Last weekend I attended Beerstock 5060 which is a homebrew festival started last year to celebrate a change in the law that allowed homebrew to be transported and served at meetings and such. Just 150 of you closest friends out for a day of beer and camping. I went as a memeber of BREW, but decided to also look at other homebrew clubs to see if I liked one a bit closer to me, but more on that later.
This was the first event I attened like this. I guess it is a bit like club night at NHC but on a smaller scale and camping. There were 7-8 clubs there with thier own booths and each serving 5-6 beers. So if you tried all of them you would be pretty roasted by the end of the evening. As per most home brew events I only saw a few people that were out of control drunk, plenty too drunk to drive, but only a couple unable to walk drunk.
One of the things I find most interesting about any homebrew event is the wide variety of people the hobby attracts. There are Technicians who can recite to you the specifics of every batch they have ever made. Some guys are Artists that make great beer by feel, they don't write anything down and some of them make etherial beer, but they never make the same beer twice. There is the guy that only makes one recipe, but he does it very well. The New Guy who compares himself to people that have been doing this for 20 years and needs reassurance. Then there is New Book Guy, this is someone that just recently read a new brewing book and got fired up for something and he is going to make it and share with everyone. Normally these guys are most easily identified after reading Sacred and Herbal Healing Beers because they show up with a corny full of "Wild Rosemary and Bog Myrtle" Pale Ale. To distinguish them from Hippie Brewer you need to see what else they have on tap. Hippie Brewer was a rare commodity back in the Midwest, but I expect to see more of them here.
Another thing we did as part of Beerstock was to hold a Beer Judging Clinic. Since I am a BJCP Recognized Judge I took part. This was not a competition (but they did hand out a prize), but rather a chance for brewers to bring in a beer and have two judges taste, evaluate and discuss it with them. We were supposed to take shifts, but I ended up doing the full three hour run. I encountered everyone of the brewers listed above at my table. One guy showed up with his second and third batch and took notes while I talked. Another guy barely remembered his mash temp. I did not taste any that were truly hideous, a few bad ones, and one or two where I could not offer much advice because they were so good already.
Since I did not have beer to serve I brought a few bottles of my mead to share around. One guy in BREW is apparently the Mead King of Washington so I made sure to give him a sample of everything. He had some constructive critizim for all of them, but I am not sure if some of that was because I am new competition or not. He is an old school mead maker that thinks you should leave it in the carboy for 5 years before it is ready to drink. I think I made enough of an impression that people will know who I am when I show up.
During all of this when I visited clubs I was looking for a new home. I really like BREW, but Everett is not exactly next door. There is a club nearby that I have been trying to find a meeting to attend. They don't seem very well organized, online anyway. They did show for Beerstock so I went over to have a look. First thing is I did not see anyone that was older than college age, which is not a defect. However I did not see much more in the way of organization at the booth, which is a defect. I am looking for a club that is organized and has a plan. I am afraid that if I get involved with this bunch I won't have fun because I will either be bitting my tounge, or running roughshod over them to get things moving. Another nearby club did not show at all so I could not talk to them. The most interesting part of this came from a club that I never even thought about.
To give a bit of history. When a friend of mine moved back here from the Midwest he went to a club meeting near his place and was told, basically, that he had to attend three meetings before they would vote on letting him into the club. We are talking about a guy that had 9 beers go through the first round of NHC in this region and took a silver in the second round. When he lived in the Midwest he was High Plains Brewer of the Year for three years running, some of those years he was second of third on the club listings by himself. This is not the way you should treat people in the homebrew community. Last February he was back in the Midwest for my club's competition and he told me this story. So now I come to the great Northwest and am looking for a club. I got in touch with my friend and found out which club had given him the brush-off and marked them off of my list of potentials. So now we get to Beerstock and I am talking to clubs and making it clear that I am set on BREW, but could be wooed away. Representatives of the blacklisted club actually gave me the hard sell for joining them. Not once, not twice, but seven times they talked to me. It is nice to wanted, but I am not going to drive a long way for three months and hope that I get approved in some election.
All in all Beerstock was a lot of fun, but I think next year it will have to be somewhere else because 150 odd people on three acres of land is a bit much in terms of parking and logistics.
Saturday, July 31, 2010
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
Getting My Feet Wet
This past weekend was pretty busy for me. On Friday night I went up to Everett to attend a meeting of the Beer Renegades of Everett Washington, or B.R.E.W.,. This is not exactly the club next door for me, but a fellow brewer from Kansas City is in the club so it was a place to start. The club is a bit on the small side, there were only eight or nine members there that night besides me. There was the normal amount of dorking around in addition to the beer being passed around. The beer was pretty good for the most part. We had a chili porter that could have used a bit more time settling down, and an IPA that had a bit of a lactic infection. Both of those were pretty good too, but each had an issue of one type in my mind.
One of the things that came up in the meeting was Beerstock 5060-2, which is a home brew festival first held last year in honor of the legalization of the trasportation of homebrew for meetings and competitions. There will be plenty of homebrew and socializing. One of the events they are going to do is a Judging Clinic where people can bring in thier homebrew and sit down face-to-face with a BJCP judge to have them evaluate thier beer. The idea is for it to be a low-key friendly evaluation that is intended to make people a better brewer. My friend just got his National judge level and is heading this up (at least for BREW), and I offered to dust off my BJCP hat and give him a hand.
The real fun began after the meeting was over. Mark offered to take me along with he and his buddy as they hit some bars down in Ballard. So I followed him down to his friend's place and then rode along down to the bar. We ended up at a place called Nectar in the Fremont District. We had several beers and I remembered how long it had been since I was in a club. I was not the Scary Old Guy, but I was close. We stayed until the last band finished up for the night. On the way back to the car I got a burrito from a roach coach in a parking lot. The burrito was pretty good that night, but the next morning it did not sit well.
The next morning my brother and I went up to Edmonds to a WAHA event at Gallager' Where U Brew. It was basically a chance for them to show off what the are about and try to get people to come in and brew. I looked at it and it seemed like an interesting idea, but I have a couple of problems with it. First it is all the way in Edmonds, second the batch size is 12 gallongs, third it is expensive. Now they include the cost of equipment and ingredients in thier cost, as well as the storage space and their skills. But that cost does not include bottles. So you would need 4-5 cases of bottles in addition to the other costs. While there I ran into someone from BREW that had not been at the meeting on Friday. Apparently he had spoken with someone that had and had already heard about me. Hmmm...I don't know if that is a good thing or a bad thing. I suppose it is good since he offered to let me come up to his house to brew and he has a 26 gallon all-grain system. I have a couple of all-grain recipes that are burning a hole in my minde so I may take him up on that after Beerstock 5060-2.
Monday I went to a cider tasting at Bottleworks. Getting there was a real little spot of joy. Seattle traffic is a pain in the tuckus and the start time was 5:00 PM, so the freeway was out. Instead I used Google maps to find a route on the surface streets. One problem is that the street I needed to use was under construction and I got turned around trying to figure out what was going on. Next I tried my GPS navigation on my phone. That made it worse by trying to force me to go down a closed street and then nagging me when I did not do what it wanted. I eventually found it, but it took 45 minutes to make a 15 minute drive.
Once there there were two cides from each of five vendors. Wildfire Cider out of Port Townsend. They had one cide and their Apfelwein. I don't remember which cider it was, but I do remember that it was quite good and nicely dry. I did not try the Apfelwein, not because I don't like but rather because I have tried it before. The next vendor was Red Barn Cider. Thier two were a true Perry and a cider made with a percentage of crab apples in the crush. The cider was really good. One major problem with mass market cider in this country is that they don't have enough back bone. The addition of crab apples gives acidity and tannins to give the cider its soul. The perry was something rare though. Most of the Pear Cider that is on the market is apple cider with "pear flavoring" added to it. The real stuff is as different from that as read cider is from apple juice. The bouquet is of ripe pears and the taste is nice. I bought a bottle of each of these.
Next up was Finnriver, they had two ciders there, a Farmstead Sparkling Cider and an Artisan Sparkling Cider. The Farmstand is French cider that is allowed to stand on the lees for a while, which is supposed to give a more complex flavor, I am not sure it makes enough of a difference to make the risk of infection worth it. The Artisan is not allowed to stand on the lees and has a slightly different blend of apples in the must. Both products are bottle conditioned, but the méthode Champagnoise is used on the Artisan.
Snowdrift Cider brought thier Dry Cider and their Semi-dry Cider. I like both of these, but the Dry is a bit too dry for most people. I think most people are looking for a touch of sweetness in cider, otherwise it does not taste like apples to them. I really liked both of these, but I suspect the Semi-dry would be to more peoples taste, however you should know that I think a better descriptor would be Off-dry.
The final vendor was Tieton Cider Works. I had thier stuff at the Washington Brewers Fest back in June. So I did not sample them last night (hey I have to drive you know). I will say that if you see their stuff in the store, you should know that the Cherry Cider is apple cider that is flavored with cherries. Not that there is anything wrong with that, but don't expect a full on cherry cider and get something else.
A pretty full weekend, but I like what I see when I go out in this town. Now if I only had a job everything would be perfect.
One of the things that came up in the meeting was Beerstock 5060-2, which is a home brew festival first held last year in honor of the legalization of the trasportation of homebrew for meetings and competitions. There will be plenty of homebrew and socializing. One of the events they are going to do is a Judging Clinic where people can bring in thier homebrew and sit down face-to-face with a BJCP judge to have them evaluate thier beer. The idea is for it to be a low-key friendly evaluation that is intended to make people a better brewer. My friend just got his National judge level and is heading this up (at least for BREW), and I offered to dust off my BJCP hat and give him a hand.
The real fun began after the meeting was over. Mark offered to take me along with he and his buddy as they hit some bars down in Ballard. So I followed him down to his friend's place and then rode along down to the bar. We ended up at a place called Nectar in the Fremont District. We had several beers and I remembered how long it had been since I was in a club. I was not the Scary Old Guy, but I was close. We stayed until the last band finished up for the night. On the way back to the car I got a burrito from a roach coach in a parking lot. The burrito was pretty good that night, but the next morning it did not sit well.
The next morning my brother and I went up to Edmonds to a WAHA event at Gallager' Where U Brew. It was basically a chance for them to show off what the are about and try to get people to come in and brew. I looked at it and it seemed like an interesting idea, but I have a couple of problems with it. First it is all the way in Edmonds, second the batch size is 12 gallongs, third it is expensive. Now they include the cost of equipment and ingredients in thier cost, as well as the storage space and their skills. But that cost does not include bottles. So you would need 4-5 cases of bottles in addition to the other costs. While there I ran into someone from BREW that had not been at the meeting on Friday. Apparently he had spoken with someone that had and had already heard about me. Hmmm...I don't know if that is a good thing or a bad thing. I suppose it is good since he offered to let me come up to his house to brew and he has a 26 gallon all-grain system. I have a couple of all-grain recipes that are burning a hole in my minde so I may take him up on that after Beerstock 5060-2.
Monday I went to a cider tasting at Bottleworks. Getting there was a real little spot of joy. Seattle traffic is a pain in the tuckus and the start time was 5:00 PM, so the freeway was out. Instead I used Google maps to find a route on the surface streets. One problem is that the street I needed to use was under construction and I got turned around trying to figure out what was going on. Next I tried my GPS navigation on my phone. That made it worse by trying to force me to go down a closed street and then nagging me when I did not do what it wanted. I eventually found it, but it took 45 minutes to make a 15 minute drive.
Once there there were two cides from each of five vendors. Wildfire Cider out of Port Townsend. They had one cide and their Apfelwein. I don't remember which cider it was, but I do remember that it was quite good and nicely dry. I did not try the Apfelwein, not because I don't like but rather because I have tried it before. The next vendor was Red Barn Cider. Thier two were a true Perry and a cider made with a percentage of crab apples in the crush. The cider was really good. One major problem with mass market cider in this country is that they don't have enough back bone. The addition of crab apples gives acidity and tannins to give the cider its soul. The perry was something rare though. Most of the Pear Cider that is on the market is apple cider with "pear flavoring" added to it. The real stuff is as different from that as read cider is from apple juice. The bouquet is of ripe pears and the taste is nice. I bought a bottle of each of these.
Next up was Finnriver, they had two ciders there, a Farmstead Sparkling Cider and an Artisan Sparkling Cider. The Farmstand is French cider that is allowed to stand on the lees for a while, which is supposed to give a more complex flavor, I am not sure it makes enough of a difference to make the risk of infection worth it. The Artisan is not allowed to stand on the lees and has a slightly different blend of apples in the must. Both products are bottle conditioned, but the méthode Champagnoise is used on the Artisan.
Snowdrift Cider brought thier Dry Cider and their Semi-dry Cider. I like both of these, but the Dry is a bit too dry for most people. I think most people are looking for a touch of sweetness in cider, otherwise it does not taste like apples to them. I really liked both of these, but I suspect the Semi-dry would be to more peoples taste, however you should know that I think a better descriptor would be Off-dry.
The final vendor was Tieton Cider Works. I had thier stuff at the Washington Brewers Fest back in June. So I did not sample them last night (hey I have to drive you know). I will say that if you see their stuff in the store, you should know that the Cherry Cider is apple cider that is flavored with cherries. Not that there is anything wrong with that, but don't expect a full on cherry cider and get something else.
A pretty full weekend, but I like what I see when I go out in this town. Now if I only had a job everything would be perfect.
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