My Wednesday lunch sums up the success of this meeting.

We bottled Andrew’s Winter Lager, which looked and tasted good.  Looking forward to cracking one of those in a few weeks.

Distribution of the Barleywine was a success and no mortgage meltdown math on what we each received.  Shall try to ration out the beers so I can enjoy a few over the next couple months.  I think they will age well.

I believe most of the fellas remembered their $100 yearly due.  A small price to pay for the quality of brew this club is kicking out.

Welcome to TK as well as our newest recruit Andrew B.  Hope you guys are excited to get into the club.  Elephant walk music cueing up…now.  With two more, we are back up to club maximum 11 guys, with social members at large Kris and Rodd not there in person, but there in our hearts.  Not just saying that because we want their dues either.

We also had a discussion on the Competition Beers and schedule.  I believe we agreed the first style was going to be a ‘Black Rye IPA’, but we seemed to change our mind on this more than my high school girlfriend buying my line about the petting zoo in my bedroom.  I think we are then going with a ‘Belgian Trippel’ too.

We are trying to meet every three weeks, which also includes non-club meetings so we can meet as teams sometime that week.  Next meetings:

January 31st at Drew’s

February 21st–meet with your team brew event

March 13th–Dave’s house

April 3rd–Mike G. (Planning on Russian Imperial Stout recipe from one of my Seattle brewer buds, yes)

April 24th–Mike B.

After that I started chasing a squirrel around a tree outside.  Need to get the rest of the year planned out.

We did have a good chat about starting the ‘Lake Bluff Homebrew Event’ and making this a charitable donation happening.  A lot of things we could do.  I am game for helping out with this as a ‘sub-committee’ that flushes the idea out and presents to the club.  Need to get rolling if we want to do this summer.  Party with purpose my brethern.

Potential pledge class shirt for 2012 Class. Or maybe not.

Excerpt: Here are Scott’s notes from the meeting to discuss early 2012 framework:

1. We will meet every three weeks in 2012. Meetings will stay on Tues nights. First meeting will be on Jan. 10 at Craig’s house.
2. Teams will brew their competition beers independently in place of a regularly scheduled meeting.

3. Over the course of the year we will brew 4 double batches to continue experimenting with different variables.

4. At the next meeting everyone should bring ideas for the types of beers that we want to brew as a club and during the competition. Accounting will bring a recap of what we brewed in 2011. Dues will stay at $100 and are due at the next meeting.

5. Dave was wondering if the club should look into purchasing something to help regulate fermentation temperatures. Dave – Can you investigate what our options are for this and bring some ideas to the next meeting.

Still need to decide if we want to capture at least the winning beer recipes on this blog.  Might be helpful for future recipe considerations.  Or we can just keep blowing this off too.

Once again, it was a culinary treat as John paired some wonderful dishes with some of his favorite beers.  That’s two years in a row and the freshness in food choices and beer makes this a great event.  I was perfectly full at this feast of friends.

Congrats to Leif and Scott for winning the final competition, The American Barleywine.  Every team one at least one of the competitions, which I think says a lot about the quality of beer the group is able to brew.  And a big congrats to Mike B., Drew and Jeff for winning the overall beer competition. Champions indeed.

We also drew the new teams, so it should be a good year.  With some of the changes in rules and brewing schedules, the year of beer promises to remain fun and innovative.  Some great teams and we are looking forward to setting the beer competition schedule.

It sounds like we are getting closer to finally pulling the trigger on organizing the ‘Lake Bluff Homebrew Competition’.  I think that is really the last part of the club goals to be accomplished.  The idea of raising money for a charity through a fun event is, as the saying goes, ‘win-win’. 

Great way to end the year and looking forward to 2012!  I believe Craig is hosting January and Kris might be on the hook for February.

Cheers,

MG

I know, something about me and the horse I rode in for missing the meeting.

Thanks to Andrew O. for hosting the night’s event.  Sounds like it was a busy time with bottling, brewing and talking about 2012.  Leif brought over his Black IPA (thanks for bottling that dude, what happened to Special Forces call?) and we had two new fellas, TK and and Andrew B. join us.  Assuming you didn’t chase them away, we back up to our original strike force size team.

December 9th is Christmas Party!  Get those sitters now!

Dave sent a good e-mail that seemed to sum up the event:

Thanks Andrew for hosting a great brew club last night.  Pretty much non-stop brewing / cleaning / capping for three hours straight.  The Pale Ale’s and Black IPA’s will take all the better as a result of the hard work by all.  To recap some discussion we had regarding planning for our next meeting and next year in general, we decided to have our next meeting (not including the Christmas party) on January 10th, location TBD.  Craig and I volunteered to host, but others can speak up if the want it as well.  This meeting will not include any brewing but will be a tasting of the 4 batches of Pale Ale’s from Brewapalooza, for which we saved a 6-pack of each to hold for the tasting, and a planning meeting for 2012.  To prepare for 2012, I encourage you to start thinking about what you think the goals or objectives of the brew club should be for 2012 and then we work backwards from those to fill in the appropriate activities throughout the year to support those goals.  Some of the items that were mentioned were the following:

The Industrial Brew Machine

with slight tweaks in the brew process.  Pretty amazing to think that our QA is that good already to pull something like this off, but it is.  With Scott and Mike B managing the helm, whilst Dave grilled away on some tasty burgers, we brewed for about 6 hours.  A fun event and it was nice to include the family and even nicer to have a legit reason to sit outside with the dudes, ‘sampling’ some brews.  This club just pays for itself sometimes, doesn’t it?

Also at this meeting was pledge candidate TK, who not only hung in there for the craziness of this huge brew event, but also pitched in to help clean up some of the equipment.  I suppose we’ll need a Delta Tau Chi name for Lonnie (it’s Larry).

Dave is sending the recipes so I will add to the blog, our living document to Lake Bluff Homebrewing and things.  Onward and upward.

Don’t forget:  Friday, December 9th at Inovasi is the Christmas Party.  Be there or be deconcoted (I think that’s like getting tea bagged).

Slight mistake next day.

Tonight’s competition beer was a traditional English style ESB (Extra Special Bitter) and the Bearded Brothers brewing team came out on top.  Equally impressive, was most of the the fellas picked out, in the blind tasting, which was our control beer, the Fuller’s ESB.  Way to go gents.

So, Craig and Andrew came out on top, in 2nd was Mike B., Drew and Jeff, 3rd was Scott and Leif and 4th was Mike G. and Dave.  Some close tallies on the beer.  We did do a bit of a different process, where we poured all five beers and gave all the beers to one brewer per time to taste.  Not sure that is totally street legal, but it seems the group enjoyed it and it was good to see the beers compared to each other.

Well, overall it is a tight race with  B-I-W in the lead with the Bearded Brothers in close second, The Malakas Brewing in a close third and team G-I in an also close 4th place for the overall team.  The final 2011 tasting will be the Barleywine at the home brew party on Dec. 9th at Inovasi.

Black IPA from Alaskan Brewing Co.

Along with great brewing, a good mix of craft beers to sample.  Leif cracked out his prototype homebrew of the the Black IPA and I thought it was great.  At 68 IBUs, I thought is was very approachable and enjoyable yet having that bitter, hoppy taste we love and expect from Leif’s beers.  Scott also brought his aptly named ‘Dublin Imperial Red Ale’.  Though a bit on the high side ABV wise for the beer specs (is that wrong I ask you?) at 6.5%, I still thought this was another great beer.  Color was a deep red that reminded me of that lovely Red-head on ‘Mad Men’ (wah wah wah).

Got to taste Craig’s Pumpkin Ale and I thought it was good.  I’m not usually a pumpkin beer fan, especially since some of the larger brewers make this style and after our beer, realize they don’t make good ones.

Dave suggested and group agreed to continue with our brewing innovation and brew at our October meeting four versions of the same beer style, with tweaks to one part of the beer.  I believe we are going to focus on changes to the malt recipe.  This will be a four team within the team meeting, so lot’s of brewing.  Should be good fun.

Also discussed was perhaps making this a partial family event and brew a Root Beer with the kids.  Details to be flushed out, but I think the kids would love it.  We could bottle and give them stickers so they could decorate their own Root Beer bottles.  Science in action indeed.

The group decided to start to backfill some of the recent full time brewing departures to clubis emeritus, and T.K. will likely be invited to the October meeting.

Reminder:  ESB tasting is at Mike B.’s on Sept. 27.  Everyone make 8 pm?

Final count for the Oktoberfest excursion to the Chicago Brauhaus is Dave, Drew, Scott, Mike G. and likely Craig.  Let’s figure out how we’d like to plan this out as far as transportation goes. Dinner at 7 pm!

Remember to get the Christmas Party at Inovasi on your calendar!  Friday, December 9th at 7 pm!

We are planning another excursion down to the Chicago Brauhaus for some Oktoberfest fun.  We have a table for 12 reserved for Saturday, October 1st and will likely plan to get a limo/transportation again.

In so far is Mike G, Dave, Drew and Scott.

No go’s are Mike B. and Leif.

You other slackers??

Annual Christmas Party:

Post Barleywine tasting attire.

We will again be at Inovasi for the annual Homebrew Club Christmas Party on Friday, December 9th at 7 pm.

Added fun this year will also be the tasting of the Barleywine for the final club competition as well as picking of new teams for next year’s competition.

Mark those calendars now!

The pinnacle of the style.

Mike B. might be our host that night and we will not be brewing.  Just tasting and hanging out.  I think we should bring Fuller’s ESB or suggest you taste some over the next few weeks to acquaint yourself with this beer style.  There is also info via our Links Page on ESBs.

Please check back to this site for final details.  You should be bottling your brew soon!

Craig showed a flair for the daring with Pumpkin Ale, a first for the homebrew club.  Special commendations for the guys who brewed as it was hot, mosquito infested and still the beer got done.  Great job fellas.

I am pretty sure the topics of ‘root beer pilot’ and ‘summer beach brew’ were blown off, but since I was out of town in Minneapolis waiting in the great pumpkin patch, nothing I can say about that.

Pilsners are tasting great and I have to say ‘well done’ to Scott and his Irish Red Ale.  Very good and should get in the mix.  Still waiting to try a remnant bottle of Drew’s recipe for the Elysian IPA….and waiting…still waiting…

Mysterious art work found around Craig's neighborhood the next day.