The education topic for May’s meeting covered Traditional Farmhouse Brewing and novel Farmhouse yeasts, including Kveik.  The presentation largely covered what is written in the book “Historical Brewing Techniques: The Lost Art of Farmhouse Brewing” by Lars Marius Garshol.  We discussed the history and methods of historical farmhouse brewing, along with contemporary brewers that continue to use the same traditional equipment, ingredients and techniques to brew interesting beers.  We also dug into the unique ingredients used in these beers, including juniper, farmhouse yeast known as “Kveik”, and smoked malts.

Along with the education topic, we shared 6 different regional “styles” of farmhouse beer brewed by four members of the club.  These included a raw “Kornøl”, boiled Heimabrygg, and smoked “Stjørdalsøl” from different regions of Norway, and a Swedish Gotlandsdricke.  All four used common juniper, and were fermented with different Kveik strains and cultures.  A Lithuanian “Kaimiškas” ale and a “Minnesota Farmhouse Ale” (using red cedar in place of common juniper) were also brewed to accompany the presentation.  Tasting the beers generated a lot of discussion, but all were delicious and distinctive. The Minnesota Farmhouse Ale brewed by Brady was a real standout!

The smoked malts used in the Gotlandsdricke and Stjørdalsøl were donated by Sugar Creek Malt for our club’s education topic and example beers.  Based in Indiana, this maltster stands apart from others by producing unique smoked malts.  The malts used for these beers are smoked on a wood-fired Nordic-style Såinnhus kiln.  These malts helped create a beer with a depth of flavor that is similar to the historical beers they were intended to recreate. Skål!

All the recipes for the beers we brewed can be found on the Brewfather library @nordeast.brewers.alliance

After more than a year of the club being separated during COVID with only access through video chats and email, our friends at Rahr Malting and BSG Handcraft were able to help with a virtual brew day in April 2021. We collaborated on a couple recipes — a pale ale featuring Leopold Bros. pale malt, Chinook hops, and US-05 American yeast and a Kolsch-style with Rahr North Star Pils malt, Mt. Hood hops, and German K97 yeast — and bagged them up for club members to pick up in five-gallon kits.

Many members logged into a video chat during brew day so we could brew together… apart. It was an interesting experience with friends over in the corner during a normally solo brew day, but the company was great on one of the first nice weekends of the year.

Photo by Aaron D

With a variety of brewing kits, it was fun to travel through virtual brewery tours to see what others are doing. Some of the best knowledge I have picked up since joining the BSG club has been at group brew days and brewing with other people. It is amazing how obvious some techniques are once they are seen in-person from another brewer.

Photos by Aaron D, Tyler B, Nick M, and Jason B

The beers, of course, came out great! With these great ingredients comes great beer. Aaron D. reported that his Leopold Chinook Pale Ale was the best beer of that style he has brewed. Although most brewers with the Kolsch-style kit got higher efficiency than expected, that could mean the beer is just kicked up a notch to a Blonde Ale or Session Pale. Regardless, beer is beer.

Photos by Mike C (shaker pint, Leopole Chinook pale ale) and Jason B (tulip, Kolsch-style)

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!

SourTimesNBA.com

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!

Cheers!

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.

Membership is open to everyone, which includes access to the barrel program.

Cheers!

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. 

Cheers!

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.

GoFundMe: Nordeast Brewers Alliance Food Drive for ESNS

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.

That ties in with experiments like Same Recipe, Different Brewers where no two of a variety of batches seemed like the same beer at all. This is different than the Single Hop Experiment and Yeast variety experiments.

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!

Cheers!

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.

Check the NBA Calendar for upcoming events.

Cheers!

“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. 

Cheers!