the details for how we will select our entry as a club, so keep an eye out for that if you want to be involved.
Competitions:
If you want to enter your beer into a competition, here are some that are coming up:
America's Finest City Homebrew Competition
National Homebrew Competition
California State Fair Homebrew Competition
World Cup 2018
2018 Romancing the Beer
Justin has been great about posting competitions way ahead of time, so check out the Compete! forum for more details.
Brew Brawl:
We are testing out something new this year to bring a little competition to our meetings. Brew Brawl is a website that lets you create, enter, and judge brewing competitions. For every official club meeting, we will have a Brew Brawl competition that you can enter if you have a beer to share. If you would like to participate, there will be a post up before the meeting so you can say what you are bringing. We ran a trial run at this meeting and it wen't pretty smoothly. The only requirement for judging is that you have a Facebook or Google login. Unfortunately there used to be an app which made it easier, but now it has to be done through their website.
Once everyone's beer is judged, the scores will be averaged out of 5 points and we will have 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place winners. 1st place will get a prize of which is yet to be determined. 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place winners will also receive points which will accumulate for the year and the person with the most points at the end of the year will get an award at the Holiday Party. 1st place gets 3 points, 2nd gets 2 points, and 3rd gets 1 point.
Head over to the Brew Brawl website to make an account.
Awards:
It was discussed during the meeting that we should have club awards at the end of the year. Some categories that were mentioned are most improved, most active on the forum, most brew brawl points, best attendance, and Brewcommune Member of the Year.
Promoting the Club:
I will be working on a flyer for the club that Scott at Windsor has agreed to let us have there. There was some good discussion about the kind of members we want to draw to the club and what our "sweet spot" for total members should be. A flyer at Windsor should be a good starting point for promoting the club and our activities.
Another point of discussion was our website and how it is focused on being an "internet based home beer brewing community". Some people felt like it might be time for a change of that phrasing.
Confab Off Month "Meeting":
The February Confab will be held at Stereo Brewing in Placentia on February 15th.
Beers brought for feedback:
Pale Ale - Jim (MrAverageGuy)
Trappist Single - Bob F (Mosaic1492)
Bob F got 1st place in our trial run of Brew Brawl!
Style Presentation:
Category 3 Czech Lager
3B. Czech Premium Pale Lager
History: Commonly associated with Pilsner Urquell, which was first brewed in 1842 after construction of a new brewhouse by burghers dissatisfied with the standard of beer brewed in Plzeň. Bavarian brewer Josef Groll is credited with first brewing the beer.
Soft water, low sulfate and carbonate content. Local barley and uncoated oak. Golden color and very clear. Usually a Saaz style hop. Triple decoction. Diacetyl is not uncommon in a Czech Pilsner.
Vital Statistics:
OG: 1.044 – 1.060
IBUs: 30 – 45
FG: 1.013 – 1.017
SRM: 3.5 – 6
ABV: 4.2 – 5.8%
The commercial examples we tried were Rebel Czech Pilsner, Czechvar B Original, and Pilsner Urquell.
Category 5 Pale Bitter European Beer
5D. German Pils
History: Adapted from Czech Pilsner to suit brewing conditions in Germany, particularly water with higher mineral content and domestic hop varieties (Hallertau and Tettnang).
Diacetyl is acceptable in small amounts. Step mashes were traditionally used and the beer was lagered for 6-8 weeks.
Vital Statistics:
OG: 1.044 – 1.050
IBUs: 22 – 40
FG: 1.008 – 1.013
SRM: 2 – 5
ABV: 4.4 – 5.2%
The commercial examples we tried were Bitburger Premium Pils, EKU Pils, and König Pilsener.
When comparing both the Czech and German Pilsners, The Czech beers had a darker color, more body, were cleaner and softer. The German beers were lighter in color, dryer, and more fully attenuated.
Scott wanted us to try an American version of a Czech Pilsner, so he brought out a pilsner from the brewery Heater Allen in Oregon. It had a slight citrusy aroma that the Czech and German beers didn't have. Scott couldn't stop there, so he also brought out a Rauchbier from Heater Allen. It was very smokey and that's all we could taste from then on.
