Newsletter from 11/22/2006

Homebrewers,

And just like that, the holidays are upon us. I’m seriously looking forward to the TG feast tomorrow and sharing homebrews with the family. After I’m revived from my turkey coma, I hope to brew an extract batch with my old man on his starter setup and hit a couple of Michigan breweries. It’ll be a good weekend.

Local News

Rich O’s, in New Albany, is will kick off their Saturnalia Festival Friday December 15th. The special line up of beers is all about the holiday and celebration brews, so if you like big and/or spiced beers, this is for you! You can check out the beer list here. The festival runs until the beer runs out, so you’ll have a couple weeks usually to try some of the lineup. However, some kegs, pins, and casks are blown in the first night, so if you want the pick of the litter, get there before it’s gone!

Club Stuff

Since the 4th Thursday of Nov & Dec fall during the holidays we decided to just have one meeting for the two months. And instead of a meeting we’re going to host the First Annual Big Plato Festival on December 16th. This party is all about the big beers, bring your homebrews that are 6-7+% abv and bigger. So if you had a brew where the hydrometer was more out of the sample jar than in, this is the event to showcase that monster.

The event will be held at Bob Probst’s house and we’ll probably kick things off around 6 or 7pm. I will send out directions in a week or so.

Beer Style of the Month

November is Bock and December is Dopplebock. With the cold weather, cold fermentation is a little more doable for those without temperature controlled refrigerators and chest freezers. Before I had cold fermentation capability I was able to make some pretty decent lagers just by fermenting in the garage (warmest spot was around 50 degrees). Even with the temperature fluctuations it still turned out pretty good. Just be sure to pitch a big 1-2 liter starter and set it in your garage. If you can’t make starters, let things get started in your house where it’s warm for the first 16-24 hours and then put the fermenter in your cold garage.

Happy Thanksgiving,

Ryan

www.hopjockeys.org

Copyright 2006