It’s that time of year, to test your best beer against your neighbors from near and far.
We are back in person @ ESNS for the judging, you only need to send 2 bottles, and the entry fee is $8, it’s like the old days!
Check out all of the details on our website: https://nbabrewcomp.com/
The club has a number of recurring events — monthly meetings with education or experiment topics, Big Brew and Learn To Homebrew Day group brews, Summer and Winter parties — with one of those events being the monthly Taproom Takeover.
On the first Thursday of each month we schedule time to meet up at a local taproom, rotating around the Twin Cities area, to meet up socially and share in conversation over a pint or three. We prioritize the breweries that help sponsor our competitions to return the support. When we are lucky, we are sometimes even able to get a brewer-led tour of the back of the house, too!
The 2021 taproom list was recently updated, so check out the club calendar to see where we will be. If you are interested in learning more about the club or just hanging out and talking about beer, this is a great opportunity stop by and say hello. No reservations required.
Cheers!
Come join a brew day on the NBA club system at Midwest Supplies on Saturday, November 6 from 9am – 4pm for Learn To Homebrew Day. We will have some homebrew to share, too! Come by and check out the club and deals going on inside the store!
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.
Cheers! 🍻
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!
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!
Our BJCP/AHA sanctioned competition is on us, and now is the time to get your account registered in preparation for the entry window to open on November 1st.
Drop off deadline is November 30th, so get those comp beers brewed, and your beers entered.
If you are able to help Judge or Steward we would really appreciate it.
So, join us for a quality competition and a fun time. Cheers!
Sign up here: https://nordeasthbc.brewcompetition.com
A number number of members from the club ventured down to New Ulm to check out Shells Main Brewery and the Star Keller.
We received an excellent tour and tasting at the main brewery from the awesome staff. We had a great time and look forward to returning at some point in the future.
We then headed across town to the Star Keller to enjoy a wide selection of excellent sour beers.
The beer was great at the Star Keller and it was a great end to a great day.
Thanks to Steve M, he plan a crucial role in getting the event setup. Thanks to the Shells staff and the people of New Ulm
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!
March Meeting Recap
The NBA held our March meeting at Midwest Brewing Supplies, and we covered some great topics!
To start, we had an update on the barrel program. Members received a detailed round up of the barrels, and what empties/fills will be coming up, plus the opportunity to expand the program! If you are not (yet) a member of the NBA, the barrel program is one of the shining benefits of being a member. Here’s a couple quick highlights:
There will be an upcoming empty and fill of the George Dickel Barrel that has been the happy home to a Russian Imperial Stout.
Coming in April will be the empty and fill of a red wine barrel containing a Lambic.
The other barrels will continue to age – keep an eye out for those updates.
Our educational topic this month was identifying off flavors, thanks to Chris Haas. This lead to an interesting discussion on some of the more common off flavors, how they can range in perception, what causes them, and how to avoid them.
Thanks to Chris, we were able to spike a Helles with the proper compounds to present these flavors without being masked by assertive malt/hop/yeast characteristics.
If you have not participated in an off flavor tasting session, I’d highly recommend it. Take oxidation, which is typically described as “cardboard” or “paper”. But those are actually the minority of the flavor impacts oxidation has on a beer. Tasting a control vs. the spiked variable for common off flavors can really provide a great educational foundation for opportunities to improve your brewing.
There was also a video from Aaron, Steve, and Tyler breaking in the club’s new 30 gallon mash tun, thanks to Northern Brewer. Remember how the barrel program is a great benefit that comes with being a member? The club brew system is another benefit, all members have access to the system, with two configurations: 15.5 gallon keggles, and 30 gallon kettles – allowing for batches anywhere from 5 to 25 gallons.
Need more benefits? At the March meeting we kicked off the plans start building a club yeast bank! Look for more info to come at the April and May meetings.
Also in March NBA members brewed for Experimental Brewing. Those batches should be ready for tasting in April, and there will be a full write up for you to conduct the same experiment.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.