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Recap – March Monthly Meeting and Things to Watch

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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.
Upcoming Events 
  1. April 5th, Taproom Takeover – Boom Island
  2. April 19th, Monthly Meeting at ESNS
  3. Education Topic: Yeast
  4. May 5th, Big Brew for National Homebrew Day – 12:00 PM, at Northern Brewer Minneapolis
  5. May 17th, Monthly Meeting at ESNS
  6. Education Topic: Explore a Style – Mild
  7. June 21st, Monthly Meeting at ESNS
  8. Education Topic: Beer Sorbet
Club Merch and Memberships Available
  • T-Shirts – $10
    Hats – $10
  • 2018 1 Year Membership – $20 or $25 with a TShirt
  • 2018 3 Year Membership – $50 with a TShirt
  • 2018 Work Shirt

April 21, 2012 Club meeting Notes

meeting recaps,

Here’s the notes from our meeting last Saturday at Pracna.  The meeting proceeded sans gavel, I don’t think we broke any by-laws by doing that.  If I left something out, let me know and I’ll make amendments.

Attendance:  Tyler B, Andrew W, Tom, Steve M, Nathan G, Grant W, Matt P, Davis, Matt C, Tim S, Dan S, Dave T, Kelsey K, Sandy B, Justin G, Kevin S, Nick P

  • Introductions/misc. (5 min.)
  • Announcements/upcoming events/new business (15 min.)
    • Mid-month BAMF meet-up recap
    • Non-Profit Status – BAMF recommendation
          • Club Vote: Unanimous vote passed – We will pursue Non-profit status wen funds allow, tentative goal is next year.
    • Summer meetings – Moving to Thursdays – starting May 17
      • We will move back to Saturday at approximately the end of Summer
    • NBA Sponsored Homebrew Competition – Big River Brew Fest
      • Nick P has started a web page on our site, as well as something more official.  Check for updates.
      • This will be in association with the Eastside Neighborhood Services of Minneapolis.
      • The main cost to us is providing lunch and dinner to the Judges, who will otherwise be volunteers receiving BJCP credit for their work.  The Eastside Neighborhood Services is excited to let us try this, and we aren’t going to be charged to put this on.
      • We will be open to all styles, AHA/BJCP sanctioned, open to nationwide events, with an emphasis on Sour (Funky) beers as well as DIPAs.
      • We will be paying $30 to become registered with the BJCP so that we can obtain a list of local judges.
      • Volunteers will be needed as Stewards for the actual Judging.
      • Our main goal over the next 3 months is promotion and marketing.  We need to get the word out.
    • Farmer’s Market  – Volunteers needed for the first 4 weekends in June.  Please check the Google groups thread and sign up.  We will be able to brew, demonstrate some methods and equipment, answer general questions, and interact with the community.  Our main goal is to recruit more members so that we have more club funds to actually do something cool.  Tim S is going to hook up a sign for us, and showed some pretty cool stickers that we can hand out at the farmers market.
      • The cost to us is $25/day for 4 days ($100).
    • Discount reminders
      • Remind all prospective members of the 10% we receive at the Four Firkins, Northern Brewer and Midwest Supplies.  Not to mention all the free brewing advice.
    • Upcoming competitions
  • Group experiments update (5 min.)
    • Barrel-aging project update[Nick]
      • We are filling the barrel this weekend at Nick P’s place.  Please drop off your carboy ahead of time if you can’t be part of the mass siphoning.  It is key that we have all carboys available for the barrel filling.
    • Single Hope update/status– who’s in?
      • As I write this, we have about 15 people signed up with a chosen hop.  The GGroups thread is strong with this one.
      • The general plan: We all brew the same base beer recipe, but each use our own chosen hop, and only our hop.  We will plan on tasting in July, so plan accordingly.  When this was done last year, it was pretty cool to see how a hop can really change a beer.  Oh, and no Fuggles this time around.
  • Financial Report (5 min.)
    • Banking situation update [Matt]
      • Not much change since last month.  Right around $400 in club funds and slowly growing.
    • Recruitment efforts
      • Keep bringing in your friends!
      • Steve M is officially the chair of the Recruitment Committee!
  • Education session (20 min.)
    • “Mash Tun designs and techniques” [Andrew N and Adam]
    • Mash Tun and Sparging technique open forum.  Sorry no real notes, if you have a question, throw it out on the GGroups forum.  This was a great example of tapping all of our members for their respective knowledge.
  • Break
  • What’s on tap? – New Business
    • Next educational topic May – Yeast Washing [Grant W]
    • July – Session beers [Matt P.]
    • Next educational topics? Volunteers needed for August
    • Summer BBQ – It will be at Nathan G’s place in the Northeast.  We will need some tables, plan on bringing your own chairs and leave your dogs at home.  This is also when and where we will hold the 1st semiannual NBA HBC.
    • Pub Crawl (Pedal Pub) – We have interest.  Something will happen in August as a group event.  We encourage informal gatherings in the meantime.
    • Next BAMF date – TBD on the forums.
  • Group Tastings
  • Dan Snow : American Barleywine (19C)
  • Dan Snow: Common Cider (27A)
  • Matt Price: Brown Ale (10C)
  • DTs: Beglian Stout (13? or 18E? or specialty beer?)