August Club Update:
With hot summer drinking days still ahead of us, many of us are cooling off after dusk with a cold beer in hand as a reward for another day of work or having fun. My brew calendar is telling me to get ready for fall weather and fall and winter beers. I am most excited about getting into the Festbier/Märzen season that is coming soon. This is also the time of year I end up sharing many, many corny kegs at parties. As I ramp up production again for end of summer gatherings I am excited about really dialing in on some new recipes and styles that I have found. Cheers!
Five Star Chemical Ordering:
The club has reached out to Five Star Chemical and initiated a business account. As most of these products are shelf stable and have a long life. Many of us might benefit from an investment in our future cleaning endeavors. You can check out the product offerings here and the product guide here. The downside is we would have to meet certain buying criteria before an order can be placed, they still carry the same sizes you are used to seeing in retail. A quick comparison shows the savings vs. Quirky homebrew shop (tax not included).
- 1 lb PBW direct from Five Star = $6.87 / 1 lb PBW from Quirky = $10.95 / Saving of $4.08 (Orders in sets of 12)
- 4 lb PBW direct from Five Star = $21.10 / 4 lb PBW from Quirky = $29.95 / Saving of $8.85 (Orders in sets of 6)
- 55 lb PBW direct from Five Star = $171.27 / Price per pound in bulk = $3.42 / 8 lb from Quirky = $49.95 (or $6.24 a lb) / Savings of at least $3.00 a lb, when compared the the single lb from Quirky a savings of $7.53 a lb (We would need containers/bags to divide into)
- 32 oz Star-San direct from Five Star = $17.22 /
32 oz Star-San from Quirky = $28.95 / Savings of $11.73 (Orders in sets of 10) - 32 oz Saniclean direct from Five Star = $12.89 /
32 oz Saniclean from Quirky = $20.95 / Savings of $8.06 (Orders in sets of 10)
A quick glance of these product offerings makes it easy to see how across club members we could potentially save hundreds of dollars when compared to retail. We just have to amass the buying power together. If you have interest in getting in on a bulk purchase fill out this form to let us know your product interest and quantities. I ask that only members complete the form, if you know other brewers that would want to get in on the deal please send along the information and consider doing a buy with them. This may take us a month or two to amass the buying power needed, I hope sooner because my Sani-Clean stock is almost out. The club may hold onto some spare inventory if we are close to the numbers on the order we can sell it off over time, similar to Kroc's yeast bank. You can check in on the requests for orders here.
Club Nominations for OTMP Board Members:
According to the club bylaws we are required to annually vote in members for four titles; President, Vice-President, Secretary and Treasurer. As we never officially conducted this vote last year we are opening this up to anyone that would like to run for these positions. We will conduct a vote in September based on whomever throws their name into the ring. You can run for more than one position, you can hold more than one position except for President and Vice-President at once. These positions would be filled for a one year term, position duties and responsibilities are vaguely outlined in the bylaws. If you would like to nominate yourself for one of these positions please complete the following form. I know this seems incredibly formal for this club to vote on positions, to maintain our 503(c)(3) status with the state and the bank; this is a necessary annual event that needs to happen. Look forward to formal voting next month in the newsletter.
Club Dues:
We will have club dues coming up in September. For those of you that are recent additions to the club we will prorate your dues for this coming year. For members that have hosted at least one meeting in the last year, we will forgo collecting your dues as you helped provide a meeting spot. Otherwise, in September we will be collecting dues from all other members, $30 for the year. If you have already paid, thank you. If you are unsure if you owe dues please reach out to the club email. At the moment we only have 3 members that have not already paid in for next year.
Dues are easiest for everyone when they are paid via Paypal: www.paypal.com/paypalme/OldeTownMashPaddlers
Tasting Glasses:
New glassware will be handed out starting at the August meeting. If you are not going to make it to the meeting they will be handed out for the next few months till we can get one into everyone's hands. You can also reach out to Evan Sherlock if you want to pick yours up at any point.
Video Resources:
I have started ripping brewing talk videos and uploading them to the club's youtube account. If there are talks coming up that you want archived let me know; Five Star and the AHA have a decent collection of videos hosted at crowdcast.io. The first two videos added were Five Star Chemicals – Stainless Steel Passivation and Q and A and Lager Talk – Ashleigh Carter of Bierstadt Lagerhaus.
Competitive Thoughts:
In recent months many conversations have existed in the club about what we as a club need to do in order to grow and develop as brewers. Many of us came to the club looking for more information on how to grow in our pursuit of making great beer, others came to the club looking for feedback on our products, and all of us came to the club looking for camaraderie from others that share our hobby.
As I approach 10 years in the club I can think back to the humble beginnings of sampling beers with the club back at Arvada Brewing Company. A few of you reading this may remember those days. We typically only saw ales brought to the meetings, all of us were stovetop or garage brewers, even fewer of us used temperature control in fermentation. The meetings typically consisted of 8-10 brewers and a sample list of about 10 beers. These were simple times with fairly simple beers. Things have certainly changed in the last decade. We have seen the rise and fall of certain beer styles (looking at you Black IPA),a million homebrewing gadgets that never really stuck around, as well as all the changes with new hop varieties and yeast offerings.
As a club we have progressed into seeing more variety from our brewers as well as the quality across the board rapidly increase. Many of us now are brewing on electric setups, experimenting with different brewing software for better outcomes, using experimental ingredients as well as developing our own recipe database and frequent seasonal rotators. All of these changes and growth combined means that this club is delivering a showcase for many years of experience and growth in the hobby of homebrewing. Each of us gets excited to deliver our samples each month at the meetings to receive feedback and field questions on our processes.
It is nice to receive feedback from other homebrewers, having some of the certified judges in the club helps provide honest and accurate feedback about recipe design and brewing process. What we do lack is field experience as a club. With very few of our members (myself included) actively participating in homebrewing competitions to validate our efforts and give us not only feedback, but scores on how we compare to other clubs and homebrewers. I would like to promote the idea of our club not only being known for being a “real” homebrew club but also known for taking to the streets and putting ourselves out there in the competitive homebrew world. I do think as a club that we have the ability to gain notoriety in the front range as such a club.
In looking at the offerings that we have available to us for the remainder of the year we have plenty of opportunities to complete this task. A quick look over at ReggieBeer, The AHA Competition Calendar, and a google search yields us a sampling of competitions that we could enter before the end of the year:
- Liquid Poetry Slam 2023 (Register September 1st-23rd)
- The Brew Hut Annual Homebrew Competition (Registration by October 21st, Free to Colorado Residents)
- Rocky Mountain Homebrew Challenge 2023 (Registration August 1st-October 13th)
- Chili Pepper Extravaganza 2023 (Registration September 1st – October 7th)
- Big Beers, Belgians, and Barleywines 2024 (Registration November 4th – December 2nd)
This is one of the ways we can grow into the next iteration of the club, by being not just known as a good club but proving that we are a great club. I would be happy to participate in any one of these competitions (except for Chili/Pepper beer competition) as well as facilitate the brew day, just reach out. I think it would be great to get a few more medals around the OTMP tasting table. It would also be great to see more brewers/brew teams within the club taking on the competitive world.
Also in this same vein, I am beginning to seek breweries to work with us on a ProAm beer for the 2024 GABF. We would need to win an AHA competition (after July 2023) as well as seek a brewery that would scale a recipe up for us and have it available in their tap room. Getting to this lofty goal would take the better part of a year to complete. If you have feedback or information regarding this it would be helpful. I know plenty of us have something like this within our reach.
Time for a barrel of fun.
It seems that we certainly have enough participation within the club to make this happen. If you want to sign up it isn't too late, we will just need to figure out how much we need from each brewer for their contribution. Jeff O. has picked out a recipe for us, Chocolate Achromatic Stout Recipe.
If you review the recipe the only alteration that we are planning on is potentially replacing the vanilla and the cocoa nibs with potentially something else, raspberries, bananas, cherries, oak spirals, or other spice blends. Once we have a read on the project we can set up a way to figure out how the beer is finished. Thanks to Jeff for helping put this end of the project together. Currently Jeff is seeking barrels that will be compatible with this recipe.
August Meeting Info:
Where: Chuck's Under the Stairs Speakeasy (West Arvada)
Location:
13909 W 59th Dr, Arvada, CO 80004
Date:
8-16-23
Time:
7:00 – Beer tastings
Notes:
Come through the West side of the house to the backyard for some beer drinking good times.
RSVP:
Register Beers and RSVP to the meeting here.
July Meeting Recap:
Hot July days need cold beer to mellow the brewers. With some super fantastic beers had at the meeting some of them come to mind; Jeremy's Steam Beer, Jim's Schwarzbier, and Cody and Cole's high strength Belgian come to mind. Dave also chipped in and brought us some amazing BBQ. Another really fantastic meeting and great conversation.
Attendants: See attached notes in the Google Sheets
Meeting Recap / Beers: