At a recent meeting, the monthly education topic focused on the different products available for cleaning our equipment and brew spaces. Jump in to see what we found for best practices and what works best in different situations.
Our club focuses on a different education or experimentation topic at our meetings on the Third Thursday of each month. We have some interesting topics coming up in 2021, including:
Explore a Style: Maibock
Historical Farmhouse Beers: Kviek and Beyond
CO2 capture (Theory and Practice)
Our goal is to be inclusive of all levels of brewer from someone on their first batches or award-winning brewers with decades of experience. All are welcome to join and learn.
Over the past six months I am sure everyone has felt that we are living in sour times, so this year the NBA homebrew competition is embracing that fully. We are putting on an event smaller than previous years and will focus exclusively on sour, wild, and funky beers. This includes European (Berliner, Flanders, Oud Bruin, Lambic, Geuze), American (Brett, Mixed Ferm, Wild), Historical (Gose, Lichtenhainer), and Local styles (Catharina) following BJCP style guidelines.
Account registration is NOW OPEN with entry registration and drop-off/shipping capped at 50 entries due in November. All judging will be done through remote video chat, so THREE BOTTLES OF EACH ENTRY are required. Check out the competition website for full details. Register early and get your entries submitted!
If you have a taste for these styles, we are looking for judging volunteers for this BJCP-certified event. Pick-up will be made available in the Minneapolis area in early December.
Please reach out with any questions about entries or to help judge!
The barrel program for sour and whiskey-aged beers is a core tenet of the NBA club. With some changes over the past months to our barrel line-up, the history and goals have been updated on the Barrel Program page. Come check out what we are up to.
What a strange year this has been. The club has not had formal in-person events since our monthly meeting in February, but we have been keeping connected. The Taproom Takeover events and monthly meetings have become online video chats and beer sharing has been quite limited. We did put together an exchange where members dropped off a six-pack at a central hub, which were then sorted into variety packs to pick up the next day. Keeping socially distant has really changed how our club operates, but we can still stay connected virtually.
There have been a few upgrades this summer to the club brew system as well. Club member TJ shared his excellent welding skills to put together a new burner frame for the club system. This new system is still made of mild steel, but is designed to be a bit taller and sized to fit the current 30-gallon kettle and mash tun as well as possible 50-gallon kettles if needed in the future. Getting some new Blichmann burners from our friends at Midwest Supplies — a huge Hellfire and a standard banjo-style — the new system feels more solid for huge batches.
The club also made some changes in the Barrel Program. One of the Flanders-style sour barrels turned into 60 gallons of salad dressing (very vinegar and undrinkable), so it was dumped and the barrel is being decommissioned. To keep the program going, a new Silver Oak Cellars Cabernet barrel replaced that in June with a few club officers brewing up the beer to fill that and get it back in cycle. A twin barrel was also part of that order and filled with acid wash to get beer around the new year to keep them on separate fill cycles. A third barrel was also ordered at the same time as another addition to the program: a La Crema Chardonnay barrel. This was filled with pale sour base beer to become the new club solera. Ideally this will become sour and drinkable in the next 18 months where one-third will be removed (and fruited and bottled for club members) and filled again with fresh, clean beer. Keep an eye out for an update to the Barrel Program page real soon for an update on the barrel inventory, the beers that are in-flight, and the plans going forward.
Last, and certainly not least, the campaign for the Nordeast Brewers Alliance Food Drive for ESNS was a great success! We met our goal of $1000 raised for this great organization to support their services, especially the metro food programs. With the NBA summer party being cancelled this year, we had to also cancel the food drive. We will continue our efforts of supporting our home base hosts as we all work through these tough times together.
If you are looking for a club to increase beer and brewing knowledge, meet up with others interested in the brewing process, or want to share your own knowledge, please feel free to reach out to the NBA Operations mailbox. In addition to two meet-ups each month (albeit virtual right now), we have a bunch of regular events on the calendar. 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.
NBA is running a food drive to support ESNS. In these tough times, community support is even more important and our friends at East Side Neighborhood Services are working every day with less support available than normal. As our home base for club meetings in Northeast Minneapolis, we drive to keep ESNS support available for the entirety of Hennepin county with myriad education, social, and support functions.
Between now and Sunday, July 19, we are driving to raise $1000 in support of ESNS through the link below.
In about THREE MINUTES you can help our community: (a) Follow the GoFundMe link to donate as appropriate to your situation. Cash goes a long way to help support a food bank as they buy just-in-time supplies to support the community. (b) Share this post on social media to get the word out. Getting the word out to find a few more supporters will help us exceed our goal.
Thank you for your support! Together we can keep everyone safe!
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!
