Come learn how to spot spruce tips, forage them, and use them in your brewing. We’ll explore the sensory side of spruce tips and taste them in beer. From mash, to boil, to dry hop additions, see how they can affect beer’s flavor.
The cold cannot stop us. We are Minnesota brewers! This month there were a couple club brews, our winter party, and another great education topic. Read on to see what we have been doing!
For an upcoming experiment and education topic during the March meeting, a few club members got together to brew a Saison on the 30-gallon club system. The wort was split evenly between six brewers and is being fermented at six different temperatures to see the difference. More details to come with the full experiment report and tasting with the club at the meeting in March at Northern Brewer Minneapolis.
For more photos of the brew day, check out the Instagram Story.
Our monthly meeting was hosted by our good friends at Northern Brewer Minneapolis with special guest speaker Ben from Mighty Axe Hops. His great presentation on their hop farm in Foley, MN, and the process of field to pellet was great education for the group. With this, we had ten beers and one cider being passed around that were brewed with only Comet hops from the farm. With a unique flavor and aroma, they were all a hit and we look forward to getting more varieties from them in the future.
To try beers that use Mighty Axe, check the Drink Minnesota Hops page on their website for a great selection from around the state.
The annual Winter Party was held at Perrin’s house this year where we shared many beers, held the High Gravity competition, elected officers, and brewed a potluck beer. Even with the cold temperature, we were able to pull together a brew day with a wide variety of ingredients, figured out a recipe with three base malts, two specialty malts, one specialty grain, a wide variety of hops, spruce tips, and grapefruit. With the 25 gallons brewed, it was split among interested members to bring home and pitch a yeast of choice. It will be interesting in the next weeks to see how this turns out and compares across fermentation profiles!
For the High Gravity competition, we had about ten beers registered to compete in personal preference voting. With a bunch of great options and none where I would turn down a pint, the clear winner was the Baltic Porter from Jim I. With bragging rights until next year (and the recent education topic on the style), I would not be surprised to see more of this style brewed for next winter.
The day also included elections for three of the club leadership positions:
For announcements of the monthly Taproom Takeover, monthly recap of recent events, and announcements for upcoming events, keep an eye on this space and our social media sites on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Come join us and chat about beer and brewing!
Cheers!
Join us this Thursday for what should be a really fun meeting at Northern Brewer’s Minneapolis location. 6021 Lyndale Ave S, Minneapolis, MN 55419
We will be joined by Ben from Mighty Axe Hops. He will be giving a presentation on their process and answering your hop related questions.
We will also be tasting around 10 beers brewed by members featuring only Mighty Axe Comet hops!
Come join us, its bound to be a great time. Cheers!
Happy New Year, everyone! It has been another busy month with the club and here is a recap of some of the events we have been up to and the happenings planned for early 2019.
This month was another successful homebrew competition put on by the club. With 174 entries judged and 84 participants, judges, and stewards, it was a few weeks of coordination culminating with a busy weekend of sorting and judging many fine beers!
Congratulations to all the winners! Results can be found on the competition site. Keep an eye out for the next competition the same time next year!
With two new barrels added to the collection, we decided break them in with an Imperial Stout — and a big one at that with 1.140 target starting gravity! To get that high, the brewers in the club had long days to boil down the wort to that gravity, ranging from 2.5-4.5 hours for just the boil!
The email thread in the Google Group was quite active with discussion around best practices, problems people were having, and the results of brewing and fermentation. At the club meeting there was good discussion about what worked well (regular aeration the first several days, huge yeast starters, degassing regularly) and what we can do next time we try to make something this big. We are looking forward to seeing what this motor oil of a beer turns into over the next months in the barrel!
The education topic at the regular monthly meeting was about Baltic Porter with discussion lead by Bill H. An uncommon style at best, this topic was pushed back a few times until we could find enough commercial styles to bring and a few members could brew their own.
A high gravity, cool fermented version of Imperial Stout, these were a new style to many members and a hit with the club. I would not be surprised if more local homebrew competitions start getting more submissions for this style based on this new interest!
For announcements of the monthly Taproom Takeover, monthly recap of recent events, and announcements for upcoming events, keep an eye on this space and our social media sites on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Come join us and chat about beer and brewing!
Cheers!
April Meeting Recap
The April meeting had a great educational session lead by Bad Weather’s Christian Breitbarth. We covered yeast washing, over-building starting, building a yeast bank, and most importantly, how to create and work in sterile environments.
Thanks member Jason Berg, there are great notes in the club forum. Make sure to check it our!
We also covered the introduction of the club yeast bank. This new benefit for members will being kicking off over the next few weeks, and will also be 
accompanied by some club wort canning days. The wort canning days will be club members have the opportunity to can starter wort, decreasing the time it takes to grow yeast for brew days. Watch the forum for updates from Paul for the yeast bank and Carl for the first wort canning day.
Committee Updates
The barrels continue to be a great benefit to club members. There have been brew days to brew the Belgian Dark Strong that will be going into the Buffalo Trace barrel. These brew days have given us a chance to use the new 30 gallon mash tun and boil kettle, as well as step up the brewing water chemistry and mash pH game from previous education sessions. The committee also gave an update on the Lambic and George Dickel transfers.
Upcoming Events
The Nordeast Brewers Alliance will be at Northern Brewer Minneapolis for Big Brew Day. We will be brewing, possibly grilling, and serving samples from club members. So make sure you grab your gear to brew on site (great chance to try BIAB if you haven’t) and if you want to share one of your brews on the club jockey box, make to sign up on the registration form that was posted to the group. There are also slots to share at other events there!
Midwest Homebrew Club Fair, May 12th
Our friends at Midwest Brewing Supply will be holding a homebrew club fair for local clubs from 10am-4pm. Think of it like ‘Homebrew Con Lite’. Its an opportunity for us to show off to potential members and other clubs. They will also be giving away malt from Able Seedhouse. The beer made with that malt will be entered into a competition, details to come. Everybody is welcome, come hang out, drink beer, and promote the club!
2017 Wrapped up with a bang for the Nordeast Brewers Alliance!
Let’s start with the Nordeast Brewers Alliance Homebrew competition – congratulations to all of the participants and winners. The competition this year was our largest yet, with 180 entries. A special thank you to our judges, volunteers, and sponsors that made this year a success!
The NBA was also n
amed Growler Magazine’s “Kind of a Big Deal” Homebrew Club of the Year!
To wrap up 2017 we had our monthly meeting. We had a great educational discussion on brewing with wood, highlighted with white ash, maple, and sassafras.
Along with some festive fun, there will be some great things to look forward to in 2018 – including quarterly club brews on the club system, and group brews with members. Look for those sign-up sheets starting in January.
And to kick off 2018, we will have our Winter Party and high-gravity club comp on January 20.
I hope everyone got their leaves raked this weekend, because:
Thursday, November 16, is our monthly meeting at ESNS, 7pm. Our education topic will be “off flavors.” Bring tasting glasses and some brew for what should be a great session.
Saturday, November 18, we will be at the grand re-opening of Northern Brewer Minneapolis. We will have the club system going for 20gal of a Winter Warmer, and hopefully the classroom system for 10gal of a Brown Ale. The club will also be sharing our beers with the home brewing community there. If you would like to share, here is the sign-up list.
You can also still register for the NBA Homebrew Competition! Make sure you are registered and have your entries at the drop-off locations by the 27th.
L
astly, the NBA is getting internet famous! Carl, Chris, and Aaron spent time with Chip for an episode of Chop N Brew, tasting a handful of beers featuring Weyermann® Barke® Vienna Malt. Check it, and share it with your social networks.
Thanks to everybody that came out to the meeting this month. We had a great turnout, lots of beer and a fun education topic.
The August monthly meeting will be Thursday, August 17th, at EastSide Neighborhood Services at 7pm.
This month’s educational topic will be deep dive into Aroma Training!
We will also discuss upcoming events:
Bring a tasting glass and some homebrew to share, if you don’t have any homebrew ready, don’t sweat it, just bring a glass. If you feel compelled to bring beer grab something new or interesting from the commercially available options at your local purveyor.
After surviving HomeBrew Con last month, we are back to our normal schedule.
The July monthly meeting will be Thursday, July 20th, at EastSide Neighborhood Services at 7pm.
We will have a couple out-of-town guests in attendance for this meeting. Ariel and Ben from the Brewminaries, a homebrew club out of New York City, will be joining us and sharing a few beers. We will also be sending them home with a few beers to share with their members back east.
HomeBrew Con retrospective; NBA party, social hour, club night.
Single Hop brew day and tasting.
Barrel, we got a new one!
Educational topic; Wort Canning.
We look forward to seeing you!