Febrewary 2006
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Febrewary 2006 |
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The Barley Whispers Official Newsletter of the Forest City Brewers Febrewary 2006 Edition Next meeting will be held at Shooter’s Bar and Grill - Wednesday Febrewary 15th, 2006 at 7:00 PM
Table of Contents: President’s Notes – Page 1 Meeting Notes - Page 1 Website Notes - Page 1 Club Event Notes – Page 1 Competition Corner – Page 1 Beer Humor - Page 1
President’s Notes: “The Bigger picture…..” As many of you know, one of my primary goals this year as president is to expand our club, and reach out to a wider audience through local events, and by networking with other homebrewing clubs in the area. I have made contacts with the current President of the Chicago Beer Society for a trip to the Night Of The Living Ales in March, and it turns out he used to live in Rockford. We are not alone. There are many beer lovers and brewers all around us. Let’s find them! Last month we had a visitor, Kevin Mueller, at our meeting from Michigan. He was kind enough to bring some brews to share even! I hope he visits us again if he is in town. He wrote a nice article for his club’s newsletter, and I printed it here for you to see. In early January, I saw a post on the AHA TechTalk from a member of the Forest City Brewers in Rockford, IL (http://www.forestcitybrewers.org/). It happened that I was going to Rockford on business the next week, so I replied and asked if there were any beer related events happening for the days that I was going to be there. I received back an invitation to the club meeting on Jan. 18 by the club President, Ryan Cooper. The meeting takes place in a good sized, back room of the bar at a local bowling alley. Their club format includes a welcome and business update from the President, then a presentation by a club member. Afterwards there are two competitions, one is an open style, and the other is a defined style. Judging is done by everyone at the meeting who chips in $2 for a cup and 2 poker chips, and a favorite is picked by dropping your chip in a paper bag behind your favorite. The winner of each competition gets 50% of the money collected. That night, I receive a nice welcome by everyone in the club that I interacted with. There were three other “newbie” members there who were checking out the club for the first time. I assume that they had as good of a time as I did. The presentation was about Ben Franklin (Poor Richard), and the defined beer style for the competition was the published Poor Richard’s Ale recipe from Zymurgy. I learned a great deal about Ben, he was one hell of an interesting guy! For the defined style competition, there were 5 entries. It was pretty interesting comparing beers that were brewed with the same recipe, but by different people. Each one was obviously similar, but definitely different. It was a cool experiment that I’d love to see the FORD club do! The open competition had 2 meads and 3 different beers. Each had its merits, and it was difficult to decide which my favorite was. If I recall correctly, the meads took the #1 and #2 positions. Overall, it was a great experience to visit another club and see how they conduct their meeting. Of course, it’s always a good time when brewers get together! If you have the opportunity, I’d recommend searching out the local brewers during your travels!...Kevin Mueller Meeting Notes: The January meeting was another smashing success at our new location. We actually had a server that waited on us the whole time, so thanks to Shooter’s for that, it made the meeting a little smoother without having to go and get our beers ourselves… Prior to the start of the meeting the Executive committee met briefly to discuss some of the direction for the club for the next year, and I have to say this next year looks like it will be a very good one. One of the main goals for the officers this year is to increase our membership and visibility in the community. We intend to do this by placing complimentary copies of Zymurgy’s Getting Started Issue at some of the local bars, as well as trying to bring back the homebrew night, that was started by Ryan Cooper and Vicker’s Pub. Of course, the very next month, the bar closed, but I don’t think that was our fault. We are also looking for more things to do as a club; this could include things like brewery tours, sporting events, etc. As I have said before, this is our club after all, so if you have a suggestion or think of something that the club should be doing or could do for fun, bring it up at a meeting or email one of the officers, and we can bring it up at a meeting. The location and date for the Annual Octoberfest was also decided, September 23, 2006 @ The Sundstrand Pavillion in Belvidere. Thanks to Jim Didier for again providing us with this great location for our celebration. Additionally, it was decided that henceforth the FCB Octoberfest picnic will be on the 4th Saturday in September. The January style was Poor Richard’s Ale. Following an excellent presentation on the life and times of Benjamin Franklin and the beer of his day by Ken Schulz, we did what do best, we drank some beer. (And there was much rejoicing) We sampled the entries for style and open categories Open Contest: Style Contest: 1. Steve and Anita – Blackberry Mead 1.Charlie Mongan 2. Lynn Foster – Cherry Mead 2.(Tie) Ken Schulz & Chuck Nolen 3. Chuck Nolen – Baltic Porter Honorable Mention Ken Schulz – Vanilla Cream Ale Lynn Foster Mike Sears – Ordinary Bitter David Denale The style for Febrewary is American Ales. The March style is Munich Dunkel. Website Notes: If you don’t already know, the club’s website can be found at http://www.forestcitybrewers.org . Ryan has been doing a lot of updating and changing things around, so drop by and have a look. If you have a suggestion, send him an email at forestcitybrewer@homebrew.com . Also, I have been trying desperately to find a solution to mass mailing the club from a beer or club related email address instead of my own personal one. I got my solution today. I will now be using ForestCityBrewer@insightbb.com as my primary club contact address. My address at ForestCityBrewer@homebrew.com is still active and will be monitored.
Club Event Notes: Just a reminder about the trip to the Wisconsin Microbrewers Festival in Chilton on the 21st of May, the tickets go on sale March 1st, $40.00 for ticket and bus. Please contact David Denale ASAP, as he needs to get a head count of who is going. You can talk to him at the meeting Wednesday, or email him at br3w3r@earthlink.net . From the Man: Wisconsin Microbrewers Festival May 21, 2006 - Chilton WI Trip will cost $40.00, includes ticket to festival, bus trip there and back and lunch. Tickets go on sale the 1st week of March. The bus I reserved seats 26. If you plan on attending, send you check, made out to Forest City Brewers, to David DeNale 1526 24th St Rockford, IL 61108 by the 7th of March, 2006.
Detail of when we leave will follow. We might be able to get a tour of the Chilton Maltery, I have to contact them soon. Competition Corner: The Urban Knaves of Grain are holding their 8th Annual Drunk Monk Challenge on March 11th at Walter Payton’s Restaurant. This is an AHA sanctioned competition, as well as a qualifying event for The Masters Championship of Homebrewing. The full details of the event are available at http://knaves.org/dmc/ . Patronizing the events of other Homebrew clubs is a great way to get our name out there and network with the other clubs in the area and potentially get more participants at our events, so if you are able to go to any of these events, make sure to mention FCB to organizers…
A Little Beer Humor: A guy walks into a bar and asks the bartender if he will give him a free beer if he shows him something amazing. The bartender agrees, so the guys pulls out a hamster, who begins dancing and singing "Tuff Enuff" by the Fabulous Thunderbirds. "That's amazing!" says the bartender and gives the guy his free beer. "If I show you something else amazing, will you give me another beer?" The bartender agrees, so the guy pulls out a small piano and a hamster and a frog. Now the hamster plays the piano while the frog dances and sings "You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet" by Bachman-Turner Overdrive. The bartender, completely wowed, gives him another beer. A man in a suit, who's been watching the entire time, offers to buy the frog for a princely sum, which the man agrees to. "Are you nuts?" asks the bartender. "You could've made a fortune off that frog." "Can you keep a secret?" asks the man. "The hamster's a ventriloquist." …… A man walks into a bar. As he passes the cigarette machine, he hears it say, "You smell bad and you are ugly." Then he hears a voice apparently coming from a nearby plate of peanuts. "You really are a very handsome young man." the nuts claim. The man turns to the bartender and asks for an explanation. The bartender replies, "The cigarette machine is out of order and the nuts are complimentary." …… And finally, while I am not particularly religious, I want to share a little prayer with you… The Beer Prayer Our
lager,
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