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Next OBC OUT-meeting:
Hopworks Brewing 2944 SE Powell Blvd, PDX 97202
10 May 2023 - 7PM Start
This is a CLOSED out meeting.
OBC members only! |
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Future homebrew comps: Rocktoberfest, Redmond, OR - Sept. 2023
Fall Classic (OBC), Portland, OR - Nov. 2023 |
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OBC OUT-MEETING @ HOPWORKS BREWING
Wednesday May 10, 2023 (meeting for members only!) Brew Crew News -- May 2023 -- |
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Presidential Pint
Hello OBC friends and members. I have been upgrading my brewhouse lately and really enjoyed some of new technology and equipment available to homebrewers. Most of you probably know about these things already, but they were new to me. For people who keg their beers, Duotight fittings and EVABarrier tubing have made gas and beer lines much easier to wrestle with, and keep clean. I am slowly replacing all my ball lock fittings and lines with Duotight, and there are many options and sizes to choose from. I can now keep eight kegs under pressure at once, with each gas line having their own regulator valve and pressure setting! All the components are smaller, making the overall footprint lighter and easier to work with. And this duotight flow stopper is a game changer. This article from Homebrew Finds was really helpful to me if you want to learn more. Hopefully you caught our educational session on electric brewing last month, so you already know that I am a fan of the Brewzilla all-in-one system. Both Scott Nieradka and I have also bought their new Fermzilla Tri-Conical fermenters in the past few months, which have a crazy amount of accessories available. I have found the 14 gallon version a lot of fun to work with, extremely capable and easily upgraded. It allows you to ferment under pressure (up to 35 psi) which can improve flavor, suppress esters or unwanted bacterial activity, and can help you save on CO2 when/if you cold crash and reabsorb it into the finished beer. With CO2 prices skyrocketing right now, that is not a bad thing. Also this mini faucet has been great at taking frequent samples under pressure. Lastly, I also added the Temp Twister stainless steel coil to my Fermzilla lid and splurged on a BrewBuilt IceMaster Max 2 chiller to pump glycol through the coil, which is amazingly efficient at rapid cooling of your wort or finished beer. All in, the entire setup costs less than most of the full size stainless conicals on the market, which do not include any spunding, chilling or glycol capabilities out of the box. My keezers will be full of fresh lagers this year so don’t hesitate to reach out if you want to see the system or taste the results. I look forward to seeing everyone at Hopworks on Wednesday May 10th (not Thursday) and again in June for our next In-Meeting and Trask River camping trip.
-- Jim Thompson
OBC President
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The VP Sampler
OBC 2023 Hood River Bus Trip
When: 05/20/2023 9:00 AM - 5:00 PM
Hood River Breweries to visit: pFriem, Ferment, Double Mountain (tentative)
Make sure you sign up! The more involvement we get in this trip the more trips we can have! Invite your friends! So far we only have 10 people signed up. We need at least 25 to attend to keep this viable as a club. SIGN UP HERE: https://oregonbrewcrew.org/event-5266055 |
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Club Equipment (pilot system, jockey box, tanks, PA, cask)
I will be going through all the equipment and making an inventory of everything and marking it. For use of any equipment we will be creating a signup sheet and have a discord channel as well to track who checks out stuff to make sure it's returned. If you would like to checkout anything before the sign up sheet is ready please email me at jeff@obc.beer
-- Jeff Orr
OBC V.P.
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A Few Notes from your Treasurer
Big Brew Day – Plan being proposed
- At FH Steinbart in the parking lot on National Big Brew Day, which is always the 1st Saturday in May, so May 6th, 2023
- Free Yeast from Imperial (maybe)
- Discount for ingredients from Steinbarts – maybe 20%
- Limited to 8 brewers, not just OBC, and will probably be first come first serve
Paying Dues:
If you have any concerns about your membership expiration date or payments, please contact Michele Lish, OBC Treasurer. treasurer@oregonbrewcrew.org
OBC Merchandise
OBC has a good supply of OBC clothing items for sale. We might not have all sizes or colors, but check with a board member to see. Prices are (members):
- Hats (baseball caps) $10
- Hoodies $45
- T-Shirts $15 - $20
- Workshirts $45
- Challenge coins $10
There is a slightly higher rate for non-OBC members.
Member Spotlight |
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Getting to know people in our club has been one of the most fun and interesting things for me. I hope others have taken the time to meet and talk with one another. It is amazing how diverse our members are. We come from all walks of life, diverse backgrounds and a variety of skill levels and experience when it comes to brewing. I decided it was time to start writing about some of our members on a regular basis for the newsletter, so here is my first effort. Submitted by Michele Lish
Featured Member(s): Meet Rick & Kim Ivie
Kim & Rick Ivie have been members of OBC since June of 2022. I first met them at our out meeting at Threshold Brewing that very month, and so enjoyed Rick’s sense of humor from the get-go. From then on, I pretty much saw them everywhere OBC had an event, competition or meeting. They volunteered to help at comps, poured beer at festivals, attended the 40th Anniversary party, attended B meetings and I don’t think they’ve missed an in meeting and they always bring food. You might have noticed them there because they also seem to win the food drawing raffles a lot, and even bring little prizes to add to the raffle items.
I suspect they are on a mission to try every brewery in the metro area, and maybe even the state because their Facebook posts show them out and about doing just that. Rick loves to dress up, and wore a tuxedo (with a top hat) to the 40th Anniversary Gala, was Santa Claus at our Holiday Party, and was chasing butterflies with a net at the Odd Ball Fez Fest just a few days ago. Kim was his butterfly.
Rick was born and raised in Elmonte, CA and moved to the Portland metro area 45 years ago. He met Kim on a dating site and they immediately hit it off, and soon got married. Kim hails from Washington D.C. and moved to Portland in 2012. They currently live in a condo in SE Portland, and making beer there is a bit of a challenge due to lack of space. However, they make up for it by going out to breweries and pubs all around Oregon and Washington. Apparently they are on their 10th McMenamins Passport so there is proof that they are enjoying this experience. They love going to beer festivals and Rick’s recent favorite was The Little Woody in Bend. Kim liked Weird Beer Festival on the River, and found a beer called Grandma’s Bathroom which she said “you can’t drink many of because it is a high ABV”, but with a name like that I’m not sure I’d drink it at all. Rick likes mostly lagers, especially Pilsners, and Kim likes IPA’s, but both try a lot of different beer styles.
Rick went to Mt. Hood Community College and studied food sciences, and his project was brewing, but he also loves to cook. He is good at that based on the food items he has prepared for club meetings. He went on to work at the National Food Lab for 30 years. Kim worked as a Pharmacist for several years, the worked for Blue Cross and Blue Shield, but went back to school and got a degree in Clinical Psychology. She currently works with people who have MS, as she does.
They both like to travel and have done so mostly in the US as Kim traveled for work, but they took that as an opportunity to do some sightseeing. Kim’s favorite trip was to Poland with her mom, and they went to Kraków. They drank vodka that had been set on fire first. Her ancestors came from there. Kim & Rick are true volunteers. Not only do they participate in so many OBC events, they like going to brew fests and volunteer to pour, and since both hold an OLCC service permit they can do that at pretty much any fest. Their life isn’t all about beer, because they love to go antiquing/junking, and exploring places that they visit. Both said OBC is amazing and they love the club. Say hello to these two amazing people when you see them next, and thank them for being so involved in the club.
Odd Ball Fez Fest was a great success
This event was announced at meetings and written about in past newsletters, but here is a summary of its success. Overall the Odd Fellow raised $5,220 for charity. A part of those funds will be used for the student scholarship program where the Lodge buys laptops for those about to enter college. Funds also support the Portland Police Crisis Response Team, and a program called Neighbors Helping Neighbors.
Corrie Heath and Michele Lish collaborated and made a Witbier, which won the people’s choice award and they received a plaque for “Best Homebrewer in the Universal.” You have to understand that this event is lots of fun and laughs, dancing, audience participation and frivolity, plus good food and good homebrew beer, so that is why there is a unique people’s choice award name.
Thank you Bill Midkiff for helping serve beer and providing a keg of Porter; the OBC board for the board brew beer which was a Dark Lager; Lisa & Mark Harris for the West Coast IPA; Corrie & Michele also donated their Steeplejack’s wort share ESB along with the winning Witbier. It was a good variety of styles and we got lots of compliments from attendees. There were tip jars for the beers, and all those funds went to the Lodge Scholarship fund. The total in tips was $455. OBC was given a few minutes to speak about the club and our relationship with the Odd Fellows Peninsula Lodge, and I hope I did it justice. As you all probably know, there is always left over beer after competitions and we were fortunate enough to get those beers from SheBrew 2023. The Fez Fest organizers decided to auction those beers off, and created 5 unique boxes (2 12 bottle cases and 3 24 bottle cases), which I thought was a great idea. The total for cases of beer auction was $520, so between the beer tips and auction income, OBC made it possible to raise almost 20% of the funds for this event. This is an annual event, so think about coming next year and having a great time. Submitted by Michele Lish |
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Notes from the Treasurer:
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A lot of our members will be up for renewal on July 1. Please pay when you get an email notification, thanks.
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If you want to pay membership, take a class, participate in any OBC event and want to pay with a method other than through an invoice you receive when you signed up, contact Michele for other options. Funds are coming into the club for the bus trip and the upcoming competition as well as a few new memberships: Welcome to our newest members: Adam Adamczak, Tarn Allen, David Capolello, Steve Flagg, Elizabeth Johnson,Corey Meisch, Brian Schroder
-- Michele Lish
OBC Treasurer |
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Competition Corner - March
Recent Competition Results:
NHC 1st Round:
The first round of the National Homebrew Competition took place in Seattle. The following OBC members qualified beers to move on to the second round at National Homebrew Con in San Diego, Congrats!
Jimmy Mack - Belgian Ale
Rodney Kizbey - Smoked Beer, Traditional Mead
Also congrats to other Portland area brewers: Adam Lund, Jordan Folks, Russel Berger, Zachary Christensen, John Heasley, and Dean Ehnes, for qualifying beers to the second round.
COHO Spring Fling:
Spring Fling results are posted here: https://springfling.brewcompetition.com/
Congrats to the following OBC members for medaling:
Rodney Kizbey 4 Silver, 1 gold
Jason Barker 2 Silver
Jeremy Fretz 1 silver
Brady Gilcrest 1 Gold, 1 silver, 2nd BOS with his belgian dark strong!
And thanks to everyone at COHO who brought back the comp after a few years pandemic related hiatus, and ran a very smooth comp to judge.
Upcoming Competitions:
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Oregon Homebrew Festival - Heart of the Valley Homebrewers
Occurs in Corvallis OR May 19-20th
Entries Due May 6th
Drop Off at F.H. Steinbarts and Bader.
Oregon's oldest homebrew comp, they preserved having it during the pandemic, and its now firmly back in its traditional may date. Always a fun comp to judge, they have a sense of humor. Go down to help out and send an entry or two to help them out. Its not very far. And if anyone is planning on going down for sat judging and can give me a ride, let me know.
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Heart of Cascadia - IPA Only - Oregon Brew Crew
Occurs in Portland Sunday June 4th.
OBC’s yearly IPA comp. All sorts of IPAs accepted. Level beer will be hosting us. We need your help to run it, and to judge it. If you want to help organize it, and say, might want to be comp chair next year, please reach out to me. This is a small easy comp to run, with some help we can make it awesome.
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Greetings From The Events Chair
Reminder! AHA Big Brew Day Coming up this Saturday, Big Brew Day! The annual event organized by the American Homebrewers Association to commemorate National Homebrew Day. May 7 was announced as a homebrewers holiday before congress in 1988 and continues to be celebrated the first Saturday in May. Events around the country are held for folks to get together and celebrate their passion for homebrewing. Each year an official recipe is written and shared throughout the community for the purpose of bringing homebrewers from all reaches of the country together. Our gracious hosts, FH Steinbart, are holding the event this year and are still looking for people to participate. If you’re interested please reach out to Brian@fhsteinbart.com or myself and we can get you signed up. Space is limited so if you can make it out this weekend, reach out ASAP. More info is located on the AHA Website. |
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Homebrew Con in San Diego
We need beer!
It’s almost that time of the year, AHA’s Homebrew Con is upon us! I’m very excited about it this year because it will be hosted in my hometown, San Diego from June 22-24. It’s always a fun event, I know there are already several of us planning to attend. Outside of all the great beer and food in the area, I’m planning an evening of cross club camaraderie with my old club QUAFF so I hope to have a solid delegation of OBC members there. For the Convention itself, we have requested a table for Club Night which means we will need people to support our club with beer to pour. There are options being rolled around to ship the kegs down, which will depend on how many people are able to send beer. Please reach out to me at Chris.Manzi@oregonbrewcrew.org if you will be able to donate. |
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It's all about the education...
I welcome you to May, Brew Crewers. One of my favorite styles to brew and serve in May just so happens to be a Maibock. What is a Maibock? Well you are in luck as this month's newsletter education topic is all about them. Maibock is a traditional strong, malty Bavarian lager. Like the month for which it is named (“Mai” is German for “May”), it is a transitional beer, the perfect drink for the short Bavarian spring. In the Bavarian Alps, May is the brief season between the last thaw and the first bloom, when it is still too cool to linger in the beer gardens, but already too bright outside to hide indoors in the beer halls. Although brewed to bock strength—with about 6% to 7% alcohol by volume and a substantial body— maibock is light amber to deep golden in color. This sets it apart from the darker winter bocks, hence its other name, heller bock (pale bock). Maibock tends to be made from a base of pale pilsner malt with generous additions of Vienna malt, Munich malt, and/or other lightly caramelized malts. See pilsner malt. Compared with the winter bocks, maibocks also tend to have slightly more hop bitterness and hop flavor from noble Bavarian hop varieties. Most maibocks are still made by the time-honored and labor-intensive decoction method, during which portions of the main mash are drawn into a separate cooker and boiled there before being returned to the main mash. Decoction ensures optimum conversion of grain starches into fermentable malt sugars, which results in the desired high alcohol content. After fermentation, maibocks are allowed to mature and mellow out near the freezing point for 4 to 8 weeks for a well-rounded finish. Horst, Dornbusch. Maibock—A beer for the lusty month of May. Brew Your Own, 12 (2006).
Horst Dornbusch
It's never too late (or early) to brew one!
Gordon Strong’s Maibock (5 gallons/19 L, all-grain)
OG = 1.065 FG = 1.014
IBU = 28 SRM = 7 ABV = 6.7%
Ingredients
7.5 lbs. (3.4 kg) Pilsner malt
3.5 lbs. (1.4 kg) Vienna malt
1.5 lbs. (680 g) Munich malt
12 oz. (340 g) aromatic malt
1.6 AAU Hallertauer hops (first wort hop) (0.5 oz./14 g at 3.2% alpha acids)
5.5 AAU Magnum hops (60 min.) (0.5 oz./14 g at 11% alpha acids)
1.6 AAU Hallertauer hops (15 min.) (0.5 oz./14 g at 3.2% alpha acids)
0.5 oz. (14 g) Hallertauer hops (0 min.)
White Labs WLP833 (German Bock) or Saflager W34/70 yeast
3⁄4 cup corn sugar (if priming) “As with other German lagers, this style is best when it is understated — elegant, clean, impeccably crafted, well-lagered, and unobtrusive. This allows the quality of the ingredients to show themselves in the finished product, and the beer itself to be nicely drinkable despite the strength.” – Gordon Strong https://byo.com/recipe/gordon-strongs-maibock/ Be on the look out for this style at a few of our favorite places including Prost!, Lucky Labrador and Chuckanut! Cheers!
-- Bill Midkiff
OBC Events Chair |
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Burgermeister News
Holy guacamole it’s already the month of May, how the heck did that happen? Crazypants. This year, y’all. What’s going on with it?
This month’s meeting is an OUT meeting so there’s no food necessary to bring, but the sharp-minded amongst you might remember I was struggling last meeting coming up with a theme for June’s in meeting. But fear not, friends – I did eventually figure out a theme. June’s theme will be [drumroll please….] TACOS. Taco Thursday gentleladies and gentlemen! Bring your A-game tacos and we will feast upon tasty goodness!
Now I was trying to figure out what food I should talk about here, and I couldn’t think of any May holidays worth mentioning. Arbor day? Nah, we don’t want to eat wood, if only because of splinters. Halloween? It’s not even in May! But I spent the weekend gardening and you know what we’ve got a lot of right now? Fresh greens. And you know what the best thing to do with greens is? Putting them on something else, like a delicious slider. But if you don’t have a slider, you’ve gotta make a salad. And if I know one thing about salads, it’s that salads are mostly dressing delivery systems. So let’s talk about salad dressing.
You know what Russian dressing is? Pickles, mayo, and ketchup. Russian dressing is for children. Most other dressings are also for children. Ranch dressing? It’s got it’s moments I guess but for the most part, gross, and also for children. You know what’s a good dressing? A nice herbed vinaigrette. So let’s make a dressing worth eating a salad for. Here’s what I say makes a good vinaigrette: balsamic vinegar, a nut oil, and stuff. So let’s get ourselves a nice nut oil, say, maybe some walnut oil, and mix it with balsamic vinegar, 1 part oil to ehhhh eyeball 2 parts balsamic. That’s close enough, this isn’t rocket surgery, or even tacos. I know some people say 50/50 oil vinegar but that’s for neutral oils IMO, walnut oil’s got taste and too much would be, well, too much. Now let’s toss some stuff in there. You know what’s nice? Get a couple teaspoons of prepared dijon mustard, toss it in, and shake it good. Let’s get some herbs - you gonna eat all that dressing right now? Sweet, hit the garden, let’s see what we got out there, some thyme, some basil, some oregano, hell yeah, let’s chop that up real small and toss it in too. What else you got? Anchovy paste? Sure, squeeze a centimeter in and shake it like Polaroid picture. Cheese? Don’t do that, that’s gross. Oh you’ve got some adjika in the fridge? Hell yeah get that in there too. Point is: what do you have that’s vegetable or herb like, and in a form that will either suspend in the dressing or mix into the balsamic? Whatever it is, get it in there, and it will be deeeeeelicious, or at least as delicious as a salad can be. Now shake it good another time, and let’s pour that over the salad, and let’s. get. healthy.
Oh wait, what’s that, you disagree with my opinions on ranch dressing? Sweet. Let’s talk it out, in a nice way, over some tacos you brought to our next in meeting at Steinbart’s in June.
-- Alex Parise
OBC Burgermeister |
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OBC 2023 Beer Camp!
@ Trask River County Campground
The Oregon Brew Crew will be holding another “Brew Camp” on the weekend of June 9th - 11th, 2023 at the amazing Trask River Country Campground in the Tillamook forest. While the weather may be uncertain that time of year, we guarantee that you will enjoy the wilderness, the always epic bottle share, and whatever brewing and non-brewing group activities we come up with. If you would like to reserve your own spot for a tent (or two) and a vehicle, grab a spot at https://reservations.co.tillamook.or.us. The “center” of camp activities is spot A35 and we have limited tent sites available in A33-37 already. We highly recommend reserving your own spot between A23-A32. They will fill up fast!
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