Education is one of the key tenets of the NBA club, so each month at the regular meeting we have a topic around education, experimentation, DIY projects, guest speakers, or other topics to expand our knowledge around ingredients, equipment, process, and more.
Over the years there have been TWO topics on Mild as an underappreciated style — A History of Mild and May is Mild Month. The ‘Explore A Style’ months are usually accompanied with homebrew and commercial examples to sample during the presentation — and it is clear that any style can vary greatly, even if from the same recipe.
Many of these beers are brewed on systems built by the members themselves, including Dual Stage Temp Controller and creating shortcuts with Carboy Hacks.
Every month is something different with big plans penciled in for the next months and beyond. Check out the Education & Experiment menu at the top of the page here to see what else we have been up to. Do you have a topic you would like to present to the club? We are always looking for more!
The March monthly NBA meeting is cancelled. In the interest of safety and precaution to prevent the spread of COVID-19, we will not be meeting this month and the Cask Ale education topic will be moved to another time. Wash your hands, your beer glasses, and your carboys. We hope to see you in April back at ESNS to talk about Maibock.
“Well, look, I already told you! I deal with the goddamn brewing so the drinkers don’t have to! I have brewing skills! I am good at dealing with brewing! Can’t you understand that? What the hell is wrong with you people?!”
–Jason’s attempt at Office Space fanfic
So, what does the NBA get up to on a regular basis? We have a bunch of recurring events and get-togethers for social, brewing, and sampling. Come join us any time!
Monthly meetups
Taproom Takeover
On the first Thursday of each month, we get together for a social hour at one of the local taprooms to have a pint or three and chat while checking out some fresh beers. The events are scheduled to rotate throughout the metro area and check out new venues, especially breweries who support our club and our competition.
These events are open to anyone, so come meet up with the club if you are considering joining, have questions as a new brewer, or want to dive in deep with your years of experience.
Monthly Meeting
On the third Thursday of each month, we get together for the formal monthly club meeting. At a high level, the agenda is a bit of club business — meeting new members, recap of recent events, planning upcoming events, and any official announcements — followed by an education or experiment project. That could be a guest speaker to talk about a specific technique like yeast harvesting, a club member discussing the history and descriptors around a specific beer style, or a triangle test for blind feedback on a technique or experiment that is discussed as a group. There is also plenty of time for socializing, eliciting feedback on recent brews, and always plenty of homebrew being passed around to sample.
Anyone is welcome to come check out a meeting before joining to see what we are up to! Check the club calendar for time and location.
Party time!
The Saturday after the January and July parties are the twice-annual Winter and Summer parties. These are primarily social events usually hosted at a member’s home. Everyone brings a bite to eat for potluck lunch and we organize a Happy Accidents club brew. This is a sort of potluck of its own where members sign up for base malt, specialty malt, hops, or wild card and we make a beer out of it.
There is also an informal beer competition for those who choose to submit something. This is far from BJCP style and just focuses on the “best” or “favorite” beer submitted with the Winter party focusing on High Gravity ( ≥ 8% ABV) and the Summer party looking for Low Gravity (≤ 5% ABV) options.
Half of the club leadership positions are up for election at each January party as well.
Share with others…
This is where we shine up our fancy bottle openers and show up to impress! Although they are not competitions, we want to do our best to represent the homebrew community at events around town — and around the country. At events like Brew For Good and Big River Brew Fest, members provide beers, ciders, and myriad special and unique beers to serve. Each year at HomebrewCon, the club tries to make an impression on the national homebrewing scene both through bottle shares and hosting seminars.
…and brew again to share more!
What would a homebrew club be without brewing beer as well? The club-owned 30-gallon brewhouse is loaded up on a trailer for several events throughout the year and for one-off brew days hosted by members. Official AHA events like Big Brew for National Homebrew Day in May and Learn to Homebrew Day in November are run in conjunction with our homebrew supply partners.
There is also plenty of opportunity through the year to get in on club brews for a split off the 30-gallon boil kettle be it for a hop experiment, brew to fill one of the club barrels, or someone just looking to fill up a kegerator quickly.
How we make this possible
In addition to several members being BJCP certified and attending events from other clubs and judges and stewards, the Nordeast Brewers Alliance Homebrew Competition is put on each winter as a major source of income for the club (for things like barrels and maintenance, club brewhouse upgrades, and education/experiment topic supplies) including donations to the fellow non-profits that support and facilitate our club.
All of these events come together through coordination by club members to expand our beer knowledge, support the community, and have fun doing it. There are other one-off events like donated hops and grain, an annual field trip to places like Rahr’s malting facility, Might Axe Hops’ farm, and a weekend get-away to All Pints North.
We welcome everyone regardless of experience or skill to join the club and take part in whatever events are most interesting. Check out the club calendar to see where we will be and feel free to contact us if you have any questions. Updates are also available on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.
This past weekend was the judging for the 2019 Nordeast Brewers Alliance Homebrew Competition at our home base of Eastside Neighborhood Services. As our biggest event to date, we unpacked, sorted, and judged 224 beers.
Congratulations to Mike Neville of Motor City Mashers for winning Best Of Show with his Dark Mild! A full list of category winners is available on the competition site.
Best of Show judging is a broad spectrum of colors across all categories
This would not be possible without sponsorship from a wide array of partners! Prizes for judges, stewards, and volunteers was available on-site and gift cards or direct-ship prizes being sent to category winners! Watch for those over the next couple weeks as scoresheet paperwork is finalized and mailed out.
Eastside Neighborhood Services – Minneapolis, MN
Midwest Supplies – St. Louis Park, MN
Northern Brewer – St. Paul, MN
American Homebrewers Association
Marino’s Deli – Minneapolis, MN
Mighty Axe Hops – Foley, MN
CuS.S. Brewing Equipment
Escarpment Laboratories
Five Star Chemicals
InkBIrd
JaDeD Brewing
Lallemand Brewing
Spike Brewing
The Brew Bag
White Labs, Inc.
Yakima Valley Hops
Adventures In Homebrewing
BSG HandCraft
BSG Hops
Buffalo Wild Wings
The Brew Outlet
Alloy Brewing Company – Coon Rapids, MN
Barrel Theory Beer Company – St. Paul, MN
Boom Island Brewing Co. – Minnetonka, MN
Excelsior Brewing – Excelsior, MN
Northbound Smokehouse Brewpub – Minneapolis, MN
Summit Brewing Company – St. Paul, MN
Surly Brewing – Minneapolis, MN
Tin Whiskers Brewing – St. Paul, MN
Unmapped Brewing – Minnetonka, MN
Utepils Brewing – Minneapolis, MN
Venn Brewing Co – Minneapolis, MN
Waldmann Brewery – St. Paul, MN
Spike Flex fermenter and The Scylla from JaDeD
Congratulations to everyone! Let’s do this again next year! Cheers!
Happy December, all! Yours truly has been remiss in getting a post out properly! I swear I put something out for October (but clearly did not) and then got busy with writing up November the past couple weeks, so here I am late on two together. This will be a bit of a longer post than usual for a number of events that happened this fall and will be coming up soon. Grab a pint and let’s see what we have going on!
Recent Events
Big River Brew Fest, Sat Oct 5: The club was able to participate in Big River Brewfest again this year supporting our friends at Eastside Neighborhood Services. With two jockey boxes pouring our homebrew beer and cider, we were a popular booth — not to mention we were under a big tent to keep dry. We appreciate our friends at ESNS and the opportunity to help with this event again!
NBA @ BFBF 2019
October Meeting, Thu Oct 17 – American Porter vs. Stout: The education topic at our monthly meeting included samples of classic commercial beer styles to sample side-by-side with a presentation put on by Tyler. As a club, we try to rotate through several styles and categories of beer to help the club membership better understand what the style is supposed to mean on our journey to brew better beer!
Learn To Homebrew Day, Sat Nov 2: Partnering with our friends at Midwest Supplies, club members were able to brew a Belgian Blonde on the club system as part of AHA Learn To Homebrew Day. On a busy Saturday at the brew shop, we also had our jockey box set up with a number of member brews on tap to talk about the club, brewing, and getting started with the hobby. We try to do a few group brews like this a year.
Belgian Blonde Brew Day @ Midwest Supplies
Dark Sour Barrel Fill, Sat Nov 16: After taking out a barleywine from a George Dickel barrel, about a dozen club members were able to put a Dark Sour in for the next turn — along with the dregs of a bunch of great beers. In the next year or two, this will come out to be replaced again!
Each batch is sampled before it is added to the barrel
November Meeting, Thu Nov 21 – Triangle Test: Keg vs. Bottle: Do you think you can tell the difference between force-carbonated kegged beer and a bottle-conditioned version of the same batch? Even if you can, which would you prefer? At the November meeting, that was the experiment put up to the membership. Blind to the participants, two samples of one and one of the other were poured into three colored cups.
The outcomes? The green cup was identified as the odd beer out with 58% of the votes and was suspected to be the bottle-conditioned version (71% thought so), which was correct. In the survey before results were given, the votes came in split darn close to 50/50 between what turned out to be the bottle and keg options. That feels definitive like the carbonation options are distinct, but it depends on the drinker for which they like more. Comments on the differences focused on a softer hop flavor in the bottle-conditioned and versus a stronger crisp bite to the beer when force-carbonated. Speculation was around the carbonic acid attributed to kegged option based on the forced carbonation.
Both options were enjoyable and pleasant and it stands to show that the packaging option may be best suited toward the beer intention and that neither is “better”.
Is this what you would expect?
Mighty Axe Brew Day, Sat Nov 30: In a collaboration brew with Mighty Axe Hops, club members were able to brew up some experiments around IPA and Cream Ale recipes over a cold Saturday in November. A day based around experimenting between split batches to find differences in hop strains from the Mighty Axe farm and how to coordinate a couple split batches all at once, it was a great day of learning for everyone!
Upcoming Events
Taproom Takeover, Thu Dec 5 – Wicked Wort in Robbinsdale: Join us at the next social hour where we will meet to grab a pint (or three) and hang out for a bit talking about recent events and brewing plans. All are welcome to come meet members.
NBA Homebrew Competition, Dec 6-8: Although registration is closed to submit a beer to the competition, we are still looking for volunteers to help judge, steward, and set up for the event this coming weekend. Please sign up on the registration site or reach out if you are able to join!
December Meeting, Thu Dec 19 – Holiday Beer @ Eastside Neighborhood Services: The education topic will be around holiday beer with some homebrewed and commercial examples. What does it mean to be a holiday beer and where does the style come from? Join the meeting and find out!
Taproom Takeover, Thu Jan 2 – TBD: Like Wicked Wort above, the first Thursday of each month is a social hour. The 2020 calendar will be updated soon, so keep an eye out where we will be next month.
January Meeting, Thu Jan 16 – Running A Barrel Program (location TBD): Based on Top 12 highlighted presentation from Homebrew Con 2019 in Providence, the January meeting education topic will be around ‘How to Facilitate a Club Barrel-Aging Program and Produce Quality Beer’. Since our club has close to a dozen barrels with member beer rotating through, this will be a great description of how we keep that program running.
Keep an eye out on the club calendar to confirm the location for January.
Winter Party, Sat Jan 18 – High Gravity Competition, Happy Accidents Brew Day, Potluck, and Officer Elections: The Saturday after the third Thursday in January (which is the third Saturday this year) is the annual winter party. The high-gravity competition for beers ≥8% ABV, the Happy Accidents brew day for a collective brew, potluck lunch, and elections for the President and Operations Director positions will all take place with details on time and location coming soon. All members in good standing (paid membership) are welcome to join! (My first party was two days after I met the club the first time and joined!)
The club is open to members of all skill levels and interests. There are members who have made anything from one batch of extract beer to 40 years of experience. Most of the members focus on brewing beer, but there are some pockets for cider, mead, and other fermented hobbies. There are several ways to contact us, otherwise stop by an upcoming meeting or event to say hello!
For announcements of the monthly Taproom Takeover, monthly recap of recent events, and announcements for upcoming events, keep an eye on this space, our club calendar, and our social media sites on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Come join us and chat about beer and brewing!
Is your IPA at peak juicyness? Want feedback on your altbier? Is your porter a winner? The NBA homebrew competition deadline is November 30! Enter your beer now! Full details at https://nordeasthbc.brewcompetition.com/ Cheers and good luck!
If you are new to homebrewing, want to get started, or have a friend that wants to jump in, come join the NBA at Midwest Supplies in St. Louis Park on Saturday, November 2 for the AHA Learn to Homebrew Day event. From 9am-3pm we will have a big brew on the 30gal system, sampling some club beers, and and chatting about beer and brewing.
Who could ask for more? All experience and interest levels welcome!
Check out the Facebook event for updates. No RSVP required.
Although there have been fewer club activities the past month, there are quite a few events coming up soon! Read on to see where we will be and how you can meet up!
Recent Activities
Education – Blending Sour Beer: This month the education topic was about blending sour beer. Expert blender and club vice president Matt J brought in four great base sour samples for everyone to sample and blend. It was amazing how blending a few milliliters of four samples and varying by 1-2ml between different options gives such a wildly different results. This is a kick-off to many more blending options for personal and club beers.
Blending sour beers. (Photo by Chino)
Upcoming Activities
Taproom Takeover – Town Hall Lanes in Minneapolis: On the first Thursday in October — Thursday, October 3 — the club will be stopping by Town Hall Lanes in South Minneapolis for the next Taproom Takeover. Come by, grab a pint, and chat with the club about beer, brewing, and… bowling? All are welcome!
Big River Brew Fest: On Saturday, October 5, the club will be attending this great festival to support this fundraiser for East Side Neighborhood Services — our home base and partner. Tickets are available now and we hope to see you at the event!
Education – American Porter and Stout: The October education topic is getting back to the basics to better understand some classic examples of some of our favorite dark beers. We will look into the history, brewing styles, and discuss what makes the difference between these two similar categories. Come grab a taste and learn more about the styles!
NBA Homebrew Competition: The annual BJCP-sancitoned homebrew competition will be coming up for judging in December again! More details will be coming in the next few weeks, so watch this space and our social media for more details. There will be a big announcement this year for a new opportunity, so stay tuned! Start brewing now and details will be made soon for shipping, drop-off, and volunteer locations.
For announcements of the monthly Taproom Takeover, monthly recap of recent events, and announcements for upcoming events, keep an eye on this space, our club calendar, and our social media sites on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Come join us and chat about beer and brewing!
It has been a busy summer including the NBA field trip, so your faithful NBA blogger has not been able to make time to get the post up until now. Check out where we have been and where we are going!
Recent Activities
Eductation – Extract vs. Brew-in-a-Bag Triangle Test: Green, red, or purple? Two samples of an extract beer and one sample of a BIAB version of the same recipe were provided blind to club members at this months meeting to see if we could identify which stood out. Overall, 13 of 15 members identified the odd beer out and just over half thought it was extract, despite actually being the BIAB brew. As we finished the experiment, it was clear that one stood out by color, which is often the case with extract.
Sample 2: Brew In A Bag
Mighty Axe Field Trip: This month we were able to head up to Foley, MN, to visit our favorite farm — Mighty Axe Hops. Eric was kind enough to share his insight on this wonderful plant and the industry as a whole, walk through the entire plant-to-pellet process, and take us out into the field to spend time among the Comet plants just weeks away from being harvested. On the way back home, we stopped by Lupulin Brewing in Big Lake, MN, and were able to get a tour of the 10-barrel and 30-barrel brewhouses. It was a great day for a road trip to learn about our neighbors up north!
Eric introducing us to The Grey LadyOut in the field at Mighty AxeBehind-the-scenes at Lupulin Brewing
State Fair Competition: Congratulations to everyone who entered and placed with the annual Minnesota State Fair homebrew competition, especially to club vice president Matt Johnson for his NEIPA taking first place in the Specialty IPA category!
NBA Competition Committee: The NBA competition committee kicked off this year’s event this month as well to start planning. Look for more detail on this in the next weeks and months for the competition to take place around early December.
Upcoming Activities
Taproom Takeover – Wooden Hill Brewing Co. in Edina: Social hour this month is heading south to grab some beers at Wooden Hill. Come grab a pint and chat with the club for a casual night out. All are welcome!
Education – Sour Beer Blending: The monthly meeting for September will include a hands-on experiment and education topic rolled into one for blending sour beer. All current and prospective members are welcome to join (no RSVP required) and sample some finished beers prior to packaging. Pipettes included!
Big River Brew Fest – Saturday, October 5 @ ESNS: Tickets are available for one of the best brew fests around. Grab your ticket now as a fundraiser for East Side Neighborhood Services — the monthly home for NBA meetings — and come grab some great beers. The event moved up a couple weeks compared to previous years. The NBA has some big plans to help support this great event!
For announcements of the monthly Taproom Takeover, monthly recap of recent events, and announcements for upcoming events, keep an eye on this space, our club calendar, and our social media sites on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Come join us and chat about beer and brewing!
There is a strange sense of enjoyment while standing around a boiling brew kettle during the hottest time of the year. At least the boil-off rate is lower than during the winter! Let’s take a tour of what we have been up to the past month and what is coming up!
Recent Activities
HomebrewCon 2019: The NBA was able to represent well at the annual HomebrewCon events this year! With a presentation about our barrel program and brewing oat beers, we made quite an impact and look forward to joining again next year!
Barrel program panel (Photo by Chino D)
Hoppy Hour at Midwest Supplies with Mighty Axe Hops: Our friend Eric from Mighty Axe Hops was putting on an event at Midwest Supplies, so we redirected our Taproom Takeover night to join the festivities. It was a great night where members commented on learning more about hops in just that night than in years prior. We have a field trip scheduled for August to go visit the farm, so read on below for more about that!
Education Topic – DIY Electric Brewing: The monthly meeting had an education topic from Nick M about his DIY electric brew system and some best practices for building a system at home. There are a bunch of other tinkerers in the club who had great insight. The club email group has a great number of threads on these topics!
2019 Summer Party
We got lucky for our annual summer party that it was just rain and not the oppressive heat from days prior. It was a great day for grilling, a big potluck brew with 70# grain, 3 boxes of Kix, a ton of hops, and a bunch of ginger. Club members took home a few gallons each and will surely be sharing the different fermentation options at upcoming meetings.
The day also included the low-gravity competition (<5% ABV) where attendees selected a favorite beer or cider from the entries. Andy G won the top award with his Kitchen Session IPA with Galaxy hops (buy him a beer and ask about the story behind the name sometime) and second place went to Matt G for his Summer Sipper with Cascade hops. Everything was great with the next official party coming up in January with the high-gravity (>8% ABV) competition, officer elections, and more bottle sharing.
Milling 70# of grain
Adding the unmilled adjunct
A tough dough-in! (Chino D)
Re-circulation is key at this scale!
A full spider! (Aaron D)
Great selections again this year!
Favorite: Kitchen Session IPA (Galaxy) from Andy G
Second: Summer Sipper (Cascade) from Matt G
Upcoming Events
Taproom Takeover (and National IPA Day) at Barrel Theory: Making the trip to St Paul on Thursday, August 1 will be well worth the trip to grab some IPAs. Come join and chat about beer! Check out the club calendar!
Education Topic – Extract vs Brew-in-a-Bag: With a triangle test at the next monthly meeting on Thursday, August 15, we will be samping two different beers to see if we can identify an extract beer from a brew-in-a-bag that are otherwise treated the same. What do you think the differences could be?
Field Trip – Mighty Axe Hops Farm Tour: In mid-August we are trekking up to Foley, Minnesota, to visit one of our great partners and learn more about hops, the pelletizing process, and what they expect for this year’s harvest. That sounds like a lot of work outside, so a stop at Lupulin Brewing on the way back will help us recoup. The members-only email group will have more detail on this, so keep an eye out!
For announcements of the monthly Taproom Takeover, monthly recap of recent events, and announcements for upcoming events, keep an eye on this space, our club calendar, and our social media sites on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Come join us and chat about beer and brewing!
