April's Meeting

We will meet again at the Tenny Street Roadhouse (http://www.tennystreet.com/) on Tuesday April 26, 2005. We will meet in the back room.

Tenny Street Roadhouse is located at 22361 West Village Drive in Dearborn, Michigan. The building is a former post office, located one block south of Michigan Avenue and one block east of Military. Phone. It is about two blocks west of Baileys.

As it has been in the past, as owners begin to see our club members as friendly, courteous and paying customers, they will in turn be gladder to see us in the future and may be more receptive to stocking a few more "specialty" brews that we may request.

Competition Results

APRIL COMPETITION IS "OPEN".  BRING YOUR BEST BEERS TO THE MEETING OR CONTACT ME AT pegasus@provide.net OR CALL ME AT 313-277-3865.  BE SURE TO LABEL THEM WITH YOUR NAME AND THE CATEGORY ENTERED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

LET'S GET SOME ENTRIES THIS MONTH.

Thanks,

Jim Rice

F.O.R.D. Homebrew Club Meeting Minutes

Discussions

• Merchandise Kurt Klimkiewitz is working on getting us T-shirts. They will be navy blue with white lettering He is looking into other possible merchandise
• New Venue
  • There has been discussion around selecting a new venue for our meetings since there is now a band practicing in the back room during the time of our meetings
  • Jim Rice has talked to the owners of Tenny Street and they have agreed to hold the back room for the exclusive use of F.O.R.D. from 5:30 to at least 7:00. THANKS JIM FOR COORDINATING THIS.
Club Events
• Let us start thinking about the Summer Picnic. Send suggestions to Jim Rice or Rich Sovoda
• Chris Frey will be brewing April 25th if anyone is interested.
• Chris Frey is requesting the club donate money for the porta-john’s on National Homebrew Day
• Chris Frey will be brewing on April 9th at Dragonmead for the Belgium Yeast Experiment that he will be doing at the National Homebrew Convention in June. He is also asking for a $50 donation towards the Experiment.
• Tyler Barber is in need of more bottle caps to finish off the club bar. Also, he would like to put the club logo on the front of the bar – if anyone has graphics experience and can help Tyler out please contact him.
• Treasury Report We have approximately $1100 in the Bank at the moment

Call For Bottle Caps!

I spoke with Tyler Barber tonight (our equipment manager extraordinaire) and he was calling for a few things, but primarily for MORE COOL BOTTLE CAPS!

As you may or may not recall, last year we challenged Tyler to devise of a more "portable" bar. The club's current 12 tap affair is a large "box", measuring some 4'h by 7'w by 2'd, weighing in somewhere around 60-75 pounds. It currently resides in my garage, and will be used for National Homebrew Day (and ANYONE in the club is welcome to borrow it).

Anyway, Tyler has been busily planning and scheming and finally constructing a fold-able, transportable 10 tap bar that even a Focus could love. But two things are slowing him down. First, is the need for more cool bottle caps. He figures he needs 1200 to do the job, and has only 800 or so. So if you have been hoarding your caps for Tyler, bring them to the next meeting. Or start drinking some of that funky stuff (no BudMilloors bottle caps please) and have them ready for Tyler. He will know whether he will have enough by the next meeting, depending how many more people bring.

The second thing is $ - we approved construction of this bar as a club last year, but he is coming down to the stretch and needs now to purchase the 10 taps, hoses, connectors, acrylic to cover the bar top which will have the caps on top, etc. He figures e has about $100 into this so far, and figures it will take another $150 - $200 to finish this project up. Tyler can give the full accounting for this at the meeting, but this is ball park.

The treasury is still good at about $1,000+, even after the clubs recent support of both the Yeast experiment and the porta john for May 7th (thank you very much!), and I for one support this. I will not be at the next meeting (San Juan - bummer;-), but the club should plan on discussing this and bring your bottle caps - heck, bring $5 bucks and participate in a 50/50 raffle to support what promises to be one of the coolest, knock-down portable bars we might ever see - thank you Tyler for taking the challenge and making this a reality - can't wait to see it!

April 28 beer tasting in Wyandotte

Hello all,
Thursday April 28 at Italian American Hall in Wyandotte, hosted by Discount Drinks Wyandotte.

I believe it is 6-8PM, $20 includes food. I will confirm time and price later this week as well as give the address and directions to the venue.

I will have a table with the following products to taste...
Reissdorf Kolsch
Schneider Weisse
Aventinus
Old Engine Oil
Einbecker pils
Einbecker maibock
Fraoch Heather Ale
Skullsplitter

...and there will be approx 20 other beers from my distributor Rave Associates, which will include Bells, Arcadia, Unibroue and others. Other distributors will also be there.

I'll e-mail further updates on the beer line-up as I receive them.

*/Annette May/*
*/B United International Inc/*
*/Division Manager Core Portfolio MI/*
*/annette.may@comcast.net/*
*/www.bunitedint.com/*

Next month's competition styles are to be determined

In June of 2000 the National Homebrew competition took place in Livonia, MI.

2000 National Homebrewers Conference
June 22nd-24th - Livonia, Mi.

That's right folks, this is right around the corner. Our very own Gabrielle Palmer has been doing the web pages for this upcoming, neighborhood event, and you can find out more details about speakers (which include several area brewsperts, including Larry Bell, Peter Blum, Mike O'Brien, Dan McConnel, Rex Halfpenny and others) events and other details by pointing your browser to http://www.hbd.org/miy2k.

I will be attending the entire conference and would like to hear from others who are planning on attending. We have space for five kegs for our club's two hour shifts at the hospitality suite, so if you are planning on bringing a keg, please let me know that as well. Actually, the club is lending the 12-tap bar system to the convention, but we are told 5 kegs per 2-hour shift should be ample. There is also the chance that we might get tapped to pull additional shifts, based on how many other clubs end up participating.

The club night is Thursday night, and we need to discuss any "theme" we may want to present for our clubs munchies. I have heard from other clubs that have put out quite nice spreads with smoked meats, wonderful snacks, etc. Club night is sort of in lieu of an actual dinner, so I want to hear from some creative people who enjoy wiping up a batch of ? for the masses.

I am proposing that the club approve expenditures of approx. $250 for these munchies. All for this, come to the meeting and vote Aye! All opposed, the meeting evening has been changed to Thursday, see you there ;-)

I will have more details at the next meeting, but you should consider booking your room at the Holiday Inn soon. Their phone number is 734-464-1300. ID yourself as a participant of the American Homebrewer's Conference and the rate is $84 a night.

Seperatly, to register for the conference you can go to the web site and book it on line. The full conference cost is $175 if you register before May 15th and you are an AHA member, $225 if you are not a member (you can buy the 1 year membership with your package for $33, so it cost effective). Prices go up after May 15th. There is also a breakdown of each event if you do not want to attend the entire conferrence.

See ya at the next meeting!

Beer Events, Meetings & Competitions