'Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the house,
Every creature was thirsty, including the mouse...
The steins were empty, and the bottles were too
The beer had been drunk with no time to brew.
My family was nestled all snug in their beds
While visions of Christmas Ale foamed in their heads.
Ma in her kerchief lamented the drought,
She craved a pale ale, and I, a stout.
When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter,
I sprang from my chair to see what was the matter.
Away to the kitchen I flew like a flash,
Opening the door with a loud bang and crash!
I threw on the switch and the lights all aglow,
Gave a luster of mid-day to the brew-pot below.
When, what to my wondering eyes should appear
But Gambrinus himself, the patron of beer.
With a look in his eye so lively and quick,
He said, "You want beer? Well, here, take your pick."
More rapid than eagles, his recipes came
As he whistled and shouted and called them by name.
"Now, Pilsner! Now, Porter! Now, Stout and Now Maerzen!
On, Bitter! On, Lager! On, Bock and On Weizen!"
"To the top of the bottles, the short and the tall,
Now brew away, brew away, and fill them all!"
As dried hops before a wild hurricane fly,
And then, without warning, settle down with a sigh.
So towards the brew-pot, the ingredients flew,
Malt extract, roasted barley and crystal malt, too.
And then in a twinkling, I heard it quite plain,
The cracking open of each barley grain.
As I drew in my head and was turning around,
Into the kitchen, he came with a bound.
He was dressed like a knight, from his head to his toes,
With an old family crest adorning his clothes.
A bundle of hops, he had flung on his back,
And the brewing began when he opened his pack.
His hops were so fragrant! His barley, how sweet!
The adjuncts included Munich malt and some wheat.
The malted barley was mashed in the tun,
Then boiled with hops in the brew-pot 'till done.
Excitement had me gnashing my teeth,
As the sweet smell encircled my head like a wreath.
Beer yeast was pitched, both lager and ale,
The wort quickly fermented, not once did it fail.
It was then krausened, or with sugar primed,
And just being bottled when midnight had chimed.
A wink of his eye and a twist of his head,
Soon gave me to know, I'd be shortly in bed.
He spoke not a word but kept on with his work,
And capped all the bottles, then turned with a jerk.
And laying a finger alongside his nose,
He belched (quite a burp!) before he arose.
Clean-up was easy with only a whistle,
And away the mess flew, like the down on a thistle.
And I heard him exclaim, 'ere he left me the beer,
"Merry Christmas to all! and a HOPPY New Year!"
Well, where do I begin? This has been one wild ride
of a year. First off, thanks to everyone who voted for me to
actually become the president this year, I was quite thrilled
at the prospect of taking over the reins of the biggest club in
Michigan. Neal Petty had been at the helm since the clubs first
elections in 93 and has done a great job of building the club
up. I wish I had a diary of the clubs activities so I could be
thoughtful and reflective on everything we did, but I don't so
I guess I'll just have to use my remaining brain cells to remember
what we did. Before I get into that, I need to use this space
to thank a few people.
Thanks to Sandy Bruce who maintained our treasury
this year, actually Sandy has maintained our treasury every year
since we started.
Thanks to Ted Geftos who held the library this year,
Ted did an excellent job of building up the library this year
with several new volumes. We will miss Ted as an officer, but
an upcoming bundle of joy awaits Ted and Michelle and his priorities
are shifting to familyhood. We anxiously await the news of the
new Geftos child.
Thanks to Johanne Wilson who was my right hand person
this year. Johanne was our VP and took on the awesome responsibility
of organizing the annual Beer-B-Q and all the monthly competitions.
Johanne took the position very seriously and for the first time
ever we were able to give all the competition winners 1st
, 2nd and 3rd place ribbons as well as
the normal prizes we offer each month.
Thanks to Pat Babcock and Joe Sellinger who maintain
and develop our clubs website. Pat turned the site over to Joe
when it got to be too much to maintain from New Jersey while Pat
was on launch. Joe has developed an on-line recipe calculator
which can be found on the web (article later will highlight this
program).. Pat has gone on to take over the HBD (Homebrewers
Digest) along with Karl Lutzen.. In this day and age of electronic
communication, a web presence is almost mandatory!
Thanks to Doug LeCureaux who once again, for the
umpteenth year in a row Doug has done all the shopping and cooking
for the Beer-B-Q. Doug surprised us this year with prime rib
as well as turkey drumsticks and ham. Doug's sons also helped
out which may turn into a family catering business. Doug is often
busy with family events as well as being a hockey referee and
coach (?) so meeting times are scheduled when he can, but he is
always there for us in the summertime!
Thanks to Tyler Barber who is our esteemed equipment
manager. Tyler holds our clubs Pico® system as well as our
counter pressure bottle filler, our Coke® style pin lock socket
wrench and our bar. What, you ask, a bar? Tyler and I built
a beautiful 8-foot wide bar this summer for the picnic. The bar
is plumbed for 5 Pepsi® and 5 Coke® kegs with beverage
and gas lines. Tyler did the construction part and I plumbed
all the hoses and fittings. This bar, as big as it is, is still
designed to be portable and anyone in the club that wants to throw
a homebrew party and want to use the bar is more than welcome.
We may even add a beer engine and stout faucet this year, look
out!
Thanks to Doug Geiss, our Business officer. Doug
is in charge of our discount program with the retailers as well
as overseeing our clubs purchases. Doug will also pick up the
additional responsibility of advertising manager when we started
our advertising program in the newsletter.
Thanks to all the retailers who have worked with
us this year, whether it be sponsoring a demo or giving us a discount.
I would like to thank Frank and Tony at Merchants Royal Oak,
Mike at Merchants Dearborn, Scott at Brew & Grow, Mark at
Wine Barrel Plus, Jim at Brew it Yourself, Brett at Lutz Hardware,
George at the HomeBrewery, Art at Mt. Clemens Hardware, Joe at
MI Homebrew Supply, Tad at St. Clair Brewing Co, and Vince at
Merchants Ann Arbor.
Thanks to Mary McCurry at Chelseas, our home away
from home. Mary has welcomed us into her restaurant from the
day she was asked without hesitation. Her staff has always been
very good to us, especially by giving us separate bills, which
makes a big difference at the end of the night.
Thanks to all of you, every member of this club contributes
to its greatness in someway. Some of you win local competitions
under our name and help our reputation, some of you submit articles
to the newsletter and help make it one of the best newsletters
I have read, many of you show up to almost every meeting and make
the meetings great, most of you shop at local retailers using
your ID card and helping the retail community understand what
we, the consumers are interested in. Many of you have feedback
for the officers to help them shape the evolution of the club.
Thanks to all of you!
Thanks to Jim Bazzy, our special event coordinator.
Jim is responsible for the tastings that we hold with the distributors
and our main liaison to Chelseas.
And last but not least, a special thank you to Chris
"Crispy" Frey, our secretary. Chris's extremely high
level of enthusiasm for the hobby and the club spurs him on to
greatness when he writes the newsletter or coordinating an event.
Chris truly is passionate about what he does and always gives
it 110%. Chris not only writes the newsletter but is responsible
for maintaining the membership database, no small feat when it
comes to a club this size.
Now, if I forgot anyone, It's not intentional, I
certainly don't think I forgot anyone….
This past spring we did our first Noah's Ark demo
at Merchants Dearborn, it was supposed to be an outdoor brew demo,
but the rains would not let up so we ended up inside the store
in the back area. The demo was well received and well attended
as well, weather notwithstanding.
We finally bought our Pico® system, YAAAA!
We once again volunteered at the Stroh's Rivertown
Beer Festival, always a treat!
We had an awesome beer-b-q, (special thanks to Neal
for organizing the kids games and Tony for organizing the raffle,
and Karl Ziemba for donating so many hops and grains for the raffle
as well as making some CO2 tanks available to club members).
We had an outdoor meeting at Doug Geiss's home, the weather held out just perfect, a light sprinkle for a few minutes had us worried, but it turned out just fine after all.
The weather wasn't so perfect for our outdoors meeting
at the park (100 degrees or so), but the beverages were cold and
those who attended didn't melt completely. Maybe next year we
will do an outdoor meeting a little earlier in the summer!
We had a great guest speaker, Patrick Reynolds from
Greenfield Village give us some really insightful perspective
on brewing history in this country.
We met with the fine folks from The Pontiac Brewing
Tribe at Kings Brewery for a social get together.
A good time was held by those who helped Crispy inaugurate
his new home out in the woods of Saline. No small task holding
an open-house three weeks after a move. A tip of the hat to all
the homebrew club members who helped Crispy move from his old
home to his older, new home. Hope a Spring get-together is on
the horizon!
Several end-of year events are right around the corner,
including the Paulener tasting, Doug Geiss's holiday gathering
and an end-of-year brew-off at Crispy's.
I'm sure there are some other events that should
be mentioned, but as I write this article, I'm just not remembering
all the things we did this year.
Housebill 4850 was passed and homebrewing is now
100% completely legal in Michigan! Thanks to Rex Halfpenny of
the Michigan Beer Guide and Brian Rezac of the AHA for pushing
that one through.
I look forward to seeing all of you again next year
as our club grows with new members and new events to make it even
better. Have a safe and joyous holiday season and see you in
98!
Since this newsletter is coming out the day before
our meeting, and because it will be awhile before we meet again,
I will include both. Tuesday, December 16th at Chelsea's and
Wednesday, January 28th at Chelsea's. Meeting begin around six'ish,
with most people arriving between five and six to grab a bite.
See ya there!
Being able to judge most of the homebrews that were
entered in this years competitions was an enriching and enjoyable
experience! I was impressed with the quality of most of the beers
entered and I congratulate everyone who shared their homebrews
with us.
One of the things we did that had not been done before,
was to judge each and every beer using the AHA guidelines, and
filling the AHA Beer Judging Score Sheet. Hopefully these score
sheets were helpful to the homebrewers. It also helped that
we normally had at least one certified beer judge help with the
judging (Gabrielle, Ted or Neal) and those of us that were not
certified judges learned something new about beer styles (and
off flavors).
In total we had 33 members participate, entering
a total of 82 beers. The stout competition was the most popular
style, drawing 21 entries!
Thanks go to the volunteers who did the judging,
especially Gabrielle who coordinated the judging sessions. Its
a tough job, but someone has to do it!.
We would like to increase the participation next
year. If you have any ideas please let us know when you fill in
the Annual Questionnaire so we can improve our competitions and
increase participation.
1st Annual F.O.R.D. HomeBrewer of the Year
We have some outstanding homebrewers in our club
who excel in quality as well as astound us with the quantity of
brews that they produce. To determine who should receive our first
ever Homebrewer of the year award, I turned to the results of
this years competitions. Everyone who entered a beer, got a point
for each beer. Entries who got a ribbon got extra points, and
the person with the most points we feel deserves this title.
This year the indisputable Homebrewer of the year
is Jim Rice (Crystal Bay Brewing). Jim entered a total of 12 beers,
winning 3 first place ribbons and four second place ribbons.
Jim is also an active member of the club, sharing beer supplies
with other members and hosting some of the judging sessions.
Congratulation Jim on a good record of brewing and thanks for
helping make our club successful!
Holiday beers is an open competition, where anything
goes. The brew will be judged on the drinkability, especially
during this winter season, along with the chestnuts roasting on
the open fire. In the past the beers entered have fallen into
two categories - winter warmers which have a high attenuation,
and lots of body, like barley wines and imperial stouts. The other
category is the flavored beers, is a result of the tinkering in
the kitchen we do this time of the year with spices. Bring your
favorite sipping beer for the holiday and we will be happy to
judge it.
We also collect the Hail to Ale entries which are
due to the AHA club only competition in January. Please make sure
you keep a couple bottles of the beer you enter, in case you win
and get to enter the AHA competition. Hail to the Ale include
the English style Pale Ales and American style Ales.
English Pale ales can be Classic English Pale Ales
which are golden to copper colored and have English variety hop
character. High hop bitterness, flavor and aroma should be evident.
Medium bodied, low to medium maltiness, low caramel flavor allowable,
fruity esters flavors and aroma are moderate to strong.
India Pale Ales are Pale ales with a more intense
hop bitterness and higher alcohol content, with the same hop aroma
, body and maltiness.
American Ales fall into three categories: American
Pale Ale, American style Amber ale, and American wheat. American
Pale ales are similar to English, except American variety of hops
are used. Low caramel character is allowable, fruity esters are
moderate to strong.
American style amber ale are similar but darker in
color, ranging from light copper to light brown. Medium body,
with high hop bitterness flavor and aroma.
American wheat can be brewed using ale or lager yeast,
and 30 - 50% wheat. Hop rates are higher and carbonation lower
than German style wheats. Phenolic clovelike flavors should not
be perceived. Body should be light to medium in character.
If you are interested in judging see either myself,
Tony Treusch or Gabrielle Palmer. Experience not necessary.
About 35 thirsty and curious club members and friends
gathered at Chelsea's this last Tuesday, December 9th, to meet
with the mid-west distributors for Pauleners beer lines.
By six-thirty we were beginning to worry that Aldo
Mastero had been held up by the season's first snowstorm. When
I threatened Jim with having to buy a round for all of us, he
pointed out that Aldo, and his partner Larry, were sitting at
the bar for the last half hour enjoying their favorite libations.
Aldo began by introducing himself and reviewing the
order that we would go through during the sampling. Maniquin
Piss started the line-up and we finished the evening with both
Belgian Doubles & Triples, as well as a nice Porter from Fullers.
My favorite was the "1845" ale, full-bodied,
nice hop profile and full of malt goodness. This beer is bottle-conditioned.
I will be attempting to get the yeast from a bottle and propagate
this for my 12/30 brew-day.
Thanks go to both Aldo & Larry for providing
us with such fresh, quality products to evaluate and enjoy. Aldo
indicated that he would like to do this again with a selection
of about a half dozen German brews that they represent this summer
some time. We indeed look forward to this and everyone should
try to attend.
And to our special events coordinator, Mr. Jim Bazzy,
we all thank you for doing just what your title indicates, coordinated
a special event.
If anyone wants a copy of the Paulner newsletter
or description of the brews we sampled, I will be putting several
copies in the library with all the holiday dinners, parties, shopping,
preparations and other activities that go on this time of year,
several dozen club members and co-workers of Doug and Kathy dropped
in at Doug's home this last Friday, December 12th, to help celebrate
the season.
Several dozen friends and homebrewers meet at the
home of Doug Geiss's this last Friday to enjoy some holiday cheer.
The club bar was utilized to provided an English
bitter, and several types of ale to the thirsty group. I personally
enjoyed no fewer than four of Tylers creation, including a delicious
Frambois and a serious pale ale that left me satisfied.
Several commercial beers made the round as well.
The stout category was well represented, as well as the seasonal
holiday ales. (That reminds me, stout will be the first competition
category in January-brew your best now and enter them next meeting).
At two in the morning, after much serious discussion
about the social merits of the cartoon series "SouthPark",
we cranked up ChambaWamba one more time and sang Tub Thumper and
headed home. A good time was had by all. Thanks go to Doug &
Kathy for opening their home to us and providing us with all the
great eats and drinks.
Well, it's normally the librarians job to review
books but I was pretty excited about this book so I rushed out
to buy it and start digesting. In a nutshell this is partly a
recipe book, partly a beer and brewery history book of the 1996
world's cup winners.
The World's cup is an annual invitational competition
and 1996 saw 3000 breweries invited to participate. More than
250 breweries entered a total of 600 different beers. 27 judges
from breweries and companies worldwide convened in Vail Colorado
to judge the winners on June 13/14 1996.
Now, zoom to December when Charlie Papazian, homebrewings
most well known author was approached by his editor with an idea,
a book on brewing the winning recipes from the World's cup. The
task was deemed monumental as Charlie had never set out to clone
others recipes, but a month later he agreed. 2 bottles of each
winning first, second and third place winner from every category,
(that's 15 cases if you want to do the math) were delivered in
straight to a brand new walk in cooler he constructed just for
this project and the writing began.
CP sampled only a few beers each day, never within
2 hours of a meal and only 2-3 ounces of each. He took meticulous
notes on sensory perceptions while sampling, and then sent the
other bottle (all 73 of them) to a lab for statistical analysis
of original extract, alcohol, apparent extract, and color. A
separate analysis determined IBU's. Finally, letters were sent
to each brewery requesting data on recipes and the history of
the beer and brewery. The brewers were asked technical info on
types and amounts of ingredients, original extract, color, bittering
units, and alcohol.
Much to Charlie's surprise he had nearly 100% positive
response rate. Many brewers thought this was a great idea for
homebrewers and helped as much as they could, many others provided
technical data alone. Charlie has formulated 52 recipes to emulate
some of the worlds best beers including Ruddles Best Bitter, Stoddards
ESB, Sam Adams Scotch Ale, Saint Brigid's Porter, Mackeson XXX
Stout, Old Rasputin Russian Imperial Stout, Stoddards Kolsch,
Aventinus Private Weissbierbraurie (South German style Weissbock),
Liefmans Goudenband, Pauwel Kwak, Hoegaarden White, Lindeman's
Cuvee Rene, Dos Equis, Leinenkugel's Red Lager, Tabernash Munich
Dark Lager, Miller Lite, Plank Road Icehouse, Liefmans Frambozen
and several others too numerous to mention.
Now for a caveat, a recipe doth not a beer make!
Charlie stresses this point, you could have the EXACT recipe
the brewery uses and still not reproduce the beer. I'm sure these
are excellent all grain and extract/partial mash (1 of each for
each recipe) recipes that will produce outstanding beers none
the less. Many breweries use proprietary yeast strains and are
not available to the homebrewing community, in the cases where
the yeast is proprietary or not divulged by the brewer, an appropriate
Wyeast strain is recommended, in many cases the brewers are already
using Wyeast or another readily available strain of yeast.
The profiles on all 146 beers may or may not be of
any value to you, this book could have been shortened considerably
by just including the recipes, but the fluff surrounding the recipes
can make for interesting reading. If you strive to clone some
of the world's best known beers, than this may be the book you're
looking for. Enjoy!
Last month we were happy to invite Brian Rezak, an administrator at the AHA, to join us for our monthly tasting session. It was a busy week for Brian who was attending the Taste of the Great Lakes, the rally at Big Buck and the Real Ale Fest in Chicago. Between sharing homebrew stories, and homebrews , Brian gave me some details on the AHA Membership Campaign that is going on, and I was surprised to hear of the benefits that our club can win, by sponsoring F.O.R.D. members to join the AHA.
The first great incentive is a $5 discount on the
AHA membership fee for the person joining AND a $5 rebate to F.O.R.D.
If we increase the AHA membership in our club by
25%, we receive a year of free entries in the Club only competition.
Club members also receive a 10% discount at the AHA 1999 National
Homebrewers Conference
Increase the AHA membership by 50% and the club
will receive a complete set of Brewers Publications Classic Beer
styles Series (we could use another set). Club members also receive
a 20% discount at the AHA 1999 National Homebrewers Conference.
The club that recruits the most members will receive
a complete library of Zymurgy Back issues and Brewer's Publication
Books.
All in all if you have been thinking about joining
the AHA, now is the time! Please see Rich Byrnes to make sure
that we sponsor you so that you can get the discount. Or see
me for more details.
A reminder, membership dues for individuals is still
only $15 (cheap!), and $20 for household memberships. There is
a additional one-time $10 fee for new members. This pays for the
T-shirt with our b*tchin logo!
And if you know that you are not going to renew your
membership in 1998, let us know. We will take you of our "nag"
list and let you alone, you cretin! Can't even afford to pay attention,
much less your dues, huh? What are you going to do with that money,
huh? I bet your going to buy a case of Bud Light! GET A LIFE!
Hurmph, sorry about that. Anyway, let us know what you plan to
do.
One last note; I am trying to update the clubs database
and we are asking everyone to fill out a new application. Please
download one and send it to me or bring it to the next meeting.
Thanks!
1/28/98 (W) Stout (AHA)
2/24/98 (T) Brown Ale
3/25/98 (W) Pilsner (AHA)
4/28/98 (T) Brewer's Choice
5/27/98 (W) Alt / Kolch
6/23/98 (T) Weiss (AHA)
Label Contest
7/22/98 (W) Lawn Mower Beer
7/24/98 (F) Strohs Riverfest
8/25/98 (T) Oktoberfest (AHA)
9/23/98 (W) Fruit / Lambic
10/27/98 (T) Scottish (AHA)
11/18/98 (W) Porter
12/15/98 (T) Holiday Ale /
Barley Wine
Entries for "Hail to Ale" AHA
The club meets the forth Tuesday/Wednesday every
month to accommodate those who have night school or other commitments
on these evenings. We push the meeting dates up in November and
December to keep from running into the holidays.
The executive members of the club meet the 2nd Wednesday of each month at the Ford WHQ cafeteria from 4:30 till 5:30. Anyone with ideas, suggestions or interest should feel free to attend Warning! This is a "dry" meeting.
For those of you who are relatively new to the club,
for the past few years our club has been tapped for assistance
in serving beers during the Strohs Riverfest event. We get out
50-80 club members, spouses and significant others to help and
a good time is had by all.
As the editor of our newsletter for well over a year
now, I have enjoyed taking everyone's contributions, adding a
few comments and editorials of my own and creating the Brew News.
Sure, I've had to resort to threats of violence on occasion.
Some nights at two in the morning I wonder why I bother. And
having my boss wait for the copies while I was printing 60 8
page newsletters was not too cool. But as I get ready to hand
it off to Gabrielle "Gabby" Palmer, I realize that I
really enjoyed pulling it together. As an avid reader of anything
brew related, I was psyched when I got a technical write-up or
book review before anyone else.
I will continue working as secretary, providing,
Gabby with write-ups on previous meetings and time/locations of
future meetings. Also, I will still keep the clubs computerized
data base updated, so if you have a change of address, phone number
or job, let me know. I wish Gabby good luck on the newletter
and everyone a happy holiday and a safe, festive new year. Cheers!
F.O.R.D. BREW NEWS
published by the F.O.R.D.homebrew club
Editor
Chris Frey
Contributing Writers
Chris Frey
Gabrielle Palmer
Rich Brynes
Johanne Wilson
Club Officers
Rich Byrnes, President
Tony Truesch, Vice-Pres.
David Peters, Treasurer
Johanne Wilson, Librarian
Chris "Crispy"Frey, Secretary
Gabrielle "Gabby" Palmer
Jim Bazzy, Event Coordinator
Tyler Barber, Equipment Manager
Doug Geiss, Business Manager
Joe Sellinger, Webmaster
F.O.R.D. is a private, non-profit organization of home brewers. Its main goal is to share information regarding technique, equipment and skill required to brew quality homemade beer.
Correspondence should be directed to:
Chris P. Frey
275. S. Ann Arbor St.
Saline, Mi. 48176
Work 313-337-1642
Home 313-944-6618
(w) chris.frey-ford@e-mail.com
(h) crispy@worldnet.att.com
Visit our website at: http://www.be.ford.com/ brewery/ or external to Ford - http://hbd.org/ford)
current circulation.....130