Well Folks, here it is, the long awaited first ever Ford Brewers Newsletter. Hope no one was expecting anything too fancy on the first try. When we establish a formal club name and name for the newsletter, I'll develop a nice banner at the top and really make this a newsletter format. I do apologize for this getting out so late, normally I will have it out about 2 weeks after the meetings.

For those of you that made it to the first meeting, thanks for being there. We had about 15-16 people there and I feel from that first gathering that this club has a lot of potential. After initial introductions and conversation, each table broke off into conversations amongst themselves. Our gracious hosts (Rich Vincent, owner and Ben Edwards, Brew master) both had unexpected engagements last meeting but hope to be able to attend this meeting. For those of you who didn't know, the meetings will be held in a conference room at Traffic Jam & Snugs Micro brewery, Michigan's first micro brewery. Rich has asked that since he must dedicate a waitress to the room for the duration of the meeting, we at least cover a $40 tip, but don't limit it to just $40 if you're having a good time. The room itself seats 26 people and should be just fine for our meetings. We are allowed and encouraged to bring samples of our home-brew for sharing, sampling, critiquing, and etc.

Each month we will have a club competition for a specific beer style, I would like to start with Porter in November, and Holiday(spiced) beer in November. You are free to bring any kind of beer to the meetings, hopefully Rich & Ben can be very helpful with the advice.

PLEASE-PLEASE-PLEASE-PLEASE, If you initially contacted me or Mike with interest in the club and are no longer interested, or if you aren't interested in the club knowing there will be dues collected, please let me know so I can take you off the list, our list is up to 54 people, making it S.E. Michigan's largest home brewers club(I think) but if you want out please call me at 32-32613 or 558-9844 and I won't bug you with any more notices, thank you

Speaking of dues, I would like to establish a $25 a year dues and a special collection for the rental of our meeting room, the room will be $480 for a year (12 MOs * $40), what I will do is divide $480 by the number of members so our rental fee is covered each month, if we decide to have a summer meeting at someones house (this has been discussed with much interest) that money for that month will cover food or munchies for that meeting. As new members join, they will pay an identical share to what all original members paid, so no one gets a break just for joining late. I will start to collect dues next month, and we will make October our Fiscal year. For this meeting, plan on a few bucks extra for the tip. Traffic Jams serves 3 homemade beers, but I will let Ben & Richard talk about that. We can also get munchies, including nachos and a cheese plate with some of their award winning cheeses.

I'm sitting here, enjoying an Octoberfest I just made trying to think about what else I wanted to talk about. Some features you can expect to see in upcoming newsletters include columns such as Beer Treks (Whenever someone visits a brewery or brew pub I would like to hear about it so I can put it in), What's new, covering products just arrived at Brew & Grow, Merchants Warehouse and the Wine Barrel, a for sale/wanted to buy board and Brew News covering beer industry news, compiled from many sources. I prefer to do business from my house as not to Piss my boss off, so call me at 558-9844 for info on any of these columns.

Scott & Bonnie Day, the owners of Brew & Grow, and friends of mine, have agreed to give us a 5% club discount at their store, plus a one time 15% discount to members, so what I will do is Fax them a list once we collect dues and you become an active member. I will have price sheets available at the meeting.

I will try to do most of the club business via inter-co mail, we have been warned once that we were abusing profs in a matter for which it was not intended. No one got into any trouble, but we were told we were visible so , cut it out. We may from time to time put special announcements in profs if it's warranted.

I have enclosed a questionnaire I would like filled out by the meeting, if you can't attend, please mail it back to me at PO Box 1587-j NAAO, I'm in rm. 3565 if anyone want's to stop by and say Hi!.

As far as FERA goes, I apologize for the confusion, we initially were really gung-ho for FERA when we thought they might actually provide a service. We backed off when we were told that we had to sell Cedar-Point Tickets, Entertainment books, etc.and decided to start a club without FERA's help, they occasionally put out a bulletin to all employees advertising all the clubs affiliated with them, well, seeing as Mike and I recruited 54 people without them, I think we are doing Ok on ourselves. We have been informed by Ken Gutowski at FERA that selling is not mandatory but if you do, you get a small cut of your sales for the club. I propose to let you vote on whether you're interested in being a part of FERA, and if you're interested in being a FERA salesman.

As far as a club name goes, we are not a Ford employees club exclusively, so the name doesn't have to include the word Ford in its title, we are more of a Dearborn-Detroit area club with the majority of its members being Ford employees for the time being. As announced in the questionnaire we will be having a contest for the name of the club, please think of a name by this meeting and we will vote. Voting will be limited to members attending this meeting and we will have a prize, if not a bottle of Chimay Grand Reserve, then maybe a bag of malt, or something comparable for home brewing.

My newsletters will be much more organized in the future, I promise, there is just so much to cover in this first one, and time ran out.

I have enclosed a map to the brew pub, information on the Great American Beer Festival, and a water table for all cities served by the Detroit filtering station. This table is useful if you study water chemistry as it applies to home brewing and different beer styles. One of the past issues of Zymurgy devoted a huge portion space to water chemistry(winter 1991) and this is helpful. The next two pages are reprints from past issues the Glasshouse Gazette, the newsletter I publish for the Detroit Carboys, an East side brewers club of which I am president. I think that's all, feel free to call me with any questions, and I look forward to seeing you all at the meeting.

Relax, don't worry, have a home brew.

New Products

Brew and Grow now carries the JTS all glass blow off tube. This is a thick walled glass blow off tube that fits into a carboy with rubber stopper, the tube has a half inch opening and the end just gets out into a bucket or milk jug filled with water. They work great, are easy to clean and sanitize, and very durable (I've dropped mine twice, no problem).

Brew & Grow also announces the following new products;

Fruit flavor concentrates. These 4 oz concentrates come in cranberry, blueberry, cherry, raspberry, strawberry & blackberry. Each jar is enough for a 5 gallon batch. They add flavor and aroma and can be used in the boil or at bottling time. They are $4.95 ea.

The Phil Mill is a budget roller mill new from Listermann. It uses a 2 liter bottle as a hopper and hooks on to edge of your table with J hooks. The roller is adjustable for different grains. Phils Mill lists at $69.95 and is a step up from Corona mills, but not as nice as the Maltmill.

New Extracts include Otto Hoxeim (German) kits in Bavarian Bock, Octoberfest and Dortmunder Lager, these come in 3.3 lb cans and sell for $10.95. Also just in are Emerald Isle kits (U.K.) in Shannon stout, Waterford Gold and Dublin Brown. These kits come in 4 lb cans and sell for $11.95. Finally there is American Eagle dry malt in bulk, a 25lb bag of light or amber sells for $49.95.

Brew and Grow now carries a new line of yeast "starters" from Yeast Bank, each vial sells for $2.95 and requires a starter to activate it. There are several varieties, not all of which are available yet.

A01 California Barley wine, cream ale, IPA, porter, stout, brown ale

A04 Bavaria Dusseldorf Altbier, Kolsch

A06 Oregon porter, stout, imperial stout

A08 Dorchester barley wine (high residual sweetness)

A13 Dublin porter, stout, imperial stout

A15 England brown ale, cream ale, english bitters and milds, IPA

A16 Belgium trappist ales (Abbeys, doubles, triples)

A17 London(Youngs) brown ales, cream ales, English bitters, Scottish bitters

A34 Edinburgh barley wines, scotch ale, strong ale, scottish bitters

A35 Belgium Belgian white beer

A36 Belgium Belgian ale

A37 Bavaria Dusseldorf Altbier, Kolsch

L09 Bavaria all German Lagers

L17 Pilsen, Czech. American lagers, Bohemian pilsner, German pilsner

M01 Bavaria American wheat, German weizen, dunkelweizen, weizenbock

M06 Montreal barley wine (champagne)

A new magazine to look for is called Brewing Techniques and is aimed at the intermediate to advanced homebrewer. The magazine is only on its second issue and is full of great information

Another magazine to hit the shelves is called "Beer, the magazine". It is published by Bill Owens, the publisher of American Brewer. It is a industry magazine, covering homebrewing, microbrewing and macrobrewing.

New Products:

This month I polled Brew & Grow, The Wine Barrel and Merchants Warehouse for new products. New at Brew & Grow is a Mini-Keg draft system. Scott has been working on getting these for a long time now, and just recently got a hold of them. You have seen them before with Frankenmuth labels, or other German beers. They are Stainless steel 1.3 gal (5 liter) kegs with a CO2 bulb dispensing system that works really great with a minimal loss of CO2. The kit includes 4 kegs and a tapper, enough for 1 5 gallon batch. The kit sells for $65 and additional kegs sell for $6.00.

Merchants warehouse just got in a new variety of hops from Poland called Polinisher Lubin, these are a medium acid (5.8) aromatic hop especially suited for Pilsners and other aromatic Lagers. They also now carry full-size and mini Phils Lauter tuns. Tim reports that they should have their new freezer by next week, this will give them 5 or 6 shelves for liquid yeasts, yeast cultures, fresh hops, plugs/hoplets and pellets, as opposed to the 2 shelves they are restricted to currently. They are also looking at expanding the entire home-brew section, for those of you who have been there, you know how cramped they are, Tim hopes to greatly increase that entire section.

For those of you who keg, but miss the portability of a 6 pack, you might want to check out the Foxx counter pressure bottle filler, now at the Wine Barrel; with hoses it sells for $37 dollars. This is a great bottle filler, just ask Mike Preston, he swears by it. I am negotiating a deal with the owner of Wine Barrel for a club discount and will let you know more when we reach an agreement.

Also, for those of you wanting a 16qt stainless steel brewpot, I saw them at ACO for $12.95, but I don't remember if that included a lid, I also recall an ad at Cargo express for 16qt stainless steel brewpots with lid for $19.00 with a $5.00 rebate. Mike found a little health food place right behind Dearborn Music that sells jugs of Absopure for $13, or empty used carboys for $8.00.

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© 1995, 1996 by Pat Babcock

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Last updated 11/14/96