Minnesota Home Brewers Association news...

Here's the latest in news from the Minnesota Home Brewers Association, lest you think there's nothing going on in the club! TOPICS (search for these to go quickly to the article...) *** AHA COC WINNER: CURT STOCK *** NEXT AHA-COC: SPECIALTY/EXPERIMENTAL/HISTORICAL *** 2003 BJCP SCORES ARE IN! *** FOAM CUP DEADLINE: JULY 25 (HIGH PLAINS BREWER-OF-THE-YEAR) *** MEAD DAY - AUG 2, CHRIS HADDEN'S HOUSE *** GREAT TASTE OF THE MIDWEST - SAT, AUG. 9 *** MN RENAISSANCE FEST STEINBEER DEMO - SUN, AUG 17 *** STATE FAIR BEER COMPETITION - SAT, AUG. 23 *** RIVER CITY ROUNDUP DEADLINE: SEPT. 5 (HIGH PLAINS BREWER-OF-THE-YEAR) *** AUTUMN BREW REVIEW - SAT, SEPT. 6 *** INTER-CLUB CAMPOUT & MASTER-OF-MALT COMPETITION: THIS WEEKEND! ------------------------------------------------------------------- AHA COC WINNER: CURT STOCK Congratulations to Curt Stock, whose Bohemian Pilsner took the prize as the MhBA's entry into the AHA Club-Only European Light Lagers competition. Curt's beer will be going on to compete Nationally with entrys from clubs all over the country. Good luck Curt! Thanks to Steve Piatz, Paul Dienhart, Jonathan Crist and Steve Fletty for showing up to help judge. ------------------------------------------------------------------- NEXT AHA-COC: SPECIALTY/EXPERIMENTAL/HISTORICAL The next AHA Club-Only is for Specialty/Experimental/Historical beers, and we will judge them at my place on September 10 at 7pm. Fire up your brew kettles for those funky beers! AHA COC UPCOMING: NOV 2003 - Altbier and Koelsch DEC 2003 - Barleywine APR 2004 - Mead MAY 2004 - Extract Brews ------------------------------------------------------------------- 2003 BJCP SCORES ARE IN! The scores are in from the 2003 Winter Beer Judge Certification Program class. We had ten people pass the exam, five of whom were NEW judges: Curt Stock, Steve Fletty, Pete Peterson, Kris England and Rick Oftel. Two people passed with NATIONAL scores - Kris England and Jason Nelson. The remaining re-takers were Steve Piatz, Jonathan Crist, Bob Cromer and Mike Swalinkovich. Congratulations to everyone! The BJCP class has become so popular that the MhBA is adding a SECOND class, this one in the fall and organized by Kris England, in addition to our winter class which will be organized by Jonathan Crist this year. Contact Kris at: engla008(a)tc.umn.edu or Jonathan at: cristj(a)bsci.com for more information on these classes. ------------------------------------------------------------------- FOAM CUP DEADLINE: JULY 25 (HIGH PLAINS BREWER-OF-THE-YEAR) The FOAM Cup, sponsored by the Fellowship of Oklahoma Ale Makers deadline is July 25. Jonathan Crist has already sent off several club entries, but if you act quickly, you can still get your beers in on time for the contest. The FOAM Cup is a qualifier for the High Plains Brewer-of-the-Year award, as is the Upper Mississippi Mash-Out. If you won medals in the Mash-Out, you are a CONTENDER for the High Plains BOTY! Check the FOAM Cup website at: http://www.alemakers.com/ and the High Plains BOTY website at: http://kcbiermeisters.org/highplains.htm ------------------------------------------------------------------- MEAD DAY - AUG 2, CHRIS HADDEN'S HOUSE Chris Hadden is hosting an AHA Mead-Day event on Saturday, August 2 at 1pm. We will be brewing at least 2 batches of mead there, as well as sampling a variety of different meads, both commercial and home-brewed. If you've ever been curious about this wonderful beverage and would like to taste it and see how it's done, don't miss this event! Contact Chris at chris(a)chadden.com for more info. ------------------------------------------------------------------- GREAT TASTE OF THE MIDWEST - SAT, AUG. 9 The Great Taste of the Midwest will be held in Madison, WI on Saturday, August 9th. If you've never been to it, you're missing an amazing spectacle - over 100 breweries from all over the country and over 400 different beers are on tap! It takes place outdoors in beautiful Olin-Turville Park on Lake Monona in Madison, and has become Mecca to anyone who loves great craft-brewed beer. Tickets are sold out for 2003, but mark your calendars for Saturday, Aug 14, 2004. (Chris Hadden - as owner of the "Travelling Trophy", it might make a good road trip - hint, hint!) Beth and I are going, and I think Bob and Renee Cromer always go too. Anyone else have tix? ------------------------------------------------------------------- MN RENAISSANCE FEST STEINBEER DEMO - SUN, AUG 17 Kris England has arranged with the Minnesota Renaissance Festival for the MhBA to conduct a Steinbeer demo on Sunday, August 17. If you're interested in helping, contact Kris at: engla008(a)tc.umn.edu ------------------------------------------------------------------- STATE FAIR BEER COMPETITION - SAT, AUG. 23 Online registration starts NEXT WEDNESDAY! for the Minnesota State Fair Homebrew Competition, hosted by the Minnesota Home Brewers Association and the St. Paul Homebrew Club. Jim LaRocque from the MhBA is organizing it, and I'm sure he'd be happy for anyone willing to help him out. Contact Jim at: James.LaRocque(a)goodrich.com. This is the FIRST MN State Fair Beer Competition (that we're aware of), so let's make it a BIG one! Let's send as many entries from the MhBA as we can! Check out the website for the contest at: http://www.mnbrewers.com/events/mnfair ONLINE REGISTRATION DEADLINES: Wed, July 26-Wed, Aug. 6 ENTRIES DUE AT DROP-OFF SITES: Wed, Aug 6-Thu, Aug 14 FIRST & SECOND ROUND JUDGING: Sat, Aug 16, 10a-6p at the CREATIVE ACTIVITIES annex BEST-OF-SHOW JUDGING & AWARDS: Sat, Aug 23, 11a-2p at the CREATIVE ACTIVITIES building ------------------------------------------------------------------- RIVER CITY ROUNDUP DEADLINE: SEPT. 5 (HIGH PLAINS BREWER-OF-THE-YEAR) The River City Roundup, sponsored by the OmaHops homebrew club in Nebraska, has it's deadline for entries on Sept. 5. Jonathan Crist, our club Entry-Shipping Potentate, will be contacting people in August sometime about when and where collections will occur for shipping entries from our club to this contest. (Jonathan has it worked out to about $1 per bottle - VERY inexpensive!) The River City Roundup is a qualifier for the High Plains Brewer-of-the-Year award, as is the Upper Mississippi Mash-Out. If you won medals in the Mash-Out, you are a CONTENDER for the High Plains BOTY! Check the River City Roundup website at: http://www.douglascountyfair.com/ochandbook/lots.php?id=13 and the High Plains BOTY website at: http://kcbiermeisters.org/highplains.htm ------------------------------------------------------------------- AUTUMN BREW REVIEW - SAT, SEPT. 6 Dave Berg of Bandana Brewery and the MN Craft Brewers Guild has confirmed that they will be hosting the 3rd Annual Autumn Brew Review at Peavy Plaza in Minneapolis. Tickets should go on sale soon. Check out their website at: http://www.mncraftbrew.org/page3.html. ------------------------------------------------------------------- INTER-CLUB CAMPOUT & MASTER-OF-MALT COMPETITION: THIS WEEKEND! Finally, the Inter-Club Campout starts tonite and goes through Sunday! This is a great chance to get outside and do some camping, but with BEER! Our friends from the Cloudy Town Brewers are hosting, and will serve dinner to all campers Saturday night. Representatives of the Minnesota Timberworts, The Prairie Homebrewing Companions and the St. Paul Homebrewers Club will be there as well, all bearing their best homebrewed products since the last campout. The MASTER-OF-MALT competition, selecting the best of each clubs offerings in each of four styles, will commence on Saturday afternoon, 1-ish. The four styles this year are: California Common, India Pale Ale, Russian Imperial Stout and Varietal Mead. There will be ribbons and prizes (!!!) As usual, the MhBA will select it's competitors for the competition on Saturday morning - nothing like beer (and mead!) for breakfast!! Directions to the campsite, Collinwood Regional Park in Cokato, were provided by Bruce LeBlanc from St. Cloud, and are as follows: Here are the directions to Collinwood, from the south head west on Highway 12 go through Howard lake and about five miles past HL there should be a big John Deere dealer and a sign for Collinwood at the intersection of 137 - go left. About 4.5 miles on that there will be another sign pointing left into the park. fallow to county road 6 turn right by the Collinwood sign and follow to park. ------------------------------------------------------------------- That's all the news that's fit to print (well, all that I know about anyway!) Hope to see you all at some of these events! - Al