All posts by Nick Pederson
Club meeting November 19th at Pracna on Main (4pm – 6pm)
It seems that the club has taken a toll on us this summer. With so many events, weekends up north, and just in general…other things to do…. this club really took a beating in the participation department. We clearly need to come up with ways to keep people more active in the club.
This months meeting we will be discusing ways to get things rolling a little bit more. Here are some ideas that I think we should be considering, deciding upon, and then following through on!
1. $Club fee!$ Although times are tough and some people may be turned off by a club fee, I think that it will also do many good things for the Northeast Homebrew Club. For one, we will be able to buy some things for the club. Shirts, stickers, spare equipment. We can think about buying equipment eventually for a Big Brew Set-up. Barrels for a club Barrel aging project, money to rent a bus to go visit a brewery (can you say Schell’s in the summer time, or during Bock fest!) For two…I think that people will feel more urgency to show up to meetings if they’ve invested a little money into it!
2. Special Events – Brewery tours (or even help brew at a Brewery, aka, Fulton(?)). Visit a Hop Farm, or a the Rahr fields of Barley!
3. Competitions – Club only competitions as well as any AHA sactioned event. (I think a really fun idea would be to have every member create one style (say American Brown Ale) t0 style…. and then we all enter our beer into one competition and for that style. Try and take 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place!
4. Experiments – We did the great hops experiment, but the funny thing was, only the 8 brewers that brewed Single Hop versions for that experiment showed up for the tasting. It could’ve been a great learning experience for everyone. At least the 8 of us got to taste the difference. Don’t get me wrong, it was a huge success, but that was the only real experiment we’ve been able to pull off.
5. Education – We all want to learn. We all have something we can teach. Whether it’s extremely technical yeast info, water adjustments, or how to make better extracts, I feel we need to take this up a notch!
***When I originally helped start this group last year with Nathan, I really just wanted to have a place for Northeast Homebrewers to come together and hang out. That was fine for the first few months. It turns out that it seems like we need to have much more STRUCTURE for this to be a group where people actually want to participate. We will be stepping the club up a notch in 2012 …that is….if that’s what we all decide we want to do!
Cheers,
Nick Pederson
612.965.1144
pederson.nick@gmail.com
July 16th BBQ at Adam’s place 4pm-?
Hey Nordeast Brewers,
We are set for our first Northeast Home Brew Club Summer BBQ! It will be hosted by Adam Sjogren’s place in Nordeast.
Location:
Here’s what we have so far.
- Meat on the grill will be provided by the club.
- Members will bring plenty of beer to share and go around!
Side dishes
- Guacamole – Nick P
- Undisclosed side dish -Steve S.
- Potato Salad -Matt P.
Desert
- Something – Tim S.
- New Glarus Belgian Red & Raspberry Tart and a Trinity Papy Legba – Nick P.
Fixins and Plates and such
- Grant
Friends and Family are encouraged to come have a good time. There’s talk that Adam will be brewing something on his new equipment! Should be a fun time for all! Can’t wait to see everyone and meet the families of all of the Nordeast Brewers!
Cheers!
Nick
June Meeting Changed to JUNE 25th!
June 18th is the Stone Arch Festival and Pracna will be absolutely packed to the gills so we were set with either changing the location, or changing the date. We’ve decided to go with June 25th, the following weekend. This may end up being the day that we pick cherries. That depends on how the cherries ripen. Some people may be conflicted as that is the same day as the St. Paul Beer Fest. That was a fantastic Beer Fest last year, but if you aren’t going to make it to St. Paul but still want to talk shop for a few hours…come on out to the meeting!
June 25th
Pracna on Main (back room)
4pm “SHARP” – 6pm
We will be discussing ways to improve your Extract beers. Another topic that will be touched on hopefully in depth is water chemistry. This is one I personally can’t miss! I needs to know!
Cheers,
Nick
May meeting…recap/notes
Here are my notes from our May meeting at Pracna on Main. There was a few of us there, Andrew, Brian, Nate, Chris, Kevin, Nick P (me), Brendan(?sp) and his daughter, Tim, Nick K. and Emily K.(showed up late, but with beers!).
We started it off with some general discussion about what’s going on with the club. Trying to knock out details of Cherry picking in the Fall. Trying to figure out a location for the July BBQ. Trying to figure out how to create a website with a forum (your here aint ya?).
We sampled Tim’s Amber Ale that won 3rd place in the MN Craft Beer Week Homebrew contest! It was fantastic, nutty, and malty. He also sampled his oaked version which was even more delicious!
Then we went onto the Lambic tasting. Bulldog NE had a Lambic blending class (which I attended along with Tim, and Megan). They gave the remainder of the 5 gallon keg of Lambic to Pracna! We sampled that as well as blended it 50/50 with a Lager. Both versions fantastic. A little girl may have accidentally sampled that straight up Lambic. 🙁 See didn’t like the EXTREME sourness and acidity of it. What does she know at 16 months young anyways?! Good work on that one B.
Then we went onto a prepared topic of Parti-gyle brewing as it pertains to Belgian Beers, and traditional Belgain brewing methods and styles. Thanks for putting that together Nate!
We are going to be doing another brewing experiment similar to the Single Hop experiment. This one is going to be a SUGAR EXPERIMENT! We are putting together a Belgian Dubbel recipe that each brewer will be applying a different sugar too.
Note for attending Pracna meetings in the summer. Be careful as whiplash seems to be an issue. Stretching before meetings seems to be a necessity.
Unofficial official Northeast Homebrew Club Website
Here it is people the real Northeast Homebrew Club Website. We’re going to try and set up a forum, and all kinds of other fun interactive things on the site to keep everyone involved with the club well informed on what’s “brewing” with the club!