Fellow Homebrewers,

This one’s going to have to be short.

Local News

This year Great Fermentations, indianabeer.com and World Class Beverage are hosting what they call the Ultimate Beer Geek Challenge. Basically brew up a mean IPA following their rules and submit it for judging. You can find the regulations and entry form at the bottom left of this link. There is a $20 entry fee but this also includes a ticket to the Indiana Guild Microbrewery Festival on July 29th.

Club Stuff

The next meeting scheduled for Thursday May 11th has been canceled. The next event will be on May 20th at the Big Oaks Shelter at Fairfax SRA. It’s about 1 mile from the Four Winds Resort. We are going to make it a brew day / drink homebrew and socialize day. Basically we’re just going to kick it, you are all are welcome to join us. Bring whatever to eat, there should be a grill and of course beers. Unless you have a seasonal park pass, there may be a $5 per vehicle fee (I think) at the gate.

We may ore may not have a meeting the 4th Thursday in May because the event is just a few days prior. I will keep you posted if we decide to meet that Thursday.

Beer Style of the Month

This is the first time a lager has been beer of the month; May is Czech Pilsner month. This is a terrific beer to drink on hot summer days. If you want to be traditional about it you’ll want 9-10lbs undermodified Budvar or Moravian malt mashed using the decoction method and lots of whole leaf hops for the boil, flavor, and aroma additions. However, if you can’t get your hands on those malts then I would highly recommend Briess Pilsen malt. I’ve had very good results decoction mashing with that malt. They also have a Briess Anniversary Malt that’s new this year. It is made from Moravian barley, I haven’t tried it but if you can get it, it would probably be more appropriate that the pilsen malt.

Also, it is of the utmost importance to use extremely soft water when brewing pilsens. I recommend ½ reverse osmosis water and ½ distilled. Don’t get spring water confused with distilled, distilled is what you want. If you need help with a recipe, let me know and I’ll send you one.

Tips and Tricks

Hop bags. It’s not much of a tip or a trick, but when brewing with whole leaf hops, big nylon mesh bags are fantastic to keep the spent hops from plugging up the works. If you brew with whole leaf hops and don’t have special screens that cover your outlet on your kettle you’ll get plugged up for sure. If you have a pair of silicone hot mits (I bought mine from Sam’s Club) you can actually pull the hop bags out at the end of the boil and wring them out to get every last drop of that wort. It’s pretty impressive at how little is left behind in the kettle when you remove the hop bags.

Cheers

Ryan

www.hopjockeys.org

Copyright 2006