Despite winter’s final attempt at sticking around, about 15 people showed up for the monthly meeting. Returning to ESNS for the first time since last year and with a smaller gathering we covered quite a bit.
Monthly Recap
Spring Ale Fest
April 6th marked the second annual Spring Ale Fest in NE MPLS. In addition to 14 breweries, the NBA was there pouring some handcrafted sodas. 
Inspired by a recent issue of Zymurgy, Tyler whipped up a batch of lemon-lime ginger as well as a cream soda. It put the jockey box to use, and offered us a great talking point with people.
April 12th – 612Brew Taproom Takeover
We had another successful club happy hour and 612Brew were gracious hosts. Kudos to Ryan Libbey and Robert Kasak for the private tour, samples of their offerings, and just generally showing us a good time. For the record, we are the first tour to ever take a break so we could refill our pints! We had some great beer, and raffled off some CDs in line with the 612Brew vibe (2Pac, Public Enemy, Bob Marley).
April 14th – Lagunitas Club Competition Judging
Ryan Patrek won handily with his Black IPA. His average score was the highest, and he took an overwhelming number of votes in the best of show round. If you went to Ryan’s place for the Electric Brewing Demo, you saw the winning beer be brewed. He also earned a 44 at the NHC so you know it’s good.
We had 9 club members submit beers. Many thanks to The Local for hosting us in their swanky dining hall, and thanks to the staff who came out to help us judge!
ExComm Meeting – April 14th
In lieu of a BAMF meeting this month, the ExComm got together and hashed out a few details, more or less to make sure we have events accounted for in the upcoming future. The biggest decisions that affect the club are:
We voted to add 4 more lines to the jockey box, maxing out our 6 line plate chiller.
We voted to sign up for 10 Saturday’s for the NE Farmer’s Market (there was a price break)
Upcoming events
Midwest Supplies Brew day April 27th– Midwest Supplies is having a group brew day in their parking lot THIS SATURDAY! 5 of our club members will be there brewing (Tyler, Nick P, Tim, Justin, Aaron D), and Grant will be participating in a Q&A panel in the afternoon. We were offered 5 spots, they first went to people to trekked through the snow to make it to the meeting. Plan to show up and start brewing by 9am. No need to provide a grain bill, just be sure to have a list of your ingredients so they can mark down what we use.
Big Brew Day May 4th @ Northgate Brewing – We are participating in the AHA Big Brew Day, and will be brewing the Mild recipe. All grains are gratis via Cargill – Thank you! Hops are being donated by Midwest Supplies – Muchas Gracias! Club members are on the hook for their own yeast, as well as any other ingredients they want to add in.
We will be brewing outside of Northgate, from 2:00-6:00pm, where they will be running their weekly growler sales. We will also have a grill fired up, so bring something to throw on the fire!
There will be electricity for pumps, water for chillers/brewing. We might be able to get NG to provide strike water…cutting down on total brew time.
Summer BBQ/Low gravity club competition
The third Saturday of June will be our summer club BBQ. This will replace our monthly meeting. More details will come later, but prepare for a feast (potluck style), low-gravity club competition (<6% brewed in 2013) and a great time all around.
NE Farmer’s Market
The NBA will be returning to the NE Farmers Market this summer (or whatever season it is in June). Each of the 5 Saturdays in June, the Brat & Corn Feen in July, the Taste of NE, and a couple other Saturdays the club will be brewing, serving handcrafted soda and recruiting members. Last summer was huge for us at the market, and we got a lot of brewing done too. We will need a minimum of 3-5 members volunteering each Saturday, but the more the merrier. Check your calendars, we’ll be sending out a sign up soon.
Experiments
Single Hop Experiment
It’s that time of year again! Once again we will utilize the same base recipe (Dead Ringer/Two Hearted Clone) and each pick our hop of choice. The tasting will take over the July club meeting, so the beer needs to be brewed in May/June. Don’t fire up those burners just yet, Northgate Brewing may be able to supply us with a batch of freshly mashed wort (pasteurized and chilled). This would significantly reduce variables in our experiment. El Presidente will be commenting further on this soon. A few people have already claimed their hop. Feel free to sign up here.
Also on tap for the SHE is a guest speaker from the UofM to educate us on hops during the tasting!
Yeast Experiment
We have a date set! June 30th Northgate Brewing (how great are these guys?) will be brewing a beer for us to fill our carboys with! The exact schedule of the day isn’t quite set, but everyone will be able to get 5 or 10 gallons of wort to which a yeast of your choosing will be pitched. This should be a great chance to see how a yeast strain changes a beer. Depending on fermentation needs, the tastings for this experiment might have to be split up. If you can’t get your carboy to the NG on the 30th of June, you can drop it off at Nate’s place during the Summer BBQ.
Barrel 1.0 (Honey wine barrel)
Our first club barrel project, the Russian River Temptation clone, is about ready to be emptied. Currently at Nick P’s place, we will need to empty this barrel and fill it within about a 24 hour period. We want to save all the bugs that have called this barrel home for the next fill. What to fill this barrel with…..
Barrel 1.1 (Honey wine barrel)
We expect to commence Barrel 1.1 any day now. We plan on doing the empty of 1.0, transporting the barrel to it’s new home in Perrin’s cellar, and fill in a 24-48 hour window. Ideally this will happen in mid-May. Since the RRT clone worked so well, we are inclined to do it again. Who will make up this 14-16 person team that fills it? Barrel wranglers/cellar masters will have first dibs, but then we will go to a lottery so that all members have a chance at participating.
Barrel 2.0 (RIS, Wee Heavy, Flanders, Rye Saison)
All four barrels are either completely full or krausening with the addition of some younger beer. Per Aaron, the beers are taking on some nice barrel characteristics, in ways we might not have expected. The RIS and Wee Heavy have a bit of a “dry” finish, possibly from the tannins in the wine? The saison has a bit of pineapple and funky cheese to it, while the Flanders is just chugging away. All are in a good place and we need to let them be for a while.
Around the 3-month mark, the recipe creators will be invited to taste the barrels maturation, and see how they are coming compared to the desired final product.
Fundraising
BYO Magazine: If we can get at least 10 people who want to sign up for a BYO subscription, we can get them at a discounted rate of $22. This also includes a small bit of profit for the club. If interested, Andrew Nesbitt is the guy to contact. Just throw out a thread on the Google Groups.
Education: Intro to All-Grain
Our education topic was scrapped for the meeting, since everyone who showed up brews AG. However, we still want to get the basic info out there. Fear not, we’re getting something in the works to cover this need.
Next Meeting: May 16th @ ESNS