May 2004

SSBC Monthly Newsletter

“News About Brews”

The Emptying of the Barrel and the Coming of Summer

This past Saturday was a beautiful day to be out in Francois’ back yard, cleaning and filling bottles. Also a wonderful day to sip on some stickebier with friends. It was all-in-all a great afternoon, and it was good to see so many people turn out for the event. Things seemed to go pretty smoothly and we’ve got the barrel ready to take on it’s next task – a Bourbon-and-Braggot-barrel-aged Wee Heavy (say that 3 times fast). I wonder what THAT will taste like next year? To see pictures from the bottling party, scroll down to the De-T-Ales section.

Hope to see a bunch of people at the Club Brew on June 5 at Bob’s. And don’t forget to brew up a clone batch of Trinity IPA (recipe below) and also a wheat beer (40+% wheat) for two club competitions this summer.

Editor’s Note: There won’t be a June newsletter because there won’t be a June meeting (makes sense to me…). There was also no definitive information on the July meeting location and date as of press time, so be sure to check e-mail and maybe the calendar to confirm the dates, directions, etc..

Brew On!

Jimmy B

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At A Glance…

Things You May Want To Know, Or Not

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Club Events

June 5^th – Group Brew at Bob’s Barn (directions)

June 19^th – Joint picnic with the Wort Processors, rain or shine (details below).

Check the club calendar for more details on these and other upcoming events.

Area Events

Nothing to see here…

Next Meeting

Date: July 13^th, 2004 @ 7:30

----UNCONFIRMED DATE----

Location: Trinity Brewhouse

Directions: From 95 North: Exit 21 Broadway - Stay Right a curve around the Police Station. Trinity Brewhouse is directly across from the Providence Civic Center (click here for map)

Agenda: Trinity IPA clone competition.

Beer Quote and Trivia

“A woman drove me to drink and I didn’t even have the decency to thank her.”

— W.C. Fields

Match the following beer bottle sizes to their appropriate names (I know, you’re saying “they have names?”):

Salmanazar 1.5L

Nebuchadnezzar 3L

Magnum 4.5L

Balthazar 6L

Rehoboam 9L

Methuselah 12L

Jeroboam 15L

Answer at end of newsletter…

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Sip by Sip

Minutes of the Previous Meeting

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Date: May 11, 2004

Location: Mansfield Airport

Number of Members Attending: 11

Business

- Jeff updated us on the Brewoff – Due to a lot of entries and not quite enough judges, the Meads, Ciders and BOS were done a week after the competition date. All was completed by May 8. It appears that there will be some money left from this year’s competition for a change, even though prizes still need to be mailed out. BOS ‘leftovers’ were passed around (Belgian Pale and Lavender Wheat), as were some other competition beers. Score sheets, ribbons and prizes were disbursed to club members as needed.

- The England trip starts the week after the meeting, for 2 weeks. Have fun guys!!

- Sat. May 15 is the day to bottle the Braggot in the Bourbon barrel. Bring bottles, caps, corks, etc. Festivities start at 1:00, with a special guest cask of stickebier.

- Summer cookout was scheduled for June 19^th, but no one had confirmed with Glenn that this was still a go. Steve G. whipped out the cell phone and showed us what technology is good for, ringing up Glenn and determining that that date would not work. As luck would have it, the Wort Processors have their picnic on June 19^th, so we discussed joining/crashing their event. More information to come.

- June 5 is the Club Brew at Bob’s barn (directions here). We will be brewing a Wee Heavy based on one of Jeff’s award-winning recipes. Bill is organizing this. If you plan on attending and haven’t contacted Bill yet, please do so in order for him to plan accordingly.

- The July meeting will be the Trinity IPA clone competition at Trinity Brewhouse (where else would we judge it?). We need to set this up through Len. If you want to compete, there might still be time. See the De-T-Ales section below for the recipe.

- The August meeting will be a Wheat beer club competition. It was decided that the criteria will be that the recipe must use at least 40% wheat (malted or not). This one’s a bit more open on the style. We are hoping to be able to have this meeting on a Tuesday night at the airport.

- We have tentatively scheduled the Steering Committee meeting for Sept. 1 at Eaglebrook.

- Looking forward to September, it was suggested that we have the club meeting on Sept. 15^th, maybe at Glenn’s if he’s available so that we could all go by and visit him.

Bock Style Presentation

- Al presented on the Bock style as a precursor to the club Bock competition. He told us of the tale of 2 (brewing) cities – Einbeck and Munich. Einbeck was a better commercial brewing city for the longest time and dominated for about 400 years, until Munich rose as a commercial brewing center and Einbeck had some issues.

- Double bock grew up as a separate style altogether thanks to the Italian monks at Paulaner and their need for a hearty, nourishing (and high-gravity) beer during Lent.

- Samples passed around included Einbecker Bock, Einbecker Maibock, Hofbrau Munchen Maibock, Eisbock and Salvator DoubleBock.

Bock Style Competition

- There were only 3 entries – 2 Maibocks and a Traditional Bock. And the winners are:

o Third Place – Jim Bowser, Traditional Bock

o Second Place – Kevin Farrell, Maibock

o First Place – Jim Blanchette, Maibock

- A raffle ensued, and in addition many members went home with leftover entries from the Brewoff.

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It’s All in the De-t-Ales…

Articles, Reviews and Information

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Joint Picnic with the Worts – Details and Directions

Consider this to be the formal announcement for the summer picnic. As an added attraction, this year the summer picnic will be a joint venture between the Worts and SSBC. We had tried to combine events before, but this time it worked.

When: Saturday June 19, rain or SHINE
Where: The estate of Fred and Mary Ann in Freetown
Time: 1pm start; ending ???
Theme: Sausages cookoff. Club members have started to make their own sausages; bring them, cook them and compete for the Sausage Maker of the Year Award (Big Pig Award). Commercial examples will be available.

BEER: 5 gallons of Wit, 5 gallons of ESB from TAP; two commercial kegs, a Dutch beer and a local product (TBD). Since this is the summer picnic, bring your best homebrew, we are after all a homebrew club.

Please sign up now, number of club members/guests, what dish you are planning on bringing. E-mail Francois (by clicking on his name) with all the pertinent info. Also, please specify if you are planning on entering the sausage cook-off. We will need help setting up, cooking, cleaning up so please sign up for that too.

Courtesy of the Wort’s BrewPrint newsletter:

The Summer Picnic will be held at the home of Fred

and Mary Anne. They have a large barn on-site, so in

case of rain we can move into it. The Picnic will be

held rain or shine!!

Mary Anne McQuillan and Fred Sterner

66 Chipaway Road

East Freetown, MA

(508)763-2391

From Boston/West

♦ Take Route 128 (I 93) or Route 495 to Route 24 South.

♦ In Taunton, take Route 140 South to exit 8 (Chace Rd, East

Freetown, Assonet)

♦ Take a LEFT at the end of the exit (Chace Rd/Assonet)

♦ Go 300 yards and take a LEFT onto Braley Road (ignore Gurney

Rd to the right)

♦ Go 2.2 miles and take a RIGHT onto Chipaway Road (sign for

Howard’s Auto Body)

♦ Go 0.4 miles you will see Howard’s Auto Body on the right, and

a mailbox marked #66 on the right.

♦ Take a RIGHT up the dirt driveway, take a RIGHT at the F.M.

sign.

♦ Drive in and take a LEFT past the front of the house (don’t

worry, you won’t drive off the edge)

♦ Take a LEFT past the pool and park there. (Please don’t park

along the road, there’s plenty of room in the yard.)

From Providence/Cape Cod

♦ Take I-195 to New Bedford, then take Route 140 North.

♦ Take Exit 7, Braley Road/New Bedford Industrial Park

(there’s no exit 6)

♦ Take a LEFT at the end of the exit.

♦ Take a RIGHT as soon as you go under the overpass.

♦ Go over RR tracks and through a STOP sign.

♦ It’s 2 miles to Howard’s on the left and #66 on the right.

Follow the directions above when you get to #66.

Clone Brew Project Specifics

The Clone Brew Project is an attempt by the members to copy a beer made by a brewery or brewpub. Trinity Brewhouse in Providence was chosen, and the beers that Sean (the brewer) described for cloning were the Point Break Pale Ale and the Rhode Island IPA. It was decided that the club would try to clone the IPA, but both recipes are provided for your information. Following are specifics about these 2 beers, taken from Sean’s brew logs.

IPA

Scaled to 5 Gallons (US)

9.4 lbs Pale Malt

½ lb Crystal 60

½ lb CaraMalt (they use Munton’s or another)

1.51 oz Centennial hops (60 minutes)

.7 oz (20 gm) Northern Brewer hops (30 minutes)

.7 oz (20 gm) Cascade hops (end of boil)

.7 oz (20 gm) East Kent Goldings (dry hop)

1968 yeast

Mash at 152° F

OG = 15.5 – 16.5° Plato