The next meeting will be held on Tuesday, March 28th at the Fort Street Brewery. As usual, the thirsty hardcore who want dinner will start arriving around 5PM, people will drift in for an hour or so, and we will start our meeting around 6PM.The Brewery is located at 1660 Fort St. Lincoln Park, MI 48146 SW Corner of Fort St. & Warwick - 2 blocks N of Southfield Rd. Meeting in the dining area (5:30 pm - 7:00 pm) Homebrews in the brewery area only!!!!!!!! Phone 313-389-9620 Fort Street Brewery

The results will be reported at the meeting. This month's competition is an AHA Club competition, Extract Beers Categories #1-23 Extract must make up more than 50% of fermentables,

Beer News

Message from the President

Mike Krawczak

I would like to thank everyone who attended the February meeting, hopefully you found something of interest during the evening's activities. As always, if there is anything you would like to see let me know and I will see what we can do. The Municipal Water Report for the metro Detroit area has been posted on our web site (under Brewing Info … Water … Source Laboratory Analysis).

Our March meeting schedule of events is:

• Presentation on developing the pallet and becoming a certified judge (Rex Halfpenny).
• The Clone Wars (Episode 3)
• Volunteers for a yeast experiment (Brewtek 300 Series)

A little background on Rex –

Rex Halfpenny is best known as the co-pubisher of Michigan Beer Guide, which he publishes with his wife Mary from their home office in Leonard, MI. With the help of the AHA, Rex spearheaded the statutory recognition of homebrewing in Michigan. He founded the Michigan Brewers Guild and served as its executive director for its first two years. Rex is a certified beer judge and served as the Midwest Regional Director of the BJCP for two terms and remains very active in that program. Rex was awarded a partial scholarship to complete the Siebel Institute of Technology Sensory Evaluation of Beer course. He judges at local, national and international beer competitions by invitation. He is one of the 100 judges selected for World Beer Cup, which for 2006 is in Seattle next month.

Calendar Of Events Note:

Please make sure to read the Message Board Calendar Of Events, Phil Kitkowski is looking for volunteers …

Dear Michigan Brewers,

Planning for the 2006 Michigan State Fair Home Brewing Competition is underway, and this year will be bigger and better than ever! This year, we will be judging all 28 BJCP styles as separate categories. In addition, we are adding a new award - the Michigan State Fair Homebrew Club of the Year, to be awarded to the AHA sanctioned club whose members claim the most ribbons in the competition.

But we need your help. Last year we had over 380 entries and this year we expect even more. We are asking for volunteers to help make the competition a success. We need volunteers to help with registration, judge recruitment, web design, web hosting, and logistics. If you are willing to volunteer your time and or talents to help make this the best competition ever, please contact me at msf.homebrew@gmail.com

We will be holding a kick off meeting the first week of April at a location to be determined (based on the geographic spread of the volunteers).

Cheers,

Phil Kitkowski

Competition Director

Call for help: Mi State Fair HomeBrew Competition

Chris Frey

Chris also received the same message from Phil. - Ed.

Dudes & Dudettes - see highlighted info below - we can do this - we have an awesome group of homebrewers in our club - start your burners!

Also, as an item for discussion at the next meeting, we have historically donated $50 every year to the Michigan State Fair Homebrew Competition - I would like to propose that we commit to $50 and perhaps add one 50/50 raffle result to assist Phil in one of the more difficult aspects of organizing the State Fair - raising the capital needed to cover costs!

And of course he needs help! With the full slate of 28 styles this year, more so than ever before. This means that on top of the usual 23 beer styles, traditional meads, melomels, other meads, standard and specialty cider and perrys will also be included. I have highlighted the high level duties that Phil has mentioned, but there will be a need for stewards, judges of just about any level (that means novices too, although you can hone up your skills at the next Club Only Competition judging in May - Extract Only), and I am sure a myriad of other duties as well.

Phil has plans to have an organizational meeting for volunteers early in April (see above -Ed.) - so please let him know if you can help out!

Hops

Chris Frey

Fellow club members - for those of you who have thought about raising your own hops, now is the time to order your rhizomes. I have attached an electronic flyer from Williams that I received recently, but of course you should check with your local sources to see if they are ordering now as well.

Some thoughts and caveats about growing your own hops. First, they need a good amount of sun. A south facing side of a home or garage is an excellent place to grow your hops. Second, the variety should be one you use in one of your favorite styles. Hops take about three years before you get a decent enough yield to amount to a few batches or more. They are invasive, and you might consider "corralling" them in some fashion. For 7 years I grew cascades on the side of my garage, and I originally dug in a beer keg ice water container thingy and broke the bottom just enough to let water drain out. Last year when I dug up my rhizome, it completely filled the aforementioned beer keg ice water thingy, but stayed inside.

Hops can grow 30' - be prepared to assist them with their climb. Something as simple as an eye-bolt up near the roof of your home, with several strands of jute or heavy twine (they prefer to climb up something rough - no nylon rope) anchored down 6"-12"around where the rhizome are coming out of the ground.

With hops you have to be cruel to be kind. After a few years, you will see dozens, if not hundreds of little shoots coming up - you want to pick the healthiest 3-4 and cut all the rest back to the ground. If they are all green (not hard brown), and 3"-5" tall, you can take these cuttings and marinate them in oil and vinegar and add them to a salad - a very Belgian thing to do - sort of like mild asparagus.

Anyway - now is the time.

Liberty Rhizomes

Kevin Muller

If you want Liberty rhizomes, you're more than welcome to come get some cuttings at my house in Canton! They are VERY prolific growers!

Next month we will be having one of our OPEN competitions. Only beers not entered in prior OPEN competitions will qualify for awards and points.

Beer Events, Meetings & Competitions Bob Barrett