Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Zymurgy 1991 Vol 14-02 Summer
Zymurgy 1991 Vol 14-02 Summer
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Volume 14, Number 2
SUMMER 1991
SPECIAL ARTICLES
23 Ten Years of the Great American
Beer Festival
By Dan Fink
CONTENTS
26 Don't You Know There's a War Going On?
Page 30
By George A. O'Brien
30 Pilsner Urquell: The Brewery
Uncovering the Unusual
By Darryl Richman
34 Beginners's Luck
By Rob Brook
41 Counterpressure Transfer
Rack Your Beer Without Losing the Fizz
By Dan Fink
1991 Membership Survey
(between pages 16 and 17)
REGULAR FEATURES
5 Editorial 19 Jackson on Beer
7 Dear zymurgy 21 Homebrew Cooking
10 Association News 43 For the Beginner
14 Brew News 46 Winners Circle
15 Calendar of Events 51 Dear Professor
18 AHA Sponsors 55 The Best from Kits
Czech out a unique brewery
Page 59
Catch that ale!
Page 72
Get yer pinky flingers out!
58 Reviews
59 World of Worts
61 Homebrew Clubs
67 The Homebrew Connection
69 Classified
72 The Last Drop
Cover photo by Michael Uchter, Michael Uchter Photography. Thanks to Them Tomlinson of Hop Barley & the Alers homebrew club and Jenny
Wolcott (models), Damian Baum and Philippa Hollands (Volkswagen), Colonel John's Homebrew Supply, Liquor Mart and Clare Corcoran.
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4 SUMMER 1991 ZYMURGY
Zymurgy
Editor-In-Chief Charlie Papazian
Associate Editor Elizabeth Gold
Managing Editor Kathy McClurg
Assistant Editor Lois Canaday
News Editor Dan Fink
Brew News, Homebrew Clubs, Winners Circle
Art Director Steve Harley
Advertising Manager Linda Starck
Vice President of Operations Liz Weimer
AHA and BJCP Administrator Karen Barela
Graphics/Production Director Tim Sposato
Junior Graphic Designers Peggy Stiefel, Jenny Wolcott
Circulation Department Paul Echtemacht, Director
DeDe Schum, Assistant
Marketing Consultant Daniel Bradford
Assistant Office Manager Philippa Hollands
Customer Service Representative Eric Gold
Sales Manager Buzz Burrell
Shipping Clerk T.E. Bennett
Accounting Supervisor Teresa Brackett
Co-Directors, National Beer Jim Homer, AHA
Judge Certification Program Pat Baker, HWBTA
Association of Brewers Michael Westorv-Chairman
Board of Dhectol'B Charles Kirkpatrick-Vice Chairman
Harris Fabermarv-Secretary
Stuart Kingsbery, Charles Matzen,
Charlie Papazian, Loran Richardson
Corporate Officers Charlie TreG.$urer
Harris
AHA Board of Advisers
Judy Ashworth-Dublin, California Jeff Frane-Portland, Oregon
Scott Birdwell-Houston, Texas Don Haag-Saginaw, Minnesota
Ed Busch-Somerville, New Jersey Michael England
Steve California Bill Murphy-Brookline, Massachusetts
Andy Cebula-Arlington, Virginia Charlie Olchowski-Greenfield,
Fred Eckhardt-Portland, Oregon Massachusetts
George Fix-Arlington, Texas John Sterling-St. Louis, Missouri
The Association of Brewers Inc. is a Colorado non-profit corporation for literary and educational
purposes to benefit homebrewers of beer and all those interested in the art of homebrewing. The
Association of Brewers is exempt from Federal Income Tax under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal
Revenue Code. All gifts, grants and contributions are tax-deductible.
The American Homebrewers Association is _a subsidiary of The Association ofBrewers. Mem-
bership is open to everyone. zymurgy is the journal of the American Homebrewers Association and is
published five times a year. Subscription and U.S. memberships are US$25 per year. Foreign: US$30
per year. Changing your address? Let us know in writing, please.
zymurgy welcomes letters, opinions, ideas, stories and information in general from its readers.
Correspondence and advertising inquiries should be directed to zymurgy, Box 287, Boulder, CO 80306-
0287, (303) 447-0816. All material 0 1991, American Homebrewers Association. No material may be
reproduced without written permission from AHA.
ISSN 0196-5921
Printing by EBSCO Media, Birmingham, Alabama. The opinions and views expressed in articles
are not necessarily those of the American Homebrewers Association and its magazine, z.ymurgy,
THE AMERICAN HOMEBREWERS ASSOCIATION MISSION STATEMENT
To help maintain quality in the production and distribution of beeri to promote public
awareness and appreciation of the quality and variety of beer through education, research
and the collection and dissemination of informationi to serve as a forum for the
technological and cross-cultural aspects of the art of brewing, and to encourage responsible
use of beer as an alcohol-containing beverage.
EDITORIAL
CHARLIE PAPAZIAN
Unveiling Homebrew
D
f the notion of enjoying beer is an indication
that one also may enjoy making it, I am
deeply perplexed. In my travels throughout
the world I never fail to notice that beer is
enjoyed to a great degree by most cultures.
Beer is indeed a universally enjoyed alcoholic beverage.
This enjoyment becomes even more intense among home-
brewers and beer enthusiasts who take the time and ef-
fort to appreciate and respect beer as an alcoholic
beverage.
Home brewers come from many walks of life and em-
brace a variety of lifestyles. Home brewing, beer enjoy-
ment and the people who brew and appreciate beer are
what I enjoy about the hobby. It is what helps give the
current popularity of home brewing vitality.
Where will home brewing go? What can it grow to
be? Is it a fad? Why the sudden spurt of popularity?
Over the years, answers to these questions have come
quite naturally from survey data and from observing the
industry in the markets it was already reaching. But
now after a phone interview I wonder about those freshly
answered questions and consider my feelings about the
much more vast potential that the hobby seems to have
neglected inadvertently.
Our surveys, my homebrew-related travels, confer-
ence attendance, club participation-they all clearly por-
tray who the home brewers in America are: 97 percent
male, 98 percent white (and a disproportionate number
with facial hair, but that is another editorial for another
time). I suppose during the last 20 years of my home-
brewing endeavors I must have unconsciously realized
that homebrewing and its appreciation were primarily
limited to this segment of our culture. But I have become
more conscious of it recently and wonder what it could
mean for the home brewing hobby.
Don't women, blacks, Hispanics, Asians or other
Americans of foreign origin like beer? Here is what per-
plexes me. I know very well that they do, but inadvert-
ently our hobby seems to have evolved in such a way that
we've somehow left them behind. It's as though, while on
the run, we could pause a moment for a beer, look back,
realize we left some important people behind, whistle,
wave our arms to beckon, "Hey, c'mon and catch up, let's
go, sorry we left you behind." Why shouldn't they become
beer enthusiasts and express an appreciation for beer
and home brewing just as we, the current "group" of
American homebrewers do.
I wonder why home brew demographics have evolved
to what they are today. I've never sensed any intentional
direction of marketing or group invitation to inhibit di-
versity. Perhaps the relatively new popularity of home-
brewing and the cultural diversity of America have
changed so rapidly that we have neglected to pause and
consider what kind of hobby we have become and what
potentials we may be overlooking.
Home brewing in America has enjoyed a well-
founded, educated and steady growth-a type of growth
that will help assure strong enthusiasm for home brewing
and a respect for beer as an alcoholic beverage. If we are
to maintain enthusiasm for home brewing and an educa-
tional, respectful environment for beer and brewing ap-
preciation, it may be time for individuals, organizations
and companies to invest in reevaluating where we can go
from here.
Where does the responsibility lie? Is there a respon-
sibility? I believe there is, and it lies with those who
wish to see the hobby grow and assure itself of a respect-
ed place in the quality oflife that the future holds for all
of American society. Perhaps we could examine how we
conduct our gatherings, marketing and advertising-in
image, deed and behavior. An examination that would
not compromise enjoyment, but focus on expanding it.
On a sunrly, warm summer day, with a cool
home brewed German Pils or a satisfying mug of special
bitter in hand, I cannot help but believe that there are
many more people who would enjoy the qualities that
homebrewing gives to one's soul.
Changes do not occur overnight. For those individu-
als, organizations and companies that invest in bringing
the enjoyment of home brewing to Americans, I would en-
courage them to be patient and persevere. Big changes
begin with small efforts. Beer and home brewing and the
enjoyment they contribute to the quality of life are conta-
gious, and will naturally grow with some careful nurtur-
ing in the beginning. The rest will take care of itself.
The joy of home brewing is, simply, just that way. 1m!
SUMMER 1991 ZYMURGY 5
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A Relative-approved
Recipe
Dear zymurgy,
I have been brewing beer off and
on for about six years. I started with
kits and the usual recipe of mixing
one can plus corn sugar and hot wa-
ter. While the beer turned out to be
somewhat acidic (more like Cham-
pagne), I persisted. Next I followed
the alternative of omitting the corn
sugar and using an extra can of ex-
tract-a definite improvement, l ~
though the beer did not always
ferment well.
Then, after subscribing to z y m ~
urgy (which I saw at the store where
I buy the malt) I learned about boiling
the malt extract with the hops. My
life has never been the same since.
The beer is clearer, more udrinkable"
and, more important, it
turns out consistently good
without the fermentation
problems I sometimes had
with the earlier recipe.
"Malty" and "quenching"
are words that come to mind
as I sip the brew (which I
am now).
DEAR ZYMURGY
OUR READERS
1990 Vol. 13, No. 2), the one with
honey.
Let me close by sharing some
brewing tips with you:
(1) If you are going to brew after
sundown, leave a night light on next
to the fermenter so the budding yeast
cells don't bump into one another.
(2) The practice of"stagger brew-
ing" should be carried out with great
care especially when carting around a
pot full of boiling wort.
Moe Bushra
Toronto, Ontario
A Pitch for Homebrew
Dear zymurgy,
Brewing is incredible. It's a sci-
ence, a craft, an art, a tradition. So
many different facets.
I've gained a great deal of ex-
tremely practical knowledge from
reading and studying the technical
aspects of brewing (and my beers have
really improved!).
But there's the other side. What
should I call it-the spiritual side, the
emotional side, the right brain side of
brewing. It's the side that makes me
genuinely love to brew.
It's the side that embraces the art
and tradition of brewing that has been
practiced for millennia. The side that
goes off on flights of imagination to
Sumeria 2000 B.C., to 16th century
Germany. The side of myself that
gets hypnotized staring in to the world
of a fermenting wort.
When I brew I forget about my
problems, about job stress-it just all
di,sappears. I'm completely focused
on "creating'' something. And after
I've pitched the yeast and I'm contem-
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plating what I've made, I feel
completely renewed.
Sally Ilger
Santa Monica, California
The first Cold
Duck?
Dear zymurgy,
I also enjoy sharing the
beer with my wife, Julie,
who until recently used to
enjoy wine with dinner.
Even my relatives once ad-
mitted that the beer was
OK. If you knew my rela-
tives you'd realize the sig-
nificance of this statement.
Anyway, I'd like to say
thanks for the help and keep
up the good work. I can't
wait to try the "Pilsener
ale," (zymurgy Summer
At press time In Boulder (May 1} there's snow on tho
ground, so hero's a label, by Jim Herrold of Laramie, Wyo.
I'm fairly new with
this creative craft of home-
brewing beer. I've only been
doing it for a little over two
years now. About 14 years
ago I was introduced to
homebrewed beer while liv-
ing in the Midwest.
Homebrewed beer was
served in a few of the pubs I
went to. It was an interest-
ing experience because those
homebrewed beers were fla-
vorful compared to the com-
SUMMER 1991 ZYMURGY 7
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8 SUMMER 1991 ZVMURGY
man store-bought beers I'd experi-
enced in previous years. One guy I
dated that year really intrigued my
interest to learn more about brewing
when he took me to his parents' wine
and duck farm for a day and intro-
duced me to many of their homemade
wines and beers.
Unfortunately I didn't stay in the
Midwest long enough to get any infor-
mation about this craft from others
pursuing it. Moving back to the East
I lost all contact with anyone who
knew anything about homebrewing
beer. Luckily, I never lost my interest
or desire to someday find the opportu-
nity to learn more and start pursuing
the hobby, and one day I did.
A new book I got for its chapter on
woodworking had a chapter on
winemaking. Wine itself is no great
desire of mine, but the chapter re-
minded me of the wines I experienced
on the duck farm in the Midwest. I
thought I'd have better opportunity to
find information about homebrewing
beer if I expanded my studies of
winemaking. Sweetly enough, about
a week after starting my first fermen-
tation with wine I began brewing beer.
It was a pleasurable experience
when my husband and I first made
beer. It has become a shared craft
and we enjoy it a lot.
I truly believe home brewing beer
is a creative, even artistic craft.
Though I've only been doing it for a
couple of years, it's an interest I'll
pursue for many more. Along with
making wines and meads, I am inter-
ested in taking home brewing from my
craft list someday and making it my
career.
Laura Coleman
Bethel, Connecticut
Chemically Complex
Water
Dear zymurgy,
Well, as you seem to have found
out, I'm not living in Philadelphia any-
more, which means no more of that
mysterious tap water we call Schuylkill
Punch, a secret brewing ingredient that
made Ortleib's famous (or go out of
business, depending how you look at
it). I've moved deep into the heart of
central New Jersey, a land of rolling
farms and rife with Superfund sites.
I've read that the best beers start with
chemically complex water, so let's keep
our fingers crossed.
Even with the world going to hell
in a plastic fermenter bucket, there
are some things that remain fun. Re-
member fun? Cleaning out the fridge
of all the old brewing stuff and whip
ping up a batch of the best damned
beer you've ever made, even if Ws
principal ingredients are horseradish
and wilted dill leaves. Thanks for
another informative and, above all,
fun year of brewing. Please sign me
on for another year of both zymurgy
and The New Brewer. Relax, don't
worry, let's get the hell out of the gulf
and have a homebrew waiting for all
our folks over there.
No beer for oil,
Dan Z. Johnson
Hightstown, New Jersey
P.S. Isn't there a way of getting a
"beer optionn on the IRS 1040 form?
"Check here to send your money to-
ward better homebrew instead of
blowing it on some pointless war in
the desert." Look into it!
Santa's Helpers
Dear zymurgy,
My wife and I, homebrewers for
seven months, find zymurgy an in-
credible resource. By reading the ar
ticles and following the recipes we've
quickly become better brewers! And
we worry less about our beer, too.
Our favorite home brew label was
one we made for a going-away party
for our friend Frank Richter. Because
he was going away to Germany we
made an appropriate label. Our
apologies to the St. Pauli Girl!
We had fun with our Christmas
brew label this year. I'm sure Santa
appreciates a good spiced brew at
Christmas time, just like the rest of us
hearty souls!
Brewing happily together,
David and Julie Weisberg
Keene, New Hampshire
P.S. We've just helped start the first
New Hampshire homebrew club and
we can't wait for the annual o n f e r ~
ence in Manchester. We are located
only one hour away and are willing to
help out any way we can!
More on High-gravity
Fermentation
Dear zymurgy,
In regard to Don Haag's problems
with stuck high-gravity fermentations,
"New Tales of Old Ales" (zymurgy
Winter 1990, Vol. 13, No.5) I recently
came across an article in the Journal
of the American Society of Brewing
Chemists (Vol. 48: No.1, pp. 26-32)
that I believe would answer some of
Dan's questions. For those unable to
obtain a copy I will attempt to sum-
marize the highlights.
'ry easts require small quantities
of oxygen to synthesize unsaturated
fatty acids and sterols for growth and
cell division; therefore attenuation is
related to oxygen availability. The
effects of limited oxygen supply are
compounded in high or very high-
gravity wort fermentations." The
article defines very high gravity as
greater than 18" Plato (1.076).
The article points out that brew-
ery yeasts have a wide range of oxy-
gen requirements. Lager yeast was
used in the study with an attempt to
adapt the yeast to high-gravity worts
before pitching. According to the ar-
ticle, lager yeasts are more tolerant of
alcohol than previously believed.
Worts exceeding 28" Plato have been
fermented when yeast requirements
are taken into consideration! Ale
yeasts are not specifically mentioned,
but because many commercial brew-
eries are using them for their barley
wines this probably is true for them
as well.
The study found that although
any oxygen present at pitching re-
sulted in a faster fermentation, the
amount of oxygen was not as critical
as the timing of supply. The most
efficient for the subject yeast was 10
to 14 hours, post-pitching. They also
found that low levels of oxygen at 12
hours, post-pitching was more effec-
tive than air saturation prior to
pitching.
Several methods of oxygen addi-
tion are outlined: (1) Sterile air/oxygen
injection causes foaming and is diffi-
cult for the average homebrewer but
not impossible (see zymurgy Winter
1990, Vol. 13, No. 5: "Reviews"). (2)
Concentrated oxygen in water addi-
tion largely eliminates foaming but is
out of the scope of most home brewers.
(3) Rousing vigorously before carbon
dioxide production starts replaces
oxygen already consumed. (4) Add a
second brew 12 hours after the first
one is pitched.
The final two strategies are eas-
ily pursued by the homebrewer. I
would also suggest two further strat-
egies: (1) Aerate the wort as much as
possible before pitching and (2) pitch
maximum recommended amount of
vigorously fermentingyeast (up to one
fluid ounce per gallon). Perhaps the
yeast manufacturers could be con-
sulted about the oxygen requirements
of each strain.
I recently brewed a doppelbock
and a barley wine using some of these
strategies. For the doppelbock I aer-
ated the wort by shaking the carboy
every hour or two until fermentation
was evident (about seven hours).
Original gravity was 1.082 and in
three days had dropped to 1.022. Fi-
nal gravity was 1.019. Yes, the mash
tern perature was too low but the yeast
had no problem. The barley wine was
brewed by reserving half the volume
in a closed pot before adding flavoring
hops. The temperature of the reserved
wort was kept above 160 degrees F
(71 degrees C) until12 hours after the
first half was pitched. The prior
technique also was used. Original
gravity was 1.102 and final gravity
was 1.035. Whitbreadlageryeastwas
used in both cases with a 1.5-liter
starter. Both foamed far more than
normal. I use a 28-liter carboy for a
20-liter batch to cope with this.
John Krueger
Oshawa, Ontario
Canada
The Beer Connoisseur's
Newsletter
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SUMMER 1991 ZYMURGY 9
Brew Free or Die
The Thirteenth Annual AHA
Conference is just around the corner,
June 19 to 22. It's not too late to make
your reservations, but remember that
should a sudden urge find you in New
Hampshire at the spur of the moment,
we'll be happy to register you at the
door. The speakers have been work-
ing for months preparing to dazzle
you with brewing know-how and to
share secret techniques learned
through years of trial, error and
research.
Clubs have been brewing gallons
of beers for months now, anxiously
awaiting the chance to exchange beers
during club night with comrades from
across the country. With all the ac-
tivity, roundtable discussions,
competition awards, homebrew expo,
New England beer tasting, Boston
beer day and meeting new and old
friends, this is one conference you
won't want to miss.
National Competition
hits all-time high
The 1991 Competition brought in
1,627 beers. With the first round
completed, it's just a matter of time
before we know who the 1991 home-
brew royalty of the year will be. After
a lot of preparations, the foundation
has been laid and tested for having
the first round in several locations
across the country. None of this would
have been possible without the
10 SUMMER 1991 ZYMURGY
ASSOCIATION NEWS
generous support of our volunteers at
each site. Also, our sponsors in the
homebrew business and breweries
who generously donated trips and
prizes are to be applauded for their
support.
1991 Competition
Sponsor List
Aass Brewery
American Mead Association
Anchor Brewing Co.
Beer and Wine Hobby
BME Extract
California Concentrates
The Cellar
Chicago Brewing Co.
Crosby & Baker
DeFalco's Wine and House Beer
Dewey's Ale House
Duwamps Cafe/Seattle Brewing Co.
East Coast Homebrew Supply
Edme Ltd.
Goose Island Brewing Co.
Great American Beer Festival
Great Fermentations of Marin
Great Fermentations of Santa Rosa
Havill's Mazer Mead
The Home Brewery
Home Wine and Beer Trade
Association
Jasper's Home Brew Supply
Jim's Homebrew Supply
Keller's Brewhaus
Manneken Brusse] Imports Inc.
Marin Brewing Co.
Maritime Pacific Brewing Co.
Miller Brewing Co.
The Mountain Brewers Inc.
Munton and Fison
National Association of Wheat
Growers Foundation
Otter Creek Brewing Co.
Pacific Coast Vintners
Pavichevich Brewing Co.
Pike Place Brewery
Premier Malt Products
The Purple Foot
Roslyn Brewing Co.
F. H. Steinhart Co.
The Vermont Pub and Brewery
Weinke!ler Brewery
Wine & Hop Shop
Wines, Inc.
Wynkoop Brewing Co.
Yakima Valley Hop Growers
Young & Co.
Dollars and numbers
promote the BJCP
The AHA has once again donated
$1,200 to the Beer Judge Certification
Program. The money will be used to
help offset administration costs in
running the program. The BJCP is
now in its sixth year, and with the
program offering such a clear and
usable service it's not surprising to
see how rapidly the BJCP is growing.
Already for 1991, we offer 17 ex-
ams across the country (remember,
there is a 60-day notice required for
setting up any exam). We expect our
total number of judges (376 Recog-
nized, 117 Certified, 15 National and
8 Honorary Masters) to exceed 650
before the end of this year. Several
judges will be moved up officially to
national status during the BJCP
awards luncheon at the conference.
To all the judges out there in home-
brew land looking to move up, we say
11
go forth and judge"!
Explosions occur in AHA
AHA membership grew a record
35 percent in 1990. At year end, we
had 10,101 active members, more than
2,500 above the 1989 membership (see
chart). For 1991, we anticipate con-
tinued growth, to which January,
February and March numbers already
have proven consistent. In order to
accommodate the growth rate, we have
undergone transitions within the staff
and operations structure. The changes
continue to evolve as we give atten-
tion to maintaining the quality of ser-
vices and keeping in touch with our
membership. As always, we welcome
your comments and critiques and en-
courage you to contact the AHA with
your views.
SCP gains ground and
judging manual
1990 has proved to be a zenith
year for the Sanctioned Competition
Program as we climbed to 72 compe-
titions, a dramatic increase over the
49 competitions of 1989. So far, 1991
shows the growth rate continuing to
rise with 19 competitions lined up for
this year. The program has undergone
a few minor revisions, mostly in the
form of clarification of rules and im-
provements in the material we supply
to the organizers.
American Homebrewers Association
Year-End Membership 19831990
10,101
1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990
American Homebrewers Association
A Division of the Association of Brewers Inc.
1990 Income and Expense Statement (unaudited)
Revenues 1990
Membership and sponsorship $225,000 51.4%
Advertising sales $57,900 13.2%
AHA-related merchandise sales $4,800 1.1%
zymurgy sales $47,300 10.8%
National Conference $67,100 15.3%
National Competition $14,600 3.3%
Beer Judge Certification Program $11,800 2.7%
AHA-Sanctioned Competition Program $1,700 0.4%
Misc. (postage, services, etc.) $7,800 1.8%
Total $438,000 100.0%
Expenses 1990
zymurgy magazine $134,900 31.8%
National Conference $50,200 11.8%
National Competition $14,200 3.3%
AHA-related merchandise $1,400 0.3%
Marketing and Public Relations $27,400 6.5%
Overhead (salaries, rent, taxes,
utilities, insurance, etc.) 174,000 41.0%
Beer Judge Certification Program $9,000 2.1%
Sanctioned Competition Program $800 0.2%
Club-related Programs $4,200 1.0%
Misc. (travel, postage, telephone, etc.) $8,600 2.0%
Total $424,700 100.0%
Send a self-addressed stamped (52 cents) 9 x 12 inch envelope for a more
complete financial statement of the Association of Brewers. If you have specific
questions please state them and we will do our best to address your concerns.
SUMMER 1991 ZYMURGY 11
A spinoff of the changes we've
made for the National Competition
will result in crossover changes for
the SCP. We've developed a manual
for judging procedures to be used for
the National Competition and revised
for the SCP. We plan to incorporate
comments, suggestions and critiques
from the participating judges into the
revised manual. Also, because of the
new format for the nationals it was
necessary to eliminate firstMround
"bye" certificates as awards, but we
are continuing to offer free entry
certificates.
The change was necessary for a
number of reasons. Based on the 72
sanctioned competitions in 1990, there
would have been 144 additional en-
tries put directly into the second
round. Imagine 30 additional pale ales
coming in at the last minute for judg-
ing, with no way to plan ahead for
them! Also, we feel the system of
three first-round judging sites will
ensure the quality of second-round
entries. The bottom line is that with a
competition this big, more control over
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the funneling of entries is necessary
to maintain a quality event.
ClubOnly Competitions:
Six is better than four
With the overwhelming success
of our four annual club-only competi-
tions comes a need to include other
beer styles. Upon recommendations
from homebrew clubs and the Board
of Advisers, we've decided to move to
six competitions a year 'With two new
styles rotating in each year. The
standard India pale ale, Oktoberfest,
bock and wheat beer competitions will
remain the same. The new schedule
will start in 1992 with Pilsener and
barley wine as the new styles (see the
Calendar of Events in "Brew News").
Note there are two subcategories ~
der Pilsener, German and Bohemian.
Remember, you have plenty oftime (if
you start soon) to begin brewing your
barley wine for winter 1992.
CompuServe forum
undergoes change
The CompuServe beer forum
underwent minor surgery in mid-
February and all reports show the
operation was successful and has
improved its previous condition. With
so many enthusiastic beer lovers/
computer aficionados using the
forum, things were starting to get
crowded, maldng specific messages
hard to find. Robin Garr, the forum's
computer beer czar, has arranged new
subtopics and library names to help
ease the traffic.
The new topics are 13-Technical
Homebrewing and 14-General
Homebrewing. Library 13 has been
changed to contain brew club and
competition information. Users of the
forum report the new topics have eased
the traffic and messages are easy to
find and follow. If you haven't yet
joined the CompuServe network, a free
start-up package that gives you $15 of
free connect time is available through
your AHA membership. Simply call
or write the AHA and ask for the
CompuServeinformationpacket. You
too can be a computer keyboard away
from on-line conversations with hun-
dreds of fellow beer enthusiasts.
As far as we're concerned there's only one kind ofYARD Party!!!
presents the perfect addition to any party. The Yard of Ale.
This attractive 36 inch glass holds 55 oz. and comes with a red oak stand for
displaying itself when not in use. It is also available in a Competition set for
challenging your friends. Just like in the movie Oxford Blues.
When your party is more of a gathering a Half Yard or Foot of Ale is
what your looking for.
Single Set
Competition Set
Yard
$69.95
$110.00
l/2Yard
$49.95
$79.95
Foot
$29.95
$49.95
Add $5 shipping and handling. New York State Residents add sales tax.
VISA/Master Card accepted.
Keep your YARD well groomed with Nightwing accessories!!!
Keep your Set clean, whatever size you choose, with the Ale Mop. It's
specially designed to get to the bottom of your dirtiest glass.
Single
Set
Competition Set
Write to us or call for
more information.
Top it all off with an Ale Cap. The red oak cap keeps dust out of your glass
when not in use and is a perfect match to your set stand.
Send check or money order to:
Nightwing Enterprises P.O. Box 3280 Binghamton, New York 13902-3280 Phone: (607) 798-0297
National Homebrew Day
stirs celebration
National Homebrew Day was eel
ebrated here in Boulder in conjunc-
tion with the first round of the
National Competition. Many judges
converged at the Boulder Beer Co. for
the final day of judging in two sessions
on May 4. Then, with their beer minds
intact they continued on to a Colossal
Colorado Bar-Be-Que celebrating Na-
tional Homebrew Day and the
completion of first-round judging.
Elsewhere across the country, media
and press personnel were sipping,
perhaps for the first time ever, the
taste of home brewed beer. As part of
a media blitz plan, the AHA sent
bottles ofhomebrew to selected media
people in hopes of enticing nationwide
press coverage of our beloved hobby.
We'll keep you informed of the results.
What's on your mind?
We are very anxious to receive
responses from our members and
readers to the survey found between
pages 16 and 17. The last time we
surveyed our members was 1988, and
we are very curious to see how you've
changed since then. Our goal is
twofold. One is to acquire demo-
graphics information to use for our
media and advertising contacts. Two,
and perhaps the most important as-
pect of the survey, is to find out how
we are doing as a service-orientated
association.
As our membership continues to
grow, it becomes more and more
important to understand what
changes have occurred so we may
adjust accordingly. We like to think
of the survey as a review of the AHA
by its members and a means of gaih-
ing an overview of the membership.
We need to know what kind of service
you expect from us, and then we'll do
our best to accommodate your
responses.
Thinking Ahead
Even as arrangements for the
1991 conference are nearing comple-
tion, plans are under way for the 1992
conference. The tentative site is Mil-
waukee, Wis., home to the Miller
Brewing Co. and several microbrew-
eries, including Sprecher Brewing Co.,
Lakefront Brewery and the Water-
street Brewery. Karen Barela and
Jeff Mendel (Institute for Brewing
Studies) traveled to Milwaukee in late
January, courtesy of the Greater Mil-
waukee Convention and Visitors Bu-
reau Inc., who graciously gave them
the grand tour of several hotel sites.
Jeff is considering holding the 1992
Microbrewers Conference in April in
Milwaukee, while Karen is looking at
June dates for the Fourteenth Annual
AHA Conference. This would be the
first time in recent years that both
conferences would be held in the same
city.
New Staff
Jenny Wolcott, a recent graduate
in graphic design and photography
from the University of Michigan, has
joined the Association ofBrewers staff
in the production department as a
junior graphic designer. Jenny moved
to Boulder after hearing rumors of
how nice it is here, and she is happy to
report the rumors are true. We wel-
come her to our staff.
SUMMER 1991 ZYMURGY 13
Sugar in malt extract
revisited
Editor,s Note: We received a great
deal of mail regarding a "Brew News"
item about sugar in malt extract in the
Winter 1990 zymurgy. Here is a rep-
resentative letter and a response from
the scientist who did the malt extract
research.
Dear zymurgy:
The brief article on malt extract
analysis in "Brew News/' zymurgy
Winter 1990 (Vol. 13, No. 5) raises
more questions than it answers. The
vast majority of homebrewers begin
brewing with malt extract. Don't we
deserve the highest quality ingredi-
ents for our beer? Aren't we paying
top dollar for a specialty product? Ifi
want to brew with corn syrup, I'll go
down to the corner grocer and buy
some.
Dr. Ingledew seems unwilling to
share information on specific brands
of adulterated malt extract. Perhaps
zymurgy, as a service to its readers,
could duplicate his research and pub-
lish the results. How about it?
Sincerely,
Paul M. Ritterhoff
Towson, Maryland
14 SUMMER 1991 ZYMURGY
BREW NEWS
DAN FINK
The response from Professor Ingledew
to zymurgy:
With regard to your [the AHA's]
fax of Jan. 18, I have the following
comments:
(1) The details of the work on malt
extracts as conducted at the Univer-
sity of Saskatchewan was scheduled
to be published in February in the
Journal of the American Society of
Brewing Chemists except that--by our
choice and without pressure from
anyone-the names of the brands will
not be printed.
(2) Dr. Low and I decided not to
release the 'Manufacturers, list be-
cause:
(a) we are uncertain in many cases
whether or not the adulteration has
taken place by the brewer or the pack-
ager of the extracts.
(b) it is legal to add adjunct(s) to
wort although, at least in Canada,
such additions would be declared on
the label of the canned product.
(c) we have only tested 44 lager
malt extracts. No ale extracts have
been examined and many other lagers
were not done. We committed more
than $200 per malt extract sample to
do the work which is reported in the
ASBC Journal, but we don't have the
time or the money to do the many other
malt extracts which are available for
analysis.
(d) we are not in the position to
handle the expenses or time demands
which would occur if such work re-
sulted in legal action.
(e) we felt we were doing a service
to the brewpub I homebrewing indus-
try to report this work as we have
done. It is up to your industry, the
government and ultimate consumers
to ensure that the product in the mar-
ketplace is as you would like it to be.
We have identified a problem. Your
pressure on the manufacturers or
packagers will ensure that the situa-
tion is rectified.
(3) In spite of my comments above,
I have complete confidence in the re-
sults obtained in my lab by my col-
leagues. There is no doubt that some
manufacturers are profiting from the
addition of lower cost corn sugars to
malt extract.
SincerelyJ
W.M. Ingledew
Professor, University of Saskatchewan
Homebrew legalization
comes closer in Georgia
Progress has been made in legal-
izing home brewing in Georgia, one of
CALENDAR OF !EVENTS
1991
June 1 Second Annual Scotch Ale Competition, AHA-
Sanctioned Competition, Modesto, Calif. Con-
tact Wayne Baker at (209) 527-8808.
June 1 Renaissance Pleasure Fair Amateur Brewing
Competition, AHA-Sanctioned Competition,
San Bernardino, Calif. Contact Robert Busack at
(714) 880-6211.
June 18 Amateur Brewers ofCNY 6th Annual Competition,
AHA Sanctioned Competition, Syracuse, N.Y.
Contact Kim Mills at (607) 255-3985.
June 19 BJCP Exam, Center of New Hampshire Holiday
Inn, Manchester, N.H. Contact the AHA at (303)
447-0816
June 19-22 AHA National Home brew Conference,
Manchester, N.H. Contact the AHA at (303) 447-
0816.
July 19-21 Oregon Brewers Festival, Portland, Ore. Contact
Widmer Brewing Co. (503) 2 8 ~ 2 4 3 7 or Bridgeport
Brewing Co. (503) 241-7179.
June 20 Alameda County Fair Homebrew Competition,
AHA-Sanctioned Competition, Pleasanton,
Calif. Contact Tom Dalldorf at 564 W. Sunset,
Hayward, Calif. 94541.
July 20 KQED 9th Annual International Beer and Food
Festival, Concourse Exhibition Center, San Fran-
cisco, Calif. (415) 553-2200.
July 27 The Second Annual Wines Inc. Christmas Horne-
brew Competition, AHA Sanctioned Competi-
tion, Columbus, Ohio. Contact Sean McGee at
(614) 882-8718.
July 30 Washington County Regional Homebrew Compe-
tition, HWBTA Sanctioned, Hillsboro, Ore.
Contact Frank Johnson at (503) 648-1416.
July 31 Alamo Cup, HWBTA Sanctioned, San Antonio,
Texas. Contact Ron Confer at (512) 494-1002.
Aug. 2 Weiss is Nice, AHA Club-Only Sanctioned
Competition, entry deadline is Aug. 2. Contact
the AHA at (303) 447-0816.
Aug. 24 Fourth Annual Los Angeles County Fair Horne-
brew Beer Competition, AHA-Sanctioned Com-
petition, Los Angeles County Fair Grounds,
Pomona, Calif. Contact Bruce L. Brode at (213)
558-8458.
Aug. 24 First Annual T.R.AS.H. Bock and Mead Competi-
tion, AHA-Sanctioned Competition, Pittsburgh,
Pa. Contact Greg Walz at (412) 331-5645.
Sept. 4-7 National Microbrewers/Pubbrewers Conference and
Trade Show, Buffalo, N.Y. Contact the Institute
for Brewing Studies at (303) 447-0816.
Sept. 5 Los Angeles County Fair Bees and Honey Mead
Competition, AHA-Sanctioned Competition,
Pomona, Calif. Contact Greg Stark at (818) 374
6371.
Sept. 14 Sonoma County Harvest Fair Home brew Competi-
tion, AHA Sanctioned Competition, California
residents only. Contact Paddy Giffen at (707) 795
8401.
Sept. 15-18 Master Brewers Association of the Americas 104th
Annual Convention, Calgary, Alberta, Canada.
Contact Dan Sommers at (608) 231-3446.
Sept. 21 Harvest Homebrewers Competition, AHA-Sane
tioned Competition, Renaissance Pleasure Faire,
Novato, Calif. Contact Robert Busack at (415)892-
0937.
Sept. 21 BJCP Exam, Grants Pass, Ore., sponsored by
Southern Oregon Brewers Society. Contact Hubert
Smith at (503) 597-2142.
Oct. 4-5 Great American Beer Festival X, Denver Merchan-
dise Mart, Denver, Colo. Contact Daniel Bradford,
Association of Brewers, PO Box 287, Boulder, CO
80306-0287; (303) 447-0816; FAX (303) 447-2825.
Hotel accommodations available at The Inn at the
Mart, 1-800-842-4415.
Oct. 18 Taste of the Great Lakes, AHA-Sanctioned
Competition, Frankenmuth, Mich. Contact
Michael O'Brien at (313) 482-8565.
Nov. 8 Best of Fest, AHA Club-Only Sanctioned Com-
petition, entry deadline is Nov. 8. Contact the
AHA at (303) 447-0816.
1992
Feb. 3 Hail to Ale, AHA Club-Only Sanctioned Com-
petition, entry deadline is Feb. 3. Contact the
AHA at (303) 447-0816.
March 30 Bock is Best, AHA Club-Only Sanctioned Com-
petition, entry deadline is March 30. Contact the
AHA at (303) 447-0816.
May 2 National Homebrew Day
June 1 Penultimate Pilsener, AHA Club-Only Sanc-
tioned Competition, entry deadline is June 1.
Contact the AHA at (303) 447-0816.
Aug. 3 Weiss is Nice, AHA Club-Only Sanctioned
Competition, entry deadline is Aug. 3. Contact
the AHA at (303) 447-0816.
Oct. 1 Best of Fest, AHA Club-Only Sanctioned Com-
petition, entry deadline is Oct. 1. Call the AHA at
(303) 447-0816.
Dec. 1 Barley Wine is Fine, AHA Club-Only Sanc-
tioned Competition, entry deadline is Dec. 1.
Contact the AHA at (303) 447-0816.
To list events, send information to zymurgy Calendar of Events, PO Box 287, Boulder CO 80306-0287. Competition organizers wishing
to apply for AHA sanctioning must do so at least two months before the event. Contact Karen Barela at (303) 44 7-0816.
SUMMER 1991 ZYMURGY 15
the last bastions of homebrew Prohi-
bition in America. According to Ken
Dobson, M.D., of the Covert Hops So-
ciety in Atlanta, the bill (HB 62) in-
troduced in the Georgia House of
Representatives originally followed
federal guidelines but was changed to
allow only 25 gallons of annual beer
production per household. The bill
has been tabled until January 1992,
but Dobson said the tabling motion
actually was a positive move by the
House.
According to lobbyists, there was
a widespread misconception among
legislators that such a bill was inap-
propriate in a session characterized
by several bills that crack down on
drunk driving. "If I thought for one
minute that HB 62 would increase
DUI, I would be fighting it tooth and
nail, not lobbying for its passage,"
Dobson said.
For information on how you can
help Georgians in their fight for le-
galization, see "Homebrew Clubs,"
page 62, under "Georgia."
New Jersey homebrew
bill reintroduced
A bill to legalize home brewing in
New Jersey (where it is prohibited
outright) was reintroduced into the
Legislature recently. The bill would
allow 100 gallons of beer per year to
be produced at home, though the
Federal law allows 200. The bill was
approved by the state Drug and Alco-
hol Abuse Policy Committee, which
also voted to introduce it to the state
Assembly. It passed the Assembly
unanimously and is now before the
state Senate. The chance of the bill
passing is good, according to home-
brew lobbyist and AHA Board of Ad-
visers member Ed Busch of the
Mid-Atlantic Sudsers and Hoppers
(MASH) homebrew club.
Bile your wort
Breweries in what used to be East
Germany are struggling to compete
with their more modern Western
counterparts in the newly opened
market. Some interesting revelations
have come to light though. In a New
York Times article, Ji.irgen Funk of
the Sternburg Brauerai in Leipzig
(which dates back to 1278) discussed
16 SUMMER 1991 ZYMURGY
advice he received from Western
brewers. "They convinced us that to
be competitive, we had to brew under
the German beer purity law," Funk
said. "And they created marketing
and advertising concepts for our
products. Before unity we used to put
cattle bile in our beer to give it the
bitter flavor ofhops, which we couldn't
always get/'
Hops can clean your liver
Lupulones and humulones from
hops may help the body dispose of
toxins, according to Gilbert J.
Mannering, professor emeritus of
pharmacology at the University of
Minnesota. The compounds stimulate
the production of liver enzymes that
metabolize harmful toxins.
Hops also contain hundreds of
other components that may have
similar effects, Mannering says, but
no one yet knows which compounds
survive the brewing process or how
much beer would need to be drunk to
benefit from the hops.
Electronic Sniffer
An electronic nose developed by
Bass and Neotronics can already
identify three brands oflager by smell
alone, according to Electronics World
& Wireless World magazine. The pro-
totype uses 12 sensors, each one co a ted
to make it sensitive to a different or-
ganic vapor. Besides the obvious use
in beer quality control, scientists be-
lieve the system could also be used to
help blend coffee and perfume, or
even to detect explosives or bacterial
decay in food. The question is, could it
pass the Beer Judge Certification
Program exam?
Coors goes kosher
America now has its first kosher
beer, according to the American
Breweriana Journal. The Union of
Orthodox Jewish Congregations of
America certified the Adolph Coors
Co. after a three-month inspection of
the plant and packaging systems.
"The claims of the company as to
purity and the absence of additives
we found to be true," said Rabbi Moshe
Bernstein. Coors president Peter
Coors stated that the brewery was
"honored" by the designation, which
means Coors is allowed to carry the
(U) symbol on its labels.
Havill's Mead
heads for the U.S.
Havill's Mazer Mead may soon be
imported to the United States, ac-
cording to meadmaker Leon Havill of
Rangiora, New Zealand. Havill's mead
is very popular in New Zealand and is
starting to catch on in America. Havill
presented a speech on meadmaking
at the 1988 AHA National Conference
in Denver, Colo.
Research profiles
light beer drinkers
According to a Mediamark Re-
search Survey of the American Con-
sumer printed in the Beverage Alcohol
Market Report, those who prefer ~ i g h t
beers are better educated, live in more
affiuenthouseholds and work more in
white-collar jobs than regular beer
drinkers.
AHA Sanctioned
Competitions
Wort You Brewin'
The 'Wort You Brewin'" compe-
tition in Vancouver, B.C., on Feb. 2
drew 137 entries. Rob Lauriston of
Vernon, B.C., won best of show with
his Belgian witte and won round-trip
airfare to judge the National Compe-
tition first round in Boulder.
Hudson Valley
Homebrew Competition
The First Annual Hudson Valley
Homebrew Competition in Kingston,
N.Y., March 23 drew 126 entries.
Wendell Choinsky's imperial stout
took best of show.
Fifth Annual
Big and Huge Hearted
Competition
Robert Drousth won the Big and
Huge on April 6 this year with a "big
ale." The competition, in Madison,
Wis., received 142 entries.
Dear Homebrewers and Beer Lovers;
Welcome to the 1991 Homebrewers Survey!
Please complete the questionaire on the reverse side, fold, tape and mail it back to us.
Since we are a non-profit association, it is important to know the interests of our members-
this is how we decide how to best serve you!
As an added thanks for your participation, we have enclosed a special order form for Brew-
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Even if you are not ordering or are not yet a member, please return this survey by July 1,
1991.
Our Sincere Thanks,
The Staff at the Association of Brewers
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#431 Pale Ale
#434 Continental Pilsener
#437 Lambie
#417 Brewing Lager Beer
#418 Brewing Mead
#414 Dictionary of
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#415 Principles of
Brewing Science
#407 Winners Circle
American Homebrewers Association
PO Box 287
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Survey
1991 ltllemi:JershiR SurveYc . .
Enclose a separate sheet for further comments if you like. All answers are confidential. Results will be published in the Winter 1991 zymurgy.
1. In the last six months I have contacted the AOB by phone, letter or for
an order (circle one only):
0 1-2 3-4 5-6 7-8 9-10 10+
2. The quality of AOB's service is (circle only one):
Poor Excellent
Timeliness 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Courtesy 2 3 4 5 6 7
Accuracy 2 3 4 5 6 7
3. In the last 12 months I have participated in (circle all that apply):
a. Judge Certification Program b. Sanctioned Competition Program
c. National Homebrew Competition d. National Homebrew Conference
e. Contributing writer f. Compuserve
g. Other------------------
4. I do not participate in the Judge Certification Program because (circle
one only):
a. Unfamiliar with program
c. Can't get to an exam
b. Few local competitions
d. Not interested
e. Other ______________________________________ __
5. I have organized a competition but did not sanction it through the
Sanctioned Competition Program because (circle all that apply):
not a concern an important concern
a. Unaware of program 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
b. Too expensive 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
c. Not interested 2 3 4 5 6 7
d. Doesn't suit my needs 2 3 4 5 6 7
e. Other
6. I would be more inclined to attend the National Homebrew Conference
if the following were included (circle appropriate):
not important
a. Family activities 1 2 3
b. Resort setting 2 3
c. Closer to breweries 1 2 3
d. Another location 2 3
for example:
e. Other
4
4
4
4
very important
5 6 7
5 6 7
5
5
6
6
7
7
7. I own __ Brewers Publications books (circle appropriate number):
0 1 2-3 4-5 6-7 8-9 10+
8. I purchased my last Brewers Publications book 19 __ .
(fill in month and year).
9. My critique of Brewers Publications books is based on the
following (circle appropriate):
poor
a. Quality of the writing 1 2 3 4 5
b. Technical information 1 2 3 4 5
c. Usefulness of the material 2 3 4 5
d. Depth/breadth of information 2 3 4 5
10. My favorite Brewers Publications book is
excellent
6 7
6 7
6 7
6 7
My least favorite is -----------------------------------
11.1 would like to see Brewers Publications publish a book(s) on {fill in
subject matter): ---------------------------------
12. I purchased my Brewers Publications books after seeing them in
(circle the most common sources):
a. AOB mailing b. AOB Catalog c. Retail store
d. zymurgy ad e. Other catalog f. Friend
g. Other-------------------
13. I purchased my AOB merchandise (books, !-shirts, etc.) through
(circle all that apply):
a. AOB mail order b. Other mail order c. Retail stores
d. Other-------------------
14. In the last 12 months I have purchased from the AOB __ in AOB
merchandise {circle only one):
a. Nothing b. $1 to $19 c. $20 to $49
d. $50 to $99 e. $100 plus
15. In the last 12 months 1 have purchased from sources other than the
AOB ___ in merchandise (brewing books, etc.)
(circle only one):
a. Nothing
d. $50 to $99
b. $1 to $19
e. $100 plus
c. $20 to $49
16. I would like to see the AOB carry more of the following items (circle
appropriate):
not interested very interested
a. Books 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
b. Clothes 2 3 4 5 6 7
c. Glassware 2 3 4 5 6 7
d. Misc. Items 2 3 4 5 6 7
e. Other
17.Age
18. Occupation ____________________________________ _
19. Approximate household income for 1990$ -----------------
20. Level of education (circle one only):
a. Some high school b. Completed high school
c. Technical school d. Some college
e. Completed college f. Graduate school
21. Do you own a computer or use one at work? Yes No
22. Have you brewed beer from a kit in the last year? Yes No
23. Number of years homebrewing -------------------------
24. Number of gallons brewed a month------------------------
25. Amount spent a year on homebrewing $ -------------------
Thank you for your participation!
Micro and
Pubbreweries
(Information furnished by the Institute for
Brewing Studies)
Openings
United States
Colorado: The Idle Spur Crested
Butte Brewery and Restaurant,
Crested Butte The Hubcap
Brewery and Kitchen, Vail
Florida: Sarasota Brewing Co. (#2),
Bradenton Kidder's Brewery and
Eatery, Fort Myers The River
Walk, Ft. Lauderdale Hops Grill
and Bar (#2), Tampa
Idaho: Table Rock Brewpub and
Grill, Boise
illinois: Berghoff Brewery and
Restaurant, Chicago
Nebraska: Lazlo's Brewery and
Grill, Lincoln
New York: Zip City Brewing Co.,
New York
New Hampshire: Portsmouth
Brewery, Portsmouth
Ohio: Meander Brewing Co.,
Youngstown
Oregon: Edgefield Manor, Troutdale
Utah: Eddie McStiffs, Moab
Virginia: The Blue Muse, Roanoke
Vermont: Dewey's Ale House,
Brattleboro Latchis Grille and
Windham Brewery, Brattleboro
Canada
Ontario: Conners Brewing Co., St.
Catharines
Closings
United States
California: Firestone Brewing Co.,
Los Olivos
Hawaii: Pacific Brewing Co.,
Wailuku, Maui
Minnesota: Taps Waterfront
Brewpub, Minneapolis
New York: Hungry Charlie's!
Clement's, Syracuse, (restaurant
open but no longer brewing)
Ohio: Growlers Grill and Brewery
(#2), Columbus
Canada
Ontario: Great Lakes Brewing Co.,
Brampton Suds International,
Burlington Kirkland Lake Bavar-
ian Inn I Bernie's Brewpub, Kirkland
Lake Bacchantes, Newmarket
Renegade Brewery, Thunder Bay
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Bennington, VT 05201
_________ ....
HOMEBREWING 101
The American Homebrewers Association
presents
The National Home brew
Conference & Competition
June 19-22, 1991, Manchester, New Hampshire
Attend a four day seminar on your favorite topic: beer. Sit
together with fellow beer students. Meet and talk with noted
authors and beer experts. Exchange notes, recipes and beers.
Spend days immersed in a homebrew education. Class work
at its best:
The National Homebrew Conference & Competition
For more information about the Conference and how you can participate, write
or call the American Homebrewers Association, PO Box 287, Boulder, CO
80306-0287, (303) 447-0816, FAX (303) 447-2825.
SUMMER 1991 zyMURGY 17
THE AMERICAN HOMEBREWERS ASSOCIATION
COSMIC MUG
Ed Kendall -Niagara Vine Products, St. Catharines,
Ontario
Sandra Morgan- Wine And Brew By You Inc., South
Miami, Fla.
DIAMOND-STUDDED
PLATINUM MUG
Stephen Argilan Jr.- Plattsburgh, N.Y.
Cam Blattler- Brown Deer, Wis.
David Bly- San Ulrenzo, Calif.
Robert Chasen- South Weymouth, Mass.
Rick Deering- Gurnee, Ill.
Steven Evers- Boulder Creek, Calif.
Philip W. Fleming- Broomfield, Colo.
Robert Fransen Texas
Michael Frost- Roseville, Calif.
David Funk- Woodland, Calif.
Michael Glenn- Hudson, N.H.
Chuck Golueke- Lone Apple Brewery, Green Bay, Wis.
Roger Haggett- Endicol!, N.Y.
John Head- Sacramento, Calif.
Burt Hesse- Apple Valley, Calif.
Art Jeyes- Crownsville, Md.
Charles Knsicki- Pasadena, Calif.
Karl King- Euless, Texas
Ron Konecke, M.D.- Bear Creek, Pa.
Alan G. Kornatowski -South Lyon, Mich.
Ralph Lew -Aberdeen, Wash.
Rich Link- Santee, Calif.
Joseph Loiacono Jr.-New York, N.Y.
Jim Majusiak- Iowa City, Iowa
Jim Mangin- Milwaukee, Ore.
Tim Norris- Chicago, Ill.
Donald Petitmermet- Silver Spring, Md.
Richard Ross- Woburn, Mass.
Jon Rosse- Westbury, N.Y.
John Sievers- Towson, Md.
Michael Stevens- Grand Ridge, Ill.
Tan Thanh Le-St. Johns Park, New South Wales,
Australia
Richard Trauth -Sulphur, La.
Chip Upsal- Mount View, Mo.
Warren Weatherbee- Beer Makers' Supply, Lancaster,
Mass.
Robert J. Weber Jr.- Gales Ferry, Conn.
Ed Westemeicr- Cincinnati, Ohio
Paul White- Orfordville Home Brew Supplies, Orford,
N.H.
Brinn Zimmerman- Denver, Colo.
GOLD
Jim Alexander- Alex Esse Mart, Penobsquis, New
Brunswick, Canada
Joel Bauman- Belmont, Mass.
Michael Cain- Seattle, Wash.
John Heer- Fort Collins, Colo.
Jonathan Lillian- Upper Montclair, N.J.
John McKee- Santa Maria, Calif.
Charles McMurdo- Kailua, Hawaii
Dave Ulrey- Lawrence, Kan.
Dane Wells- The Queen Victoria Inn, Cape May, N.J.
PEWTER
Great Northern Brewers- Anchorage, Alaska
Donald Adams- Verdi, Nev.
Gary Aumiller- East Northport, N.Y.
Paul Beattie- Gautier, Miss.
Monte D. Bejeault- Bremerton, Wash.
John Brock- Seattle, Wash.
Peter Burman- Hixaon, Tenn.
Chris Caffey- High Point, N.C.
Andrew Cebula- Arlington, Va.
John Cocco- Lafayette Engineering Inc., Lafayette Hill,
Po.
John N. Collins- Mt. Tremper, N.Y.
Ray Daniels- Chicago, Ill.
Ed Davanzo- Santa Monica, Calif.
Doug Diggle- Old Town Liquors, Carbondale, lll.
Steve Hamburg- Chicago, 1!1.
Anthony Heynacke- Iron Mountain, Mich.
Frederick Heywood- Boise, Idaho
Greg Horton- East Coast Homebrew Supply, Mapleville,
R.I.
Sally Ilgcr- Laguna Beach, Calif.
Dean Leta- Country Food & Liquor, Mokena, Ill.
Dave Lyng -Phoenixville, Pa.
SPONSORS
Joseph J. Menkevich- Philadelphia, Pa.
Tony Morrison- Headland, Ala.
Michael O'Brien- Ypsilanti, Mich.
A.P. Ward Pond-Los Angeles, Calif.
John H. Roberts- Johnny Beer, Hickory, Miss.
Mike Rodgers-Wilson- Victoria, Australia
Daniel Roll::a- Saginaw, Mich.
F. Blaise Roncagli- Cleveland, Ohio
Gregg Smith- Tarrytown, N.Y.
Stephen Snyder- Olney, Md.
Stuart Sutton- Fayetteville, N.Y.
John Thomas- Temecula, Calif.
Richard Whitmer- Burton, S.C.
Gene Woodring- Auburn, Ind.
PAPER
Chris Ahlberg- Greenwich, Conn.
Curt Ames- Monterey, Calif,
Tanner Andrews- DeLand, Fla.
Richard Andrews- Spices Unlimited, Texarkana, Texas
J. Sylvester Arena- Phoenix, Ariz.
Nick Backlund-Jersey City, N.J.
Joe Barrett- Charlotte, N.C.
Gary Baum- O'Baum's Brewery, Woodland Hills, Calif.
Don Bower- DLB Vineyards Inc., Westlake, Ohio
Thomas B. Brayer- Newton Center, Mass.
Charles Brekke- Oklahoma City, Okla.
E.J. Brewhaus- Folcroft, Pa.
Michael Bryant- Minneapolis, Minn.
Steve Bussiere- Newport, Minn.
Harold Buttermore II-Ann Arbor, Mich.
Kevin Carroll- West Palm Beach, Fla.
Kerry Clinkenbeard- Wichita, Kan.
Paul Coffelt- Pasadena, Md.
Pat Collins- Dallas, Texas
Daniel J. Conlin- Phoenix, Ariz.
Michael Croddy- Colorado Springs, Colo.
Thomas Crosby- Ipswich, Mass.
Kenneth Cummings- Asheville, N.C.
Barry Cunningham- Chillicothe, Ohio
Robert Deane- Biddeford, Maine
Dennis M. Doherty- Mystic, Conn.
John Dopazo- Buena Park, Calif.
Arthur E. Douglas- Haddonfield, N.J.
Don Duffie- London, Ontario, Canada
Roderich Dyke- Bainbridge Island, Wash.
Glenn Egert- Longview, Wash.
K.C. Ellis- Narbeth, Pa.
William Emerson -APO New York, N.Y.
Tom Evers- Wheeling, Ill.
Tony False- Syracuse, N.Y.
Robert Fawbush- Everett, Wash.
George Findling- San Diego, Calif.
Randy Fisher- Portland, Ore.
Bill Fotheringham Jr. -Seattle, Wash.
Joseph Freeman- Hingham, Mass.
John Gibbons- Bedford, Mass.
Paul T. Gieser- Minneapolis, Minn.
Forrest Ginn- North Pole, Alaska
Robert Googin- The Hop Shoppe, Cazenovia, N.Y.
Sanford S. Gollesman- New York, N.Y.
Scott Gottwald- Littleton, Colo.
Dan Griffith- San Jose, Calif.
Alex Groves -Salt Lake City, Utah
Gary and Cathy Halifax- Halifax Hop & Vine Supply,
Fruitvale, B.C., Canada
James Hansen- Sparks, Nev.
John Hawkins- Willimantic, Conn.
Hans Hopf - Weissbierbrauerei Hans Hopf KG,
Miesbach, Germany
Rodney Howard- Oakley, Calif.
Gary E. Huff- Gresham, Ore.
Steve Hughes- Hayward, Calif.
George Hummel- Philadelphia, Pa.
David Hutchinson- Hopkinsville, Ky.
Jeff Jackson- Taylors, S.C.
C. Eric Johnson- Arlington, Texas
David Kane- Cambridge, Mass.
Stephen Keller- Tallahassee, Fla.
James Kelly- Celtic Industries, Flanders, N.J.
Thomas Klein- Arcadia, Calif.
John W. Knaack- Phoenix, Ariz.
Mark Knopf- Roanoke, Va.
Roger Korthasc- Boyne City, Mich.
Lee Kralicek- Mesa, Ariz.
Jim Krause- Prescott, Wis.
Ron Kribbs- Naples, Fla.
Peter La France-On Tap, Brooklyn, N.Y.
Guy Laflamme- Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Lake Geneva Brewing Co.- Lake Geneva, Wis.
Donald E. Lancaster- Rockville, Va,
James and Stacey Landor- Milan Malt Shoppe, Red
Hook, N.Y.
Rick J. Lang becker- Redmond, Wash.
Mark Larrow- Beer & Winemaking Supplies,
Northampton, Mass.
Paul A. Larson- Goleta, Calif.
Mike Leigh- Cleveland, Ohio
Scott and Diane Leininger- Leininger & Co.,
Edwardsville, IJJ.
Greg Lentz- Lansing, Mich.
Walter Lewis- Derry, N.H.
William Lounsbury- Baltimore, Md.
Michael Lutz- Dublin, Calif.
A. Scott Magee- Seattle, Wash.
Stanley Malec- Fairfield, Conn.
Kenneth Manzi- Norwood, Mass.
Mark Marnell- Kingston, N.Y.
Larry Matthews- Lewiston, Idaho
Bob Mayerle- Silverthorne Hombrewers Supply,
Silverthorne, Colo.
David McBride- Springfield, Pa.
Paul "Bear" McClure- Uncasville, Conn.
David McKinnon-StJohn's, Newfoundland, Canada
Colleen McLean-Bowen- Roseburg, Ore.
Christopher Metzcas- Millbrae, Calif.
Russell Meyers- State College, Pa.
Arthur Milberg- Tarzana, Calif.
Thomas Miller- Sanford, N.C.
Steve Mills- Bonner Springs, Kan.
David Q, Mohan- Glen Burnie, Md.
Randall Mosher- Chicago, Ill.
Dennis Nail- Midvale, Utnb
Nicola Nicoloff- Poland, Ohio
Michael Nolan- Kanagawa, Japan
Dennis Northrop- Sebastopol, Calif.
Keith Osborne- Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island,
Canada
J. Drew Patterson- Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Paul Perasso- Denver, Colo.
Michael Piraino- Wading River, N.Y.
Rodger Popielarski- Buffalo, N.Y.
Marc and Debi Prince- Haiku, Hawaii
Alton Purcifull- Frankfort, Ind.
Brian Quinn -Albany, N.Y.
Bradley Reeg- Chicago, Ill.
John Reese- Brooklyn, N.Y.
Thomas Ritchie- Honolulu, Hawaii
Bill and Emily Robertson- Parker, Colo.
Jim Roe- Seattle, Wash.
Steven Rollman- Hollis, N.H.
Gregg Roper- Torrance, Calif.
The Rough Draft Breweries- Toms River, N.J.
Allen Rudolph- Redwood City, Calif.
David Ruesch- Alexandria, Va.
Charles Ryberg- Ashland, Ore.
Jan Sahlin- Lakewood, Calif,
Kent Sal!onstali-Rising Gorge Brewery, Edmonds, Wash.
Richard Santos- Jacksonville, Fla.
Darin Sato- MiniPubs Hawaii, Honolulu, Hawaii
James Sauer-Amherst, N.Y.
Robert Schubert- Naperville, Ill.
Vincent Schumaker- Puyallop, Wash.
Russell Schweger- Winfield, Ill.
MarkS. Scott- South Plain Field, N.J.
Bob Seuling- Port Jefferson Station, N.Y.
Scott Skrabanek- Hayward, Calif.
Tom and Marice Sondgeroth- Wake Forrest, N.C.
Joshua Spieler- Brooklyn, N.Y.
Carter Stein- Gaston, Ore.
Lat Stevens- Falls Church, Va.
Robert Stickler- Edmond, Okla.
Malcolm Stone- Duxbury, Mass.
Stoppel and Associates- Colorado Springs, Colo.
Terrence Sul!ivan- Omaha, Neb.
Derek Suursoo- Honolulu, Hawaii
JeffTardie- Enfield, Conn.
Kirk Taylor- Saginaw, Texas
Tam Thompson- Austin, Texas
Alan Thornburg- Greensburg, Pa.
Allan Timins- Scranton, Pa.
John Van Tuyl-Ankeny, Iowa
Tom Vanek-Arlington, Va,
Paul Veselack- Normal, Ill.
Eric Webster- Des Plaines, Ill.
Michael B. Wever- Milford, Mass.
Christopher Williams- Portland, Ore.
David Wilson- Gulfport, Miss.
Jeff Wilson- Austin, Texas
Richard Winkel- Lewiston, Maine
James Paul Winningham- Memphis, Tenn.
Nick Wolf- Columbus, Ohio
Erich Zeiss- Wayzata, Minn.
JACKSON ON BEER
MICHAEL JACKSON
o Porter
When You One
End of the road in the quest for Russian stout
erhaps one has to be
somewhat obsessed
about beer, in all its
glorious styles, to
chase its ghosts. I sup-
pose I am. There it was before me: it
had been the only specialist imperial
stout brewery in the Russian
Empire.
The town brewery of Tartu, Es-
tonia, has a notable architectural
feature. The whole brewery is set
around a circular, castellated tower.
Local myth has it that the tower
was originally octagonal. One
day, while out for a walk, the
owner's wife looked at the
brewery and decided she did
not like the octagonal tower.
She told her husband, who had
it rebuilt in its present circular
shape.
Tartu is a very old town,
and one school of thought says
the brewery was the first in
Estonia. Another says it was
built in 1826. Or was it rebuilt
then, with its round tower?
An octagonal tower design
was incorporated into the
shape of the large bottles that
stuck in the mind of the Esto-
nian Minister of Agriculture.
These bottles bore the crest of
Le Coq and are still featured
in a poster for the brewery.
Yet the tower was clearly round
in the photographs from Le
Coq's time.
The round tower is more than
an architectural quirk. It contains
the most unusual maltings I have
ever seen. The maltings still work,
and in the kiln the grain is turned
by a rake pivoted in the center of the
circle.
It is an efficient system, remi-
niscent of the rakes in a mash-tun. I
suppose the germinating grain was
originally turned in this way too,
though today drums are used.
The director of the brewery, a
heavy-set, balding man who I
learned was a pillar of the local cho-
ral society, told me that some of the
barley came from Estonia, the rest
from Russia. Hops came from the
Ukraine and were in short supply.
There was no question of speci-
fying varieties, though the Ukranian
hops were low in bitterness and high
in aroma like those from Czechoslo-
vakia. In the brew house, I also saw
some American Clusters.
The brew house is very old, the
antiquity of the vessels encrusted
under a coat of cream paint. The di-
rector told me they used
double decoction, though the
brewmaster was away for the
day and it was not possible to
confirm details of the
procedure.
The director was reluctant
to show me the fermenting
vessels, probably because they
are very old. They were made
of cast iron in a strange de-
sign with gabled lids, painted
green so they look like opaque
garden hothouses.
The brewery is built on a
steep bank overlooldng the
river on which the town is set.
In the traditional manner, the
lagering cellars are cut into
the hillside. They are the re-
sponsibility of a 25-year-old
woman who trained as a food
technician, and whose blush-
ing smile I found most
distracting.
SUMMER 1991 ZYMURGY 19
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Write or coli (513)531-2268 for info
Today, the 300,000-hectoliter
brewery makes only lagers. Its
cheapest beers are lagered for only
11 days, though its higher-priced
products get up to 60.
There are two 1. 044 original
gravity brews using sugar as an ad-
20 SUMMER 1991 ZYMURGY
junct: Kuldne Oder (Golden Barley)
and a more happy Eripruul (Spe-
cial). The 1.048 premium is called
Rae Olu (City Beer) and has a dash
of rice. There is a 1.052 Gladiator
and a 1.068 Tartu Olu.
The only bottle the director
could find for me to sample was the
Rae, which I found firm bodied,
thinnish and very dry in the finish.
From the lagering vessels I sampled
Gladiator, which had a sweet, malty
start, a smooth mouth feel and a
dry, lightly happy finish.
The director recalled having
made porter until "about 15 to 20
years ago," which was more recently
than I had supposed. He said it had
been made to a gravity of 1.080, bot-
tom fermented and lagered for 75 to
90 days.
I asked him if he could imagine
the brewery ever making porter
again, and his answer surprised me.
Perhaps, of course, he was humoring
me.
He said the enterprise owned
the site for a new brewery but so
far there had been no money avail-
able to build. If there ever were,
perhaps the old brewery could be
kept for specialty products, in-
cluding a porter.
"After all this time, would
people still want a porter?" I
asked. He replied that
people still remembered it, and
added a thought that I have heard
before in Eastern Europe: "Women
like dark beers."
Even he had et<ioyed the Diplo
mat of the Gambrinus Brewery in
Plzeri I am not sure this is being
made any longer, but I forebore to
mention that.
Instead, I presented him with a
1982 vintage-dated bottle of Courage
Russian imperial stout. Despite my
attempts to explain it, he viewed it
with some puzzlement. He said he
would keep it for the museum he one
day hopes to open at his brewery.
We went into town, past the
14th century parish church and 17th
century city hall, the odd decorative
building that could have passed for
American "western Victorian" and
streets of pastel-colored clapboard
houses, to the university. There, in
a marble-walled dining room, we
had high tea and toasted our en-
counter in "Champagne"-sparkling
wine made in Latvia from Crimean
grapes.
Back home, there is news every
day from the Baltic states. Estonia
is emerging from a slumber into
which I had a last-minute glimpse.
Journeys can remain in the mind
like fitful dreams. None more so
than this one. 9
This is part three and conclusion
of a series on the quest for Russian
imperial stout. Reprinted with per-
mission from What's Brewing, news-
paper of the Campaign for Real Ale.
HoMEBREW CooKING
WITH THE 8REWGAL GOURMET
CANDYSHERMERHORN
S
t t
unnnertJtne IS
Beer-becue Time
he sweat on his brow
trickled down the side of
his face as he stared,
yearning, toward the ob-
ject of his obsession. Only
a few feet away, her breathing came
in short gasps as she lusted and
yearned for the moment when her lips
would touch and her tongue would
taste this final prize. They both stood,
in the glare of the summer sun,
watching, waiting for that moment of
triumph and ecstasy. After what
seemed an eternity, their long vigil
was rewarded and they ravished the
succulent morsels of barbecued meat
and quaffed frosty mugs of their be-
loved beer.
Exaggeration of terms? Not at
all. Barbecue (or in our case, e e r ~
becue) is a lusty affair of food and
libation to be wantonly enjoyed with
your closest compatriots. Expecta*
tions should build throughout the day
as beans are baked, coleslaw is mixed
and meat is generously basted with
spicy beer-based sauces. By the time
juicy perfection is achieved, you actu-
ally feel faint from anticipation (hun-
ger too, since you politely turned down
lunch to allow more room for feast-
ing). To complement the spicy beer-
becue, add the cooling effect of your
favorite brew and you will have expe-
rienced a hint of heaven.
To turn this culinary fiction into
hard reality, it is necessary to heed a
few terms and guidelines.
Braising-slowly cook in a tightly
covered pan with a small amount of
liquid.
Marinade-a liquid consisting of
beer, herbs, spice and oil. The liquid
should be acidic to serve as a natural
tenderizer and oily to lubricate the
meat for juicy results. Marinades are
sometimes used for basting.
Seartng-quickly brown the out-
side of meat to seal in the juices.
When purchasing meat to barbe-
cue, market "specials" can be tempt-
ing and appear economical, but often
come from larger, tougher animals.
Because you are devottng not only
time but your cherished beer to this
barbecue, the few extra dollars for
top-quality meat is money well spent.
Also, don't rush the cooking. Most
any barbecue expert will tell you that
the secret to a superb barbecue is slow
cooking, which allows the meat to ab-
sorb lots of sauce and become fork
tender. This means controlling the
temperature of the grill carefully. You
will need very high heat for searmg
and a truly low, steady heat for grill-
ing. For the best, smokiest results,
use a grill with a cover.
For pork ribs, the "country-style"
cut has a high ratio of meat to bones
and is my most frequent choice. Baby-
back and side ribs are delicious, but
you often pay twice as much for a
bone-laden cut. To prepare ribs, wipe
them with paper towels to remove
any fat or bone particles. Keep rack
ribs whole to retain their moisture
and simplify the basting and turntng.
Sprinkle liberally with freshly ground
pepper and allspice and allow to sit at
room temperature for 30 minutes.
Have your coals very hot and the
grill low to the coals. Sear all sides of
the ribs on high heat, maklng sure
they do not scorch. Remove the ribs,
raise the grill to the highest position
and cover it with heavy-duty foil.
Puncture the foil with a fork for venti-
lation, and place the meat on the grill.
Brush liberally with a spicy red sauce
(try the Torrid Beer-becue Sauce!).
Close the lid, cook five to seven min-
utes, turn and brush again. Continue
brushing and turning until the ribs
are cooked through and tender. This
will take from 45 minutes to 1 1/4
hours, depending on the cut of rib and
your grill heat.
The brewgal gourmet enjoying the
fruits of her labor.
SUMMER 1991 ZYMURGY 21
Torrid Sauce
Not for the faint of heart, this
rather thick, fruity sauce has a
clearing aroma. It is rich and
gressive on the palate, and leaves a
fiery aftertaste!
12 ounces of brown ale or
Marzen beer
1/4 cup butter or olive oil
1 large onion, finely chopped
6 cloves garlic, minced and
smashed
1 cup plums, fresh or canned (no
pits) or whole cranberry sauce
12 ounces of tomato sauce or
crushed tomatos in puree
2 large or 4 small beef or
chicken bouillon cubes
1/2 cup red wine vinegar
1 teaspoon bottled liquid smoke
1/2 cup dark brown sugar
1 teaspoon each of ginger and
cayenne pepper (or hot chili
powder)
1 teaspoon each of freshly
crushed* coriander seed,
black pepper, cumin seed and
mustard seed
*The essence of a spice is derived from
its volatile oils. When freshly crushed
or ground, these oils are released and
give full flavor.
In a small skillet, melt the butter
and saute the onion over
heat until !imp and translucent. Add
the garlic and continue to cook, stirring
occasionally until the onion is very
limpj set aside.
In a blender or food processor,
process the plums and tomato sauce
until smooth.
In a saucepan, heat
the beer to a medium simmer and add
the bouillon cubes, mashing and stir-
ring until they are dissolved. Add the
remaining ingredients, including the
sauteed onion and plum-tomato
ture. Bring to a low simmer and cook,
stirring frequently, until very thick,
45 minutes to one hour.
Beef chuck short ribs are the
meatiest and most flavorful of the beef
ribs, but very tough. These ribs need
to be marinated four to 24 hours (the
Potent Porter marinade is marvelous
on these) and then precooked before
the actual grilling. To precook the
ribs, marinate first, then remove the
22 SUMMER 1991 ZYMURGY
ribs and wipe off excess marinade.
Heat the grill to very high and sear
the ribs on all sides. Remove and set
aside. Place one-half of the marinade
in a large, heavy dutch oven and bring
to a slow simmer over kitchen range.
Add the browned ribs, cover and turn
the heat to low. Braise for 45 minutes.
Meanwhile, prepare the barbecue rack
by covering with foil and poking with
a fork for ventilation. When the ribs
have finished braising, place them on
the grill and cover with the lid. Baste
the ribs every five to six minutes with
the remaining marinade for one to
1 1/2 hours, maintaining a very low
heat.
Beef back ribs, a.k.a. dinosaur
ribs, have very long bones with the
meat between. Although mostly bone,
the meat is tender and no precooking
is necessary. Prepare these as you
would pork ribs, using a thick red
sauce (the Torrid Sauce
works well here too). The oniy differ-
ence is that these ribs should be mari-
nated or rubbed with oil before
cooking.
Potent Porter Marinade
A "spirited," assertive marinade,
exhibiting full body and complex fla-
vors with an aromatic herbal showing.
12 ounces of a porter-style beer
2/3 cup extra virgin cold pressed
olive oil
1/2 cup dry sherry
1/4 cup dark soy sauce
1 teaspoon bottled liquid smoke
2 tablespoons dark sesame oil
1/3 cup honey
1 orange, juiced
1 tablespoon sweet paprika
5 large cloves garlic, finely
chopped and mashed
2 small shallots, finely chopped
and mashed
1 1/2 teaspoons each of dried and
crushed thyme, marjoram,
oregano
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground
pepper
1/2 teaspoon red chili powder or 3
serrano chiles, fmely chopped
Combine all ingredients and al-
low to sit 30 minutes. Marinate the
ribs four to 18 hours in the refrigera-
tor, turning occasionally.
Great Barbecue Coleslaw
Trust me, this is superb!
1 large head green cabbage,
shredded
1/4 head red cabbage, shredded
2 carrots, grated or julienned
1 large onion, finely chopped
2 cups mayonnaise
1/2 cup cider vinegar
1/3 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon fresh ground cumin
1 teaspoon celery seed
1 to 2 teaspoons dried mustard
salt and pepper to taste
Combine the cabbage, carrots and
onion. In a separate bowl, whisk to-
gether the mayonnaise, vinegar,
sugar, cumin, celery seed and dried
mustard. Add salt and pepper to
taste. Pour over the coleslaw, toss
and refrigerate for one hour before
serving.
Candy Schermerhorn lives in
Phoenix, Ariz., and is the culinary
consultant and instructor at
Kitchen Classics. She has written
with her husband a humorous
cookbook, The Legendary Pizza
(and Beer). In her spare time she
is editor for the Flying Zucchini
Brothers Publishing Co.
emember when there were fewer than 30
breweries in America? It was a time when no
one knew what a brewpub was, and the only
people who really cared were dubbed "beer
snobs" and fanatics by the light-lager-swilling masses.
In the early 1980s, most micro- and pubbreweries were
only a gleam in the eye of the brewer. In 1981 Sierra
Nevada and Boulder Beer hadjust opened, and Bert Grant's
Yakima Brewing and Malting Co. was still under con-
struction. Bud Light was first introduced on the market
that year, and the first Great American Beer Festival took
place in Boulder, Colo., as part of the fourth annual AHA
Homebrew/Microbrewery Conference.
The idea for a U.S. beer festival struck Charlie
Papazian, president of the American Homebrewers Asso-
ciation, after a trip to Great Britain. He had judged and
poured beer at the Campaign for Real Ale's Great British
Beer Festival in 1981 and thought a festival patterned
after the British event would help call attention to America's
beer tradition. At the time, only two U.S. microbrewers
were operating. Regional breweries were going out of
business all over the country, and a rise in import sales
indicated the loss of the sense of quality beer taste in the
drinking public. America's long history of traditional beer
styles was being forgotten rapidly.
1
'It was a totally outrageous idea at the time," Papazian
said. He and a bunch of local homebrewers sat around the
living room floor, poring over the few beer books available,
looking for names of the few remaining U.S. breweries.
Boulder Beer's Tom Burns helped the group contact brew-
ers, which at the time were mostly large national compa-
nies. John Devlin, owner of a local trucking company,
arranged for a refrigerated to wend its way
around the East Coast and back to Denver, picking up
beers from various brewers along the way. The truck made
it back in time-barely. The top of the trailer was partially
demolished at a low underpass in Pennsylvania, and the
shipment was delayed in Kansas by a rash of tornados.
The beer limped into Boulder a mere 24 hours before the
festival, much to the relief of the organizers.
The craft beer movement was in its infancy during the
first festival. Sierra Nevada, Boulder Beer and Anchor
Brewing Co. were the only craft brewers around that could
attend, so America's big brewers made up the bulk of the
20 breweries and 35 beers. In fact, Coors unveiled its
Killian's Irish Red at the first GABF. Homebrewers at-
tending the fourth annual AHA Homebrew/Microbrewery
Conference dreamed of serving their best bitter to appre-
ciative beer lovers and discussed plans with operating
hewers in an atmosphere of "youthful idealism."
The trials and tribulations continued in the early
years of the GABF. The Festival again was held in Boul-
der, this time under a big-top tent amid gigantic thunder-
storms and warnings, accompanied by bluegrass
1982 1991
DENVER COLORADO
DAN FINK, Staff Writer
SUMMER 1991 ZVMURGY 23
"0
a l l the beer joints
rn all the world, she had
to walk into mine.''
"She was beautiful, almost too beautiful.
She had a magazine in her hand. Right then I
knew how she found out. She was smart.
She'd spotted me in the pages of All About Beer,
between the great articles on the finest beers, greatest
breweries, and the best pubs and bars in the world.
I was impressed, but not
enough to put down my
magazine. After all,
it only comes out
h " every two mont s.
ALL ABOUT BEER is
now available at a
special price of
$5.50 off the
newsstand cover
price. And a dual
subscription to
All About Beer
and Suds 'n Stuff
is only $30 clams.
SAVE $5.50 OFF THE COVER PRICE OF ALL ABOUT BEER MAGAZINE
0 New Subscriber 0 Renewal of a Satisfied Customer
0 All About Beer $20.00 U.S., $30.00 Mexico/Canada, $48.00 Over.;eas
0 Suds 'n Stuff$15.00 U.S., $20.00 Mexico/Canada, $25.00 Overseas
0 All About Beer & Suds 'n Stuff$30.00 U.S., $45.00 Mexico/Canada, $65.00 Overseas
OfferExpires]anuary31, 1992
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ALL ABOUT BEER P.O. Box 586402 DEPT -8 OCEANSIDE, CA 92058
24 SUMMER 1991 ZVMURGY
bands and a symphony orchestra. And slowly
but surely, the number ofmicrobrewed craft
beers started to increase.
By 1984, the festival moved to Denver,
drew 50 breweries serving 70 beers, and the
Microbrewers Conference split off into a
separate symposium for microbrewers and
microbrewer wannabes. While the industry
gained momentum, brewers lobbied for law
changes to permit brewpubs in many states.
Equipment manufacturers started catering
to small brewers so fewer operations had to
scrounge for makeshift equipment.
Donated help from brewers, distribu-
tors and shippers continued to grow. Early
on, the professionals who donated help were
the real beer enthusiasts, according to Fes-
tival Director Daniel Bradford. That net-
work has expanded to include many major
brewers and distributors, not just the con-
noisseurs, Bradford said. "At first, all of the
beer could fit in one refrigerated truck. Now
it takes up a whole warehouse."
Alas, fiscal realities of the 1980s and
80-hour work weeks took their toll on some
new brewers. Many didn't make it, but the
strong survived, and new operations learned
from the mistakes of those that failed. The
Great American Beer Festival continued to
grow, learning from the successes and fail-
ures of the entire industry. By 1985, a new
force entered the craft brewing market--the
contract beer. These brews are private
brands brewed to the specifications of the
designer but made in a brewery that has
capacity to spare.
Samuel Adams Boston Lager was the
first contract beer, and it made a big splash.
Many micro brewers bristled at a brew made
hundreds of miles away yet marketed to
compete as a local brand. One microbrewer
went so far as to hang a sign proclaiming
"real brewery" by their display at the 1985
festival. But Sam Adams took first place in
the consumer preference poll that year,
leading to their slogan, "The Best Beer in
America." The voting by festival-goers was
questioned by some brewers who wondered
whether the public was voting on the quality
of beer or the enthusiasm of marketing
campaigns.
By 1987 the event reached maturity,
paralleling the industry as a whole. With
the help of 180 volunteer servers, 61 brew-
eries offered 120 different beers to 4,500
attendees. The professional panel tasting
by professional brewers and taste panelists
from around the world was implemented to
judge beers in 12 categories, a process that
took more than 15 hours. The beers contin-
ued to get better and many formerly
"obscure" styles reached and tanta-
lized the beer-drinking public each
year.
"The beers at the Great Ameri-
can Beer Festival have been changing
in two dimensions," said Bradford.
"They have been growing cleaner and
more consistent without sacrificing
character. The beers are much better
brewed, and there's now a huge prolif-
eration of stylistic variety-the most
exciting aspect of the revolution."
Examples of expansion of varieties
are the resurgence of barley wines,
altbiers, wheat beers and fruit beers,
which were almost unheard of during
the festival's first years.
The growth in number of brew-
ers, beers, beer quality and variety
continued steadily through 1990,
which saw 6,200 festival-goers enjoy-
ing 481 beers-nearly 200 on draft-
from 150 breweries. Twenty pro-
fessional judges picked winners in 23
categories, and the consumer prefer-
ence poll was dropped, Bradford said,
because it had been eclipsed by the
increasing recognition of the profes-
sional panel tasting.
Even more unique varieties such
as pumpkin ale and chili pepper beer
were presented, and the quality was
uniformly high. Beer storage, trans-
portation and tapping systems grew
in scope to meet the demands of serv-
ing nearly 500 beers. The 200 draft
beers (a dramatic increase over previ-
ous years) presented logistical prob-
lems that were solved by using an
innovative tapping system employing
livestock troughs to hold kegs and ice.
C0
2
tanks were located at the end of
each row of kegs.
1991 marks the lOth annual
Great American Beer Festival. The
number of beers, brewers and beer
lovers should continue to grow. This
year's AHA Homebrewer of the Year
will win a trip to the festival for two
days of foam and fun, and beer lovers
from all over the world will again con-
gregate to taste the best that Ameri-
can brewers have to offer. The
opportunities to quaff fine beer and
meet the people who made it are wait-
ing for you in Denver! The 1990 Great
American Beer Festival will be Oct. 4
and 5 at the Denver Merchandise
Mart. Contact the Association of
Brewers for more information. @)
Retailers
Handbook
How to Succeed as a
Homebrew Supplier
Pricing, Promotion,
Questionnaires,
Direct Mail, Inventory,
Advertising,
and much more!
The Very Best for
Your Success
8 1/2 x 11, 147 pp., softcover
$50.00 (AHA members $35.00)
Plus $4.00 domestic P & H.
Brewers Publications
PO Box 287, Boulder, CO 80306-0287
(303) 447-0816, FAX (303) 447-2825
ermentations
Advice (707) 544-2520
santa R 0 sa Catalogs and Mail Orders (800) 544-1867
Our nationa{ awara winning staff brings you
a {eve{ of ezyertise unmatchea anywhere efse.
We woura {il(g_ to taki this opportunity to
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1990 J-{"WB'8'1. :7\(gtiona{ Champion ana runner up 'Best
of Sfww at the 1990 J'lJ-01. :1\[ationafs.
840 Piner Road, #14 Santa Rosa, CA 95403 (707) 544-2520
SUMMER 1991 ZYMURGY 25
Don't You I<now
There's a War Going On(
The following article is based on
personal recollections of the early
years of World War II from a home-
brewer's perspective. The insight
into rationed supplies is what caught
the zymurgy staffs attention. The
current movement
mahes rationing a concept worth un-
derstanding. Imagine the plight of
our hobby if freedom to make or
consume beer is tampered with. We
suggest you read this article and
substitute the word "Prohibition" for
"wartime."
few years ago, public
television aired 'We'll
Meet Again," a British
series that dramatized
the relationships that
sprang up during World War II be-
tween the people in a small English
town and the American fliers at a
newly established bomber base. In
one scene a recently arrived Ameri-
can officer asks the town tobacconist
for a favorite cigar that was long un-
GEORGE A. O'BRIEN
26 SUMMER 1991 ZYMURGY
available in England. He is tartly
scolded with,
11
Don't you know
there's a war on?"
Hearing that old cliche brought
back many memories. It was used
everywhere to remind people that,
because of the war, the good things
oflife were in very short supply, if
indeed they were available at all.
Scarcities and suffering on the home
front were burdens to be borne cou-
rageously and quietly by all "for the
duration."
In those days imported and, to a
great extent, domestic luxuries were
things of the past. One made do
with what one had before the war,
scrounged the best one could or
traded on the black market for the
few treats that still remained. In
America, for example, a bottle of re-
ally good prewar whiskey was worth
a king's ransom, and even nice girls
would do anything, just anything,
for a pair of nylon stockings. Else-
where in this bombed-out, war-torn
world, American cigarettes and
chewing gum were the common cur-
rency, traded for every sort of favor,
service and goods.
That's how it was in a global
war.
Rationing being what it was,
commercial breweries of the day
strained to get all they could out of
each pound of malt, cereal or sugar.
The result was the watery beverage
known as "3.2 beer," despised by all
but refused by few. Contemporary
memories of an even worse product,
Prohibition-style homebrew, plus the
dearness of strictly rationed sugar
and malt syrup stayed Americans
from doing anything other than
grumble about it. As a matter of
fact, this tacit acceptance of 3.2 beer
set the stage for the long history of
second-rate American brews that
pretty much continues to this day.
But so much for yesteryear and
memories of wartime austerity.
Times have turned and today we see
luxuries begging, commodities ga-
lore, competitive prices, well-stocked
liquor stores and choosy women.
Our cups runneth over. But the
pendulum swings both ways: from
today's abundance to tomorrow's
scarcity, and from scarcity back to
abundance again in a never-ending
cycle. Which brings us to our point.
What would a civilian home
beermaker in grim times wish to
have stored earlier to relieve misery
now? What would one wish to have
known "if one had only known
11
?
First, let's examine the
wretched condition of a civilian in
wartime.
Imports of all things have al-
most ceased, as international trade
dwindles to the vanishing point.
Many domestic commodities are ra-
tioned, some even expropriated in
toto because of the "national emer-
gency." Luxuries have disappeared
into hoards held by black market
"profiteers." Prices are controlled,
but nothing is available at those
prices. Necessities are poorly made
and of shoddy materials because the
best labor and materials are only
available on government allocations.
Gray markets appear, offering ex-
pensive but worthless substitutes for
the real thing. Recycling is obliga-
tory; scrap drives are a national ma-
nia.
41
Tie-in sales" abound, i.e., one
awful item and one so-so item for the
price of two good ones, and no good
ones are to be found. Few new re-
placement parts are available to re-
pair old machinery;
ment is cannibalized to keep other
equipment running. And
the answer to all appeals for relief
is, always,
"Don't you know there's a war
on?"
An amateur beermaker who
wants to survive these conditions
has to think a long way ahead. One
should anticipate the following spe-
cific problems. Imported goods of
any kind will be unavailable without
a government priority. Domestic
malt will be sold only to commercial
breweries with top priority, and
even they will have to stretch their
supply to the limit. There will be no
sharing: amateurs will receive only
malts that are stale, inferior or mis-
malted. The same applies to domes-
tic hops. Imported hops? Forget it.
Imported malt extracts? Same an-
swer.
Special yeasts in small packages
will be another casualty, but prewar
supplies can be eked out quite a dis-
tance, first with refrigeration and
freezing, then as supplies disappear,
with agar slant cultures.
General public demand for lim-
ited supplies of sugar will put this
food on a strictly rationed basis.
Corn sweeteners will supplant im-
ported cane sugar wherever they
can, but even this will not be enough
to decontrol it. Artificial sweeteners
will become the "patriotic'' thing to
use, especially in soft drinks.
To fund the national effort,
taxes on all spirits will be raised to
unheard oflevels. This will put the
moonshiners back in business and
quickly exhaust gray market sup-
plies of all fermentables. In the en-
forcement hysteria that follows,
unsympathetic authorities will de-
mand that homebrewers justify or
even cease their "illegal production
of alcoholic beverages." Keep in
mind that wartime civil rights are
not the same as peacetime civil
rights. So, keep a low profile.
All energy will be rationed so
fuel used for mashing and brewing
and the electricity for refrigeration
will be tight. So will the distilled
water preferred by some
brewers.
Returnable glass bottles will
make a comeback because the metal
in cans will be needed for the war ef-
fort and plastic throwaways will be
considered wasteful of scarce
sources. As a result, crown caps will
be in fair supply, but, as in the case
of malt grain, the quality will not be
the best.
Special additives: nutrients,
heading powder, gypsum, finings,
etc., will have to be acquired by the
beermaker before they disappear en-
tirely from the supplier's shelves.
Likewise, good equipment will disap-
pear and improvised set-ups will in-
evitably become the rule. Chlorine
bleach sanitizer will continue to be
available, but sulfites and meta-
bisulfites will be hard to obtain.
Copper, stainless steel, brass
and tin, all metals used in ordnance
as well as in brewing equipment,
will be snapped up the moment
there's a hint of shortages. When
the emergency actually arrives, all
commercial stocks of these metals
will be expropriated for government
allocations. Manufactured items
made of these metals may also be ex-
propriated for military use. Other
metals and plastics will be hard to
find in the forms desired; manpower
and materials will not be provided to
supply substitutes for low-priority
uses. Patriotic scrap drives will
quickly absorb the bits and pieces of
these materials that remain in the
public's hands. And on and on.
Things are tough all over:
"Don't you know there's a war
on?"
What should a prudent, far-
sighted homebrewer who wants to
continue making beer do to antici-
pate this scenario when one sees it
coming? Here are a few long and
short-range suggestions.
Cultivate one or more sympa-
thetic growers of barley or grow your
own as an experiment. Learn to
malt brewing cereals of the kinds
that can be grown locally and adapt
these malts to your own process and
equipment before things get grim.
SUMMER 1991 ZYMURGY 27
EDME
Malt Products
For convenient beer making
Rich tasting, economical
Plant hop vines and learn their ways
and how to nurture and preserve
them. Look into natural hop substi-
tutes. Learn to cultivate and pre-
serve brewing yeasts and agar
slants. Learn to lager without re-
frigeration using cool caves and har-
vest ice, for example. Learn
something of the science of grain
storage and fumigation. Get a grain
mill and learn how to brew from
scratch. Obtain a standby wood
stove and line up a source of fire-
wood for mashing and brewing, fore-
seeing that the use of metered fuels
such as propane, gasoline, natural
gas and electricity will be sharply re-
stricted in wartime.
Complete line of whole-
sale winemaking and
beermaking supplies.
~ I Vineyards, Inc.
i'- L
It's just plain Robinson Crusoe
brewing. You get the idea.
And anticipate that, as things
get worse, your homebrew supplier
may be drafted or perhaps go out of
business for lack of items to sell.
30311 Clemens Drive
Westlake, Ohio 44145
(800) 628-6115
Buy while supplies are still rela-
tively cheap and abundant. At all
costs, avoid calling attention to such
purchases; nasty things happen to
hoarders whose stashes are revealed
later when shortages are universal,
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28 SUMMER 1991 ZYMURGY
and people are desperate. Generally
avoid keeping perishables such as
loose hops, enzymes and liquid
yeasts for long periods. Hop extracts
keep better than pellets (except for
manufacturer-packed pellets). Dry
malt extracts keep better than syr-
ups. So the combination, hopped dry
malt extract, has to be the last word
in bomb-shelter brewing.
Properly stored stocks of com-
mercially malted grains will prove to
be a boon in times of shortage, but
buy in ample time to lay them away
properly. It goes without saying
that an efficient and sturdy grain
mill, and perhaps spare parts, will
be needed to make the grist.
One does not live on liquid
bread alone. A good supply should
include the following items, in por-
tions that will allow for opportune
gifts and barter, along with the occa-
sional personal indulgence. Buy
only the recognized top brands;
lesser or unknown brands will be
scorned as wartime junk. Store im-
ported products such as coffee, tea,
woolen clothing, Scotch whiskey,
canned beef, chocolate, sardines, se-
lected spices and olive oil. And do-
mestic products such as sugar, soap,
tires, stout shoes, automobiles, ap-
pliances, cooking fats and oils, etc.
It's not a complete list but it's ad-
equate for one's own comfort and it
will let you barter for what you lack
when it comes to that.
If you can afford it, convert
your home brewery from porcelain
enamel and plastic to stainless steel
or copper. That way you will never
have to worry how to replace a
chipped kettle or a cracked or
melted primary when all such
equipment has long since "gone to
war." As insurance against a crown
Cap or bottle shortage, consider in-
vesting in a draft system. In the
event of hostilities, inexpensive im-
ported systems made of plastic will
disappear quickly; costlier domestic
stainless-steel systems, new and
used, will be snapped up by soft
drink companies. So, plan well
ahead. And if you decide to adopt
such a system, establish a reliable
source for C0
2
refills or otherwise
provide a suitable method for draft
pressures.
If you use water purification
and filtering setups, stock up with
supplies and repair parts while they
are still readily available. The same
applies to beer filters and supplies.
Acquaint yourself with fellow
beermakers and join a homebrewers'
network to help one another obtain
or exchange scarce supplies and
equipment. It will also establish a
discreet and grateful outlet for your
own brewing supplies if you yourself
are drafted and must abandon
beermaking for the duration.
Be aware that, in times of na-
tional emergency and shortages,
having too much of a good thing on
hand can lead one into a good deal of
trouble. Very early in the emer-
gency, the authorities will demand
that everyone declare their stocks of
certain scarce items; tour ration
books, when issued, will be reduced
by the amounts that you have de-
clared. "It's only fair," they'll say.
Fines and confiscation will result
when undeclared hoards are discov-
ered later. But discovery depends
mostly on reports from jealous
neighbors. So keep your supplies ob-
scure, your attitude cooperative and
your mouth shut.
After all the bells have rung and
the Champagne has been poured,
wait until the pipelines are full of
good supplies and equipment again
before relaxing your austere war-
time beermaking methods. It may
surprise you how long it takes to get
just what you need at a reasonable
price and how long it takes for the
authorities to remove wartime
controls.
And when good times and
plenty do return-they always do-
you'll look back in amusement at all
the subterfuges of the dark days
past, have a worry-free homebrew
and breathe a wish that you never
again hear that awful charge,
"Don't you know there's a war
on?
George O'Brien has been
active in home beermaking and
winemaking since 1976 and is
the owner of O'Brien's Cellar
Supplies of Wayne, Ill. This ar-
ticle is based on his combined
experiences in the business and
on the home front during World
WariL
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SUMMER 1991 ZYMURGY 29
Pilsner U rquell: The Brewery
Uncovering the Unusual
lzensky Prazdroj is the
Czech name for the brew-
ery we know as Pilsner
Urquell, which is a Ger-
man name meaning
Pilsen's Original Spring. (Everything
in this part of Czechoslovakia seems to
have both Czech and German names,
reflecting the torn history of the cross-
roads of Central Europe.) Pilsener, of
course, also is the name of a style that
includes a broad spectrum, but in this
town the style was born in the middle
of the last century.
The classic Pilsener style is a pale
golden beer with a medium level of
alcohol and a full white, pilloWY head.
It is distinguished by its spicy hop
aroma backed by a solid malt founda-
tion. There is enough sweetness to be
DARRYL RICHMAN
30 SUMMER 1991 ZYMURGY
just noticeable. The beer has a soft
character to it because of the extremely
low mineral content in the water used
to make it. The aftertaste is balanced
and lingering. Behind the hops and
malt are a variety of subtle flavors
that play just above the sensory
threshold to keep the taster interested,
including a bit of caramel. These are
likely brought on by the long and com-
plex process the brewery goes through
to produce this classic beer.
The Traveling Fool
Long before starting my journey
through Europe, I asked Michael
Jackson at the 1990 National Confer-
ence how I might gain entrance to
Pilsner Urquell. He suggested the
name of a brewmaster, to whom I
immediately wrote. It was with great
anticipation that, three weeks later, I
held a reply on official green, yellow
and red letterhead informing me to
phone when I arrived in Prague to
arrange for my tour. I was in! What
could be simpler?
Two months later when I arrived
in Prague, I made my way to the cen-
tral post office to telephone the brew-
ery. It was difficult to communicate
by voice alone because I don't speak
Czech. But I did manage to make
myself understood. My tour was ten-
tatively set for the following day.
Upon my arrival in Plzeil I had to
find the brewery. Because I had been
too stupid to ask for directions the day
before, this meant that I was in for an
encounter of the worst kind-a visit
to Cedok. Cedok is the national tour-
ist agency, and their offices are full of
mouldering tourists who have been
ignored to death. Naturally, Murphy
was my copilot and I had the most
unnatural experience-the agent to
whom I spoke wanted to help me. Al-
though I merely wanted a map and
directions to the brewery, I found that
I might be able to get on a tour
scheduled later that day and that there
was no way I could see the brewery
without their aid and so on. I did
manage to get the map.
After navigating Plzeil's streets I
found the brewery entrance. Here I
had a discussion with the guard about
whether the date on my letter ofintro-
duction indicated when it was written
or when I could visit. I got in anyway.
This left me loose in the com-
pound of the fountainhead of lagers
with vague directions about where I
might find the brewmaster's quarters.
This led me to a building with the
encouraging sign "Laboratot' so I
parked and asked the first person who
walked out if this was the right place.
Little did I know that I had run into
just the right man: J aroslav Rous,
brewmaster. It soon turned out that
the brewmaster I had spoken to was
not available that day, and my visit
was not expected officially.
I was soon in a room with I vo
Hlavacek, the former general
manager of the brewery. After a
few polite questions probing my
interest and purpose, it was
agreed that I would get
Brewmaster Jaroslav Rous as a
guide! 0 frabjous day! Callooh!
Callay!
Brewmaster Rous and the author In front of
tho old brewhouse. Tho newer brewhouse Is
In the background.
History
We then settled down to a cup of
espresso while I learned that Plzeilhas
long been a brewing center. Brewing
was performed in each house on a
small scale. House breweries are re-
corded back to the 13th century, when
the citizens ofPlzei'iformed a brewing
union. This guaranteed the rights of
those in the union to produce beer-
and naturally made it illegal for oth-
ers.
The Pilsner Urquell brewery was
built in 1842, at about the same time as
the Schwechat Brewery of Vienna and
Carlsberg in Copenhagen. These sister
breweries all began using Munich's
pure lager yeast, spreading the lager
brewing concept across Europe.
Right from the start, Pilsner
Urquell was a smash hit. First in
Prague, and by 1848 spreading out to
Germany and Austria. Sagely, the
name was trademarked in 1859, thus
protecting it from marauding robber
barons. The first exports to the United
States occurred in 1871, and by 1913
Pilsner Urquell output reached one
million hl (over 850,000 barrels) of
beer. At this point it was the largest
brewery in Central Europe.
However, neither the war nor the
ensuing peace was good for Pilsner
Urquell. Although independent
Czechoslovakia was formed in 1918
by the merger of Bohemia, Moravia
and parts of Silesia and Slovakia, it
followed the rest of Europe into the
tailspin of the depression. It was only
after the end of the second world war
that the brewery was redeveloped.
Today Pilsner Urquell produces over
1.2 million hl (over a million barrels).
Of their output, an amazing 60 per-
cent is draft.
Raw Materials
Plzeii is ideally suited as a brew-
ing town because of its close proxim-
ity to the hop and barley-growing
regions, as well as its fine water. It
seems to the tourist driving across the
countryside that whatever open land
isn't covered with hop trellises is
growing barley.
The fine summer barley grown
across Bohemia and Moravia (the
southern third of the country) is soine
of the most coveted malting barley in
Europe. Without such a pale-colored
barley malt, the triple decoction and
long boil at Pilsner Urquell would
surely produce a much darker beer.
The unparalleled Zatec red hops
(in German, Saaz, pronounced "zotz")
are world renowned. Small hop farms
dot the countryside with their tall
posts supporting heavy ropes 15 or 20
feet overhead. The spicy aroma of
Saaz is unmatched, and because they
are used exclusively in Pilsner
Urquell's beer, they are a major
taste and aroma component. (!
was, unfortunately, unable to
verify the rumor that Saaz ob-
! tain their almost mystical prop-
erties from being compressed
between the legs of young Czech
virgins.)
Pilsner Urquell's brewing li-
quor comes from a spring Cur-
quell, remember) or from the city's
mains. In either case, the water is
very soft (although the brewery must
settle and treat the city water to match
the spring water), and it has about 70
ppm hardness as calcium carbonate.
After boiling, most of this temporary
hardness drops out, leaving very little
mineral content. This is important
because it means there is little buffer-
ing capacity to resist acidification. It
also means that flavor characteristics
like hop bitterness are not distorted
and amplified, which is one reason
Pilsner Urquell is such an uncom-
monly smooth beer in spite of its high
bittering levels.
The Maltster's Tale
The Pilsner Urquell grounds in-
clude two malting works, run as a
separate company. But the close
proximity of their largest customer
and the fact that malt works and
brewery were arms of the same "hold-
ing company" under the Communist
system mean that the maltings are
dedicated to producing what Pilsner
Urquell specifies. They also supply
malt to many of the other breweries.
Rous insisted that Pilsner Urquell gets
their best product, however. There is
a new, larger maltings two km away,
which was built in 1988 and opened in
1989.
We walked over to the nearest
SUMMER 1991 ZVMURGY 31
Steeping
West Bohemian
2-Row Barley
21 hours
21 hours
4 hours
20 hours
@80'C
Malting stages at Pllsnor Urquo/1.
malt house to see how they work. Cu-
riously, Rous did not know a great
deal about the maltings-he had to
get a guide for both of us. He ex-
plained that he is in charge of the
brewing activities (and previously had
run the fermentation cellars) but the
brewmasters and the maltsters don't
get together much.
The Process
The Pilsner Urquell maltings are
based on a gravity system not unlike
that used in brew houses. The barley
comes into the plant and goes into a
storage silo. From there it is cleaned
of dirt and foreigu seeds, and brought
to the top of the six-story building
where it goes into the first of a series
of steep tanks.
The steep tanks provide the envi-
ronment for the barley to wake up
and grow. Barley has a natural dor-
mancy that must be overcome before
it will germinate. Barley has evolved
this mechanism to preserve the seed
through the harsh winter and into the
next spring. The steeping process is
repeated three times to stimulate the
seed to germinate. Each steeping
takes about 21 hours.
Finally, after four days the now-
germinating barley ends up in a ger-
32 SUMMER 1991 ZVMURGY
mination bed. This is a long, shallow
rectangular frame that holds the bar-
ley as it grows to its final stage before
kilning.
There is a cross-member that runs
over the short dimension and is mo-
torized so it can proceed from one end
of the frame to the other. On this
member are a series of screws that
slowly turn, lifting and separating the
germinating grain so the rootlets will
not grow together and form an impen-
etrable mass. This also aids airflow
through the bed, which is held at 60
degrees F (15.5 degrees C) and 4 7
percent moisture.
The barley is carefully watched
until the acrospire, or growing tip of
the barley plant, reaches two-thirds
to three-quarters of the way around
the seed. At this point, after about
seven days, the barley is sufficiently
modified and the germinated plant-
lets are moved off to the kilns. For
comparison, in English malt the
acrospire is usually allowed to grow
all the way to the top of the seed; most
two-row malt is allowed to reach the
three-quarter point before germina-
tion is stopped.
The malt produced has a color of
3.8 to 4.0 EBC (about 1.9 to 2.0'
Lovibond), which is pale indeed, but
not as pale as most six-row
1
or even
two-row malts in this country. In
fact, this is verynearthe figure quoted
Cooling
protein number is a figure of merit
with respect to the amount of adjuncts
that can be added to the mash without
affecting yeast health and can also in-
dicate potential haze and heading
problems.
So ended our tour of the malt
house. As we begen to walk the few
blocks back to the brew house to see
how this carefully created malt is used,
it began to drizzle, and because I had
left my umbrella in the car, my notes,
which I was still furiously scribbling,
started to run.
Brewing
Pilsner Urquell has had its ups
and downs through the years. Rather
than replacing one system with an-
other as the demand required, they
have taken the unusual approach of
adding more systems ofthe same type.
This would be akin to buying a new
five-gallon pot and stove each time a
homebrewerwanted to expand output,
rather than upgrading to one that
handles 10 gallons.
This is terrible from an efficiency
standpoint. It requires more staff to
clean and maintain each vessel. There
are greater losses per volume of prod-
uct, through heating, cooling and
cleaning. (Pilsner Urquell uses 20 L
of water to make one L of beer, which
is a verypoorrate; average breweries
Lagering
achieve about 8 to 1.)
It also requires more
building space. From
a financial standpoint
1
this doesn't make
sense.
Rous explained that
past brewmasters
have felt that scaling
up by replacing the
equipment would alter
the character of beer.
He went on to say that
because the beer's
unique character ac-
Tho Pilsnel' Ul'que/1 fe,.montatlon pi'Ocess.
counted for growth,
this is what should be
for English pale malt. This is one
reason that Pilsner Urquell is not as
light in color as American or even
many continental lagers.
The malt ends up with 11.5 per-
cent protein
1
on average. This is low
compared to American crops
1
which
tend toward 12.5 to 14 percent. The
preserved when building up. This phi-
losophy has been carried through all
aspects of production where a change
would alter the beer.
Overview of Techniques
In quick preface, Pilsner Urquell
is brewed only with pale malt in a
triple decoction mash. The Saaz hops
are added in three charges over the
course of a four-hour boil. The entire
process requires an incredible 11 hours
and 20 minutes. They do 11 brews a
week.
Mashing and boiling occur in pairs
of copper vessels, each holding 150 to
170 hl. They have 20 sets of these
kettles in two brew houses. In the off-
season they only use 10, but as sum-
mer advances, 16 or more may be in
action. In a set, one is directly fired by
natural gas; the other is an unheated
mash-lauter-tun.
Decoction Process
Most breweries in the United
States mash using the step infusion
process. In this approach, the crushed
malt is mixed with heated water and
each new temperature plateau, or rest,
is attained by heating the entire mash.
Pilsner Urquell uses the decoction
process where a portion of the mash is
drawn off and boiled, then returned to
the mash to gain each successive rest.
If you have read Brewing Lager
Beer by Greg Noonan, you are prob-
ably aware that decoction mashing gets
a better extract than step infusion.
This is because the high heat and
physical activity in boiling break down
all the remaining intact protein matrix
in the malt, allowing the starch-reduc-
ing enzymes to reach all of the starch.
The decoction at Pilsner Urquell
begins when the crushed malt is
doughed in with cold water, enough to
produce a smooth paste and prevent
subsequent clumping. Then boiling
water is added to reach the first rest
of97 degrees F (36 degrees C). This is
an acidifying rest, and also provides
some time for the enzymes and free
starch to go into solution. After a few
minutes' rest, the thickest portion of
the mash is transferred to the kettle.
Here the decoct is brought to a
boil, but not until it goes through a
standard step-infusion-like series of
rests. As each rest is obtained, it
loosens more starch from the grip of
the matrix and provides the enzymes
present the opportunity to act on it.
The first step is to 126 degrees F
(52 degrees C)-a protein rest. At
this point, larger proteins are de-
graded to smaller ones, which are
useful for yeast metabolism and head
retention. This lasts 10 minutes, and
then the heat is applied again. The
kettles in use can achieve about 2
degrees F (1 degree C) per minute
rise, so it takes a further 10 minutes
to reach the next step.
At 144 degrees F (62 degrees C),
the b-amylase enzyme begins to be-
come active. This enzyme slowly de-
grades starch directly into maltose. The
rest is for 20 minutes. Then the flame
is turned up again. At about 159 de-
grees F (70 degrees C ), a further 20-
minute rest is conducted while the a-
amylase enzyme takes over. This en-
zyme can break down starch more
rapidly than b-amy!ase, but not all of
the sugars that result are fermentable.
Finally, the mash is raised to a
boil and held for 10 minutes. Then
the decoct is transfened back into the
mash-tun, where it is mixed vigor-
ously with the thinner portion.
The first decoction raises the en-
tire mash to 126 degrees F (52 degrees
C). The remainingtwo decoctions raise
the whole mash to 144 degrees F (62
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SUMMER 1991 ZYMURGY 33
A Must for the Serious Brewer!
PRINCIPLES OF
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PRINCIPlES
by
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Q: BREWING
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degrees C) and then 158 degrees F (70
degrees C)-the same steps that the
decoct undergoes in the boiling kettle.
After the last rest is achieved, the
mash is held until an iodine test indi-
cates that no starch remains.
The tun has a false bottom made
from slotted stainless steel. The wort
is recirculated from underneath the
bottom back on top of the malt until it
runs clear. The clarity is checked at
the grant, which provides the control
34 SUMMER 1991 ZYMURGY
to direct the wort back to the lauter-
tun or on to the kettle.
During the long boil, a tremen
dous amount of liquid is evaporated.
In order to support such a loss, a great
deal of wort must be collected. This
might cause concern, because the pH
will rise as sparging progresses-
usually. However, because the water
is so soft and unbuffered, even a small
amount of wort can maintain a low
pH.
Boiling
The boil lasts four hours. This
sterilizes the wort, converts the alpha
acids to their isomerized counterparts
and precipitates excess proteins and
tannins. Of course, these are things
that any brewer hopes to achieve
during more moderate boiling. It also
concentrates and, to some extent,
caramelizes the wort, adding nuances
of flavor and aroma.
The hops used are Saaz and
flowers only, not pellets or-heavens
forbid-extracts. The beer is bittered
at the rate of 400 g per hectoliter,
which works out to roughly two and
one-half ounces per five gallons. They
are added in thirds, the first at the
beginning of the boil, the second at
the half-way point and the final third
half an hour before the end. This
means that most of the hops are pro
viding bitterness, with only a small
amount contributing to flavor and
aroma. And, with such a long boil, the
maximum possible isomerization oc-
curs, so this is an extremely high hop-
ping rate.
The long boil and high physical
quantities of hops help to remove the
large proteins that otherwise enhance
staling in the finished beer. The boil
physically pushes these proteins into
each ather and into the tannins,
accreting big floes that fall out as hot
break.
Cooling
Once the boil is complete, the w01t
is pumped next door to the coolship
room. Coolships are large, shallow
pans. Pilsner Urquell has a building
dedicated to them. There are two huge
pans, no more than half a meter deep.
There are large louvered windows on
m;>.e long wall, and when the wort is
cooling a great deal of steam is given
off, which escapes through the louvers.
While in the coolships, the beer
loses a lot of trub through settling. It
also gains 8 to 10 ppm oxygen, which
will be required for the proper growth
of the yeast. The bittered wort is al-
lowed to cool from 206 degrees F (95
degrees C) down to 122 to 140 degrees
F (50 to 60 degrees C) over the course
of four hours.
This is just the point where other
invading organisms might start to get
a foothold in the wort, so it is pumped
from the coolships through a plate
and frame counterflow cooler to bring
it down to the pitching temperature of
41 degrees F (5 degrees C). From this
point the beer goes underground,
where Pilsner Urquell has miles of
underground tunnels. It's quite eerie
in those cold, cold tunnels, where it
always rains.
Yeast
As brewers we know how imporM
tant yeast is. It is the
11
ingredient" that
can most quickly go bad. Pilsner
Urquell, dating back as it does to be-
fore the dawn of true understanding of
yeast, has developed a robust system
for handling yeast that does not
rely on modern equipment.
healthy yeast will settle to the bottom
and the lighter material-dead cells,
bacteria-stay in suspension. Then
the pot is tilted and out goes the bath
water.
What is fascinating about the
yeast used at Pilsner Urquell is that
they actually have three strains. Rous
told me they are very similar and are
used to check for mutations. He be-
lieves he can detect differences be-
tween them, but they are very subtle.
Having been in charge of fermenta-
tion, I think he should know.
The different strains are kept
separate during the growing and fer-
mentation phases. They are grouped
by strain in the yeast room pots. This
is different from English breweries
Pilsner Urquell uses 0.4 L
of yeast slurry for each hecto-
liter ofbeer. (This is equivalent
to pitching about two ounces of
yeast paste in a five-gallon
batch-and this is why home-
brewers ought to make a
starter for liquid yeast prod-
ucts!) The yeast doubles three
to four times
tion. The yeast is grown in a
laboratory and then brought
up to pitching quantities. It
ferments the beer and is then
collected from the primary fer-
menter. After use in five beers
Primary fermentation In oak barrels.
it is discarded. This approach limits
the amount of contaminating organ-
isms that can grow in the beer. Be-
cause the yeast never gets above about
50 degrees F (10 degrees C), invaders
grow very slowly indeed.
Between fermentations the har-
vested yeast is cleaned. It is first
brought into cooled, open-top steel
tanks that look like sinks, where dis-
tilled water is added and the slurry is
vibrated. This separates it into lay-
ers, and the yeast layer is brought
into a holding pot.
The holding pots-they look like
witches' cauldrons-are mounted by
two arms to the walls of the yeast
room, and they can be tilted with a
handle on the side. The yeast is held
here for one or two days and washed
three times. The washing procedure
begins by adding water to the pot and
using a wooden rake to stir it up for a
minute or two. Eventually, the
that use combination strains of yeast,
like Whitbread, where the proper fer-
mentation depends upon the orches-
trated properties of each.
The truly clever aspect of this
approach is that changes in the yeast
or the overgrowth of some contami-
nant can be detected very quickly with
just a tasting. Although you might
say that by the time you can taste the
difference, a whole batch is ruined,
you'd be wrong. At that point, only
one-third of a batch is off. With sensi-
tive tasters, the contamination can be
detected at the threshold level. When
diluted by the other two-thirds, this
puts the contaminant well under the
threshold. Of course, at this point you
package your beer and throw out the
offending yeast and start again. So it
can be seen that with a minimum of
equipment and simple procedures, a
pure beer of exceptionally high qual-
ity can be maintained.
Primary Fermentation
After brewing, the contents of as
many as 16 separate batches of wort
are cooled and combined. They are
sent to the primary fermentation
rooms, where they are again split up.
Half of the primary fermentation is
carried out in stainless-steel tanks
that resemble shortened bath tubs.
The other half resides in traditional
oak barrels. All are open fermenters.
The two portions of the primary are
each split into three for the different
yeast strains.
Pilsner Urquell has 60,000 hi of
primary space, from 1,100 wood tanks
of 28 hl volume and 200 steel tanks of
150 to 160 hi. All of the fermentation
areas are kept refrigerated to
41 degrees F (5 degrees C), with
salt water lines. The steeltanks
have cold water cooling as well,
which can be acljusted manu-
ally.
The wooden tanks are not
raw inside. They are coated
with "brewer's pitch," which is
a compound made from, among
other things, asphalt. It has a
butterscotch or caramel color
and texture. This is applied by
melting the pitch and pouring
it into the barrel, then rolling
the barrel around until the in-
side is coated.
During the primary fermen
tation, the beer goes from 12 Plato to
4.8 to 5 Plato over 12 days. The
temperature rises by about 2 degrees
F (1 degree C) per day to a peak of
around 48 degrees F (9 degrees C),
then falls back to about 43 degrees F
(6 degrees C).
Lagering
Once the primary fermentation
subsides, the beer is reunited. The
married (remarried?) beer is then
racked into barrels for !agering. These
closed barrels, once filled, are then
lowered into the 9 km of underground
tunnels for 60 days of cold storage.
The use of tunnels for !agering
goes far back in time. The earth acts
as an insulator, and the temperature
does not change from season to sea-
son. The tunnels are refrigerated to
34 degrees F (1 degree C).
Because the tunnels are effectively
SUMMER 1991 ZYMURGY 35
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than ever in combination with a
traditionally styled 16 oz. amber
bottle for the home brewer. The
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North American product designed
to enhance your pride in the brew
it contains.
Contact your local brewing supply
dealer for further information.
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(403) 282-5972
Phone/FAX
36 SUMMER 1991 ZYMURGY
sealed from the outside, water vapor
condenses on the ceiling and walls.
This results in a perpetual rain and a
mist that blots out the sound and visual
details of each tunnel. Once you get off
a main tunnel, it is very quiet and cold.
With Rous as my guide, I did not worry,
but the thought passed that, lost in
these tunnels, I might be fodder for
some twisted Jack London story.
The walls are cut from the rock
and whitewashed, but the rails in the
floor really give one the feeling ofbeing
in a beer mine. The tunnels are lit
institution, it is the people who work
there as well. As American industry
has shown so well by bad example,
when the people don't care about their
work the quality suffers. That is
clearly not the case here.
Pilsner Urquell employs about
500 people, of which 150 are women,
most of whom work in the packaging
area. The brewery runs all the time,
with the brew house, cooling and fer-
mentation running three shifts, one
shift in the tunnels and two or three
shifts in packaging.
Although
great upheaval is
going on all
around them,
where many so-
cial institutions
are falling and
shortages of ba-
sic necessities
are creating ten-
sion and strikes,
a there has never
been a strike at
the brewery. The
seemed happy
with bare bulbs,
and they branch
off in all direc-
tions. Looking
down the side tun-
nels as I passed by,
some seemed to be
main corridors,
but most were
short cui-de-
sacs-stacked to
the ceiling with
barrels. It seemed
hard to imagine
workers rolling
the full barrels in,
and heaving them
up into position-
Underground lagerlng tunnels
and busy to my
casual eye. Per-
haps it is the free beer they get, but I
don't think so-the consumption is
similar to what other breweries expe-
rience. The packaging crew even has
its own band. I envision a cross-cul-
tural exchange where the Anchor and
Pilsner Urquell bands get together for
a concert!
then, two months later, taking them
down again .
Packaging and Distribution
After two months in solitary, the
beer is removed to the surface for bot-
tling and kegging. Sixty percent of
the beer goes into kegs. Pilsner
Urquell has just invested in a new
kegging line that can clean, fill and
check a keg a minute.
The cleaning cycle includes an
acid wash (nitric or sulfuric) followed
by caustic, then two water washes
and a drying cycle. Fill levels in kegs
are checked with a gamma ray device.
The beer for bottling is filtered.
After filling and capping, the bottles
are heated in a water bath to pasteur-
ize the beer. Shelf life for bottles must
be at least six months, so pasteuriza-
tion is mandatory. Pilsner Urquell is
not exported to this country in kegs
because the shelf life is not long enough.
They are investigating ways to do this-
let us pray for that day!
The People
Although Pilsner Urquell is an
There are two restaurants on the
grounds. The one Rous took me to is
beautifully adorned and kept, full of
rich wood, glazed tiles and stained
glass, and serving perhaps the finest
beer on earth. Here I learned the Czech
equivalent Nas Dravi! '@'01
Darryl Richman has been
brewing for six years, with time
out to check up on what others
are doing. He is proud to be a
member and newsletter editor of
the world's oldest homebrew
club-the Maltose Falcons. After
his day job as a techno-weenie
and running his garage brewery
(Ye Olde Craftie Foxxe or Der
Schlaue Fuchs Altbrauerei, de-
pending on the style), little time
is left for his wife.
t every BURP meeting
I've attended (not many),
the basic experience
seems to be (besides brew-
tasting) that brewers of
all levels ask each other how they go
about brewing, what results they get
and what they would do differently
next time.
This article documents my evo-
lution as a beginning brewer trying to
improve my brew. This attempt may
demonstrate more than an acceptable
level of chutzpah on my part, but it
did occur to me that the hoary ancients
whose advice normally fills these
pages may very well have forgotten
their early experiments, shrouded as
they are in the mists of time.
I brewed my first batch August
1989, making mea "newbrewer.
11
The
changes in my technique are fresh in
my mind, but I've made enough
batches to see what has helped and
what hasn't. I've got 23 batches under
my belt (literally) now, and have seen
steady improvement in my brew (along
with two abject failures).
Like most new brewers nowadays,
before setting can opener to extract I
bought Charlie Papazian's The Com-
plete Joy of Home Brewing and wore
the sections on beginning brewing to
tatters. Before starting my first batch
I made three decisions: (1) to brew
entirely with malt extract-no sugar
(2) use a glass carboy for a fermenter
and (3) keg the beer rather than bottle
it.
Decision number 3 was made be-
fore I decided to even think seriously
about brewing. Acquiring a spare re-
frigerator made kegging a possibility
and kegging made brewing a possi-
er's Lucl<
bility-my sloth level will not permit
the trouble of bottling!
Decision number 1 was made be-
cause I took Papazian at his word. He
said that every reduction of sugar
'Jacking'' results in better beer, so (ex-
cept for priming) I reduced sugar all
the way to zero.
Decision number 2 was made for
sanitation reasons. I believe that glass
is capable of more thorough sanita-
tion than soft plastic, and I believe
that the tiny hole in the top of a car-
boy will admit fewer of the little bad
guys when the fermenter must be
opened (siphoning, hydrometer sam-
pling) than the yawning gape of a
plastic fermenter with the lid off. So
far, my failures have not resulted from
contamination, so I'll stick with glass.
Batch number 1 was just hopped
extract, water and dried yeast. While
I was exceedingly proud of its
ROB BROOKE
drinkability, it was Jacking in body
and did not produce a very good head.
Specialty grains have rectified that.
With batch number two, I decided
to jump into specialty grains, brewing
a stout recipe (Toad Spit Stout) from
Papazian's book. According to him,
this made me an "intermediate
brewer," but I don't believe his flattery.
The stout turned out well and specialty
grains became a permanent part of
my repertoire, particularly crystal
malt, some of which goes into just
about everything I brew.
Because I was experimenting, for
the next 10 batches or so I used a
rolling pin to crush the grains. Most
of my brewing has been attended by a
sort of sublime calm as the heat or the
yeast does its work, but in crushing
the grain, the language which ema-
nated from the kitchen tended to
blister wallpaper and unsettle my wife.
I have since invested in a grain mill
that has not only saved the wallpaper
and my marriage, but has attracted
brewing friends who ''just happen" to
show up with a few pounds of
uncrushed grain.
A couple of batches later came
the next great discovery-Wyeast
liquid yeast. This had the disadvan-
tage of malting my brewing more ex-
pensive. However, in my opinion the
advantages outweigh the expense.
Using dry yeast, my beer was tasting
uyeasty" and "homebrewish.IJ
("Homebrewish" is no longer a pejo-
rative-but by it I mean the really
untutored efforts I tasted when I was
in college back in the 1950s). The
Wyeast definitely produced a cleaner
brew, and there was another unfore-
seen advantage-the availability of
SUMMER 1991 ZVMURGY 37
different yeast strains. I didn't know
it at the time, but I now believe that
nothing (except perhaps the hops) so
affects the character of a beer as the
yeast strain. With dry yeast, you just
don't have the best to work with.
My next aaaptation came as the
result of zymurgy, (Fal!1989, Vol. 12,
No. 3) in an article on an el cheapo
faucet-mounted charcoal filter. The
filter, it said, would remove the chlo*
rine and other assorted odds and ends
from my water. I bought a Water-Pik
Instapure filter ($20-ish) and mounted
it on the brewery (kitchen) faucet. Of
all the changes I've made, this one
has resulted in the least detectable
change in the quality of my brew. But
it isn't hurting any, so, like crossed
fingers, religion and
I filter all my water.
Also during my
4
'water period" I
got an analysis of my city water from
the treatment plant. This allowed me
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to correct the amounts of gypsum I
should add and to look askance at
such recipes as "Toad Spit Stout,"
which asked for eight teaspoons of
gypsum and resulted in a somewhat
harsh brew.
Serendipity yielded the next
change in process. My friend Buddy
Koolhofhas been brewing with bottled
water that, whether by accident or
design, he kept in the refrigerator.
On a visit during one of his brewing
sessions I noticed that after adding
hot wort to the prechilled water in the
fermenter the mixture was almost cool
enough to pitch the yeast. I had been
accustomed to waiting hours for my
wort to cool enough to pitch.
4
'Bingo,"
said the little birdy, "whatever is get-
ting a good start in the wort during
those cool-down hours, it isn't the yeast
you so carefully selected." So now I
always prechill the water that's going
into the fermenter as close to freezing
as possible without making ice. This
shortens the cool-down by many hours.
This revelation was followed in
short order by the 1989 Special Yeast
zymurgy (Vol.12, No.4) with articles
recommending high pitch rates of ac-
tive yeast. Because I was already
using liquid yeast, rehydration was
not an issue, but I resolved to jump-
start the Wyeast in small amounts of
sterile wort. Now, every six batches
of beer I can (the way Grandma used
to can vegetables) six one-pint canning
jars of wort, each containing about a
cup and a half of wort. I make up the
wort by boiling one pound of light dry
malt extract in 10 cups of water and
canning the stuff according to classic
canning directions, processing for 20
minutes. The resulting jars of wort
are sealed and sterile and will keep
indefinitely.
My brewing timetable typically
is: punch a Wyeast packet to break
the inner seal in the evening two to
three days before brew day. The
packet will usually be bloated and
active by sometime the next day. I
open a room-temperature jar of ster-
ile wort and pitch the Wyeast once it
is well bloated, then screw the two-
piece canning lid back on loosely
enough to allow pressure relief. I
allow the starter to "work" for 36 or
more hours, planning my brewing to
be finished at that time. When
pitched, the cup and a half of starter
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is quite active with a good head of
foam and plenty of bubbling action,
The result of this not-very-difficult
process is that I get a good cover of
foam and a healthy start on yeast
activity within hours, not days, from
the time I pitch.
Thinking longer about the cool-
down period and pitching led me to
other considerations. The book says
to pitch when the wort temperature is
in the 70s. My wort, after adding the
''boil" to the prechilled water in the
ferrnenter, was hitting about 85 d e ~
grees F (29.5 degrees C). ''What's the
difference," I asked myself, "whether
I pitch at 82 degrees or 75 degrees F
(28 or 24 degrees C)?"
"Temperature shock!" I answered.
Yeast can live and thrive at 82 degrees
F (28 degrees C), but you don't want to
dump a culture that has been happy
at 65 degrees (or whatever) into a
wort at 82 degrees. What to do? My
goal was to shorten the unpitched cool-
down period as much as possible, but
I didn't want to shock the yeast. The
technique I have evolved is to cool the
wort as rapidly as possible. That
means that, in winter, I put the car
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boy outside to be cooled by the natural
cold. In the more temperate seasons,
I plunk the cooling carboy into my
deep-freeze. I can usually get the
temperature of the wort down into the
low eighties within 30 to 40 minutes.
I should mention a trick that us-
ing a glass carboy allows. I use a
sanitized, long glass thermometer to
measure the wort temperature. By
fitting a half-inch section of clear
plastic tubing onto the thermometer,
it will fit tightly into the pierced rub-
ber stopper normally used on the carM
boy with a fermentation lock and can
be left in place while the wort cools.
Positioned correctly with the bl)lb
submerged in the wort, the tempera-
ture can be read easily through the
glass of the carboy as the cooling
progresses. The carboy should be
shaken every 15 minutes or so during
cooling to mix the co'oler and warmer
portions of the wort.
During this cooling delay I place
the canning jar containing the foamM
ing starter in a tepid water bath to
bring its temperature gradually up to
the temperature of the cooling wort. I
even calibrated my fingers. I discovM
rubber stopper --
clear plastic tubing - ! !
position thermometer
to read here ------
hot wort ___ ::---jt---
ered that when the water tempera-
ture first started feeling faintly warm
to my fingers, it was about 85 degrees
F (29.5 degrees C). Now when I draw
water to
11
condition" a starter prior to
pitching, my fingers tell me when the
temperature is right. It saves a lot of
fumbling with the thermometer.
That's about it to date. I'm still
not satisfied with the clarity of my
beer, so I'm experimenting with fin-
ing agents. I have also been tweaking
my recipes, trying to get the strength
SUMMER 1991 ZYMURGY 39
and the bittering right. I am striving
to get a more assertive aroma from
my finishing hops. I am not far enough
along in these experiments to share
anything definitive, but it is becoming
apparent that, where hops are con-
cerned, fresh is good. Old, tired hops
that have been in the freezer (or on
the shelf) too long do not make as
lively a brew as the fresh stuff.
Green is the answer, I think. If
the hops, either pellets or whole, are
not a vivid green, they may be over
the hill. I am fortunate to have a local
supplier who turns over the stock fast
enough that the hops are always green,
fragrant and obviously fresh. One
mail-order I tried resulted in pellets
that were a sort of dun-brown color
without much fragrance. The beer
made from those hops was bitter
enough, but not outstanding in either
flavor or aroma.
I'm beginning to reach the end of
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40 SUMMER 1991 ZVMURGY
my''brewer's biography." Dealingwith
other brewers in my club and sampling
their brews has Jed me to what I think
is an eternal truth. Ultimately in the
search for brewing excellence, brewers
must first satisfy themselves. If that
satisfaction leads to a brew acceptable
to the world at large, brewers had better
educate their palates. As a new brewer,
I had not experienced the ''pipeline
syndrome"; if you want an unending
supply ofbrew, you have to brew batch
number two long before batch number
one has passed the glottis!
As might have been expected,
batch number one reached fruition
and batch number two wasn't even a
gleam in my eye. I used the hiatus to
buy and sample single bottles of every
good brew, ale or lager, to make notes
of all my swilling. The notes are not of
much use to posterity, but they helped
me concentrate on what I was tasting
and how I liked it. Subsequent
tastings of the same brews have led to
some revisions in my opinions, but
the important thing to my brewing is
that I have established some sort of
target to shoot for. When I miss the
target, I can have some estimate of
what I should revise, and when I hit
pretty close I know that the record
will help me repeat it in the future.
I'll leave with my capsule brewing
philosophy: to make the best beer I
can with the minimum outlay of
capital and time. That means I'll
probably never mash, never bottle and
probably never buy an expensive
chiller or filter. But any small extra
effort I can make that results in an
improved brew-that I'll do! 9
Rob Brooke, born in 1935, lives
in Rockville, Md., a northern sub
urb of Washington, D.C. He is
married with two grown daugh-
ters and has worked as a computer
programmer for 25 years with
ffiM. His extra-curricular inter-
ests are sailing in the Chesapeake
Bay and the Atlantic Ocean, pi
Joting ultralights, building harp
sichords, playing music and
home brewing.
Preceding is the author's revision
of an article that appeared in the May
1990 BURP News, newsletter of the
Brewers United for Real Potables in
Derwood, Md.
Collllterpressure Transfer
Rack Your Beer Without Losing the Fizz
egging your homebrew
is a worthwhile tech-
nique. It's wonderful to
arrive home after work
and draw off a pint of
creamy stout from a faucet in the
kitchen, or to take a keg of your best
kiwifruit-mango ale to a party and
introduce non-brewers to your hobby.
One of the small annoyances of
kegging, though, is sediment. Few
people want to invest the time and
money necessary to filter their home-
brew, and many (me included) lack
extra refrigerator or freezer space in
which to chill kegs down for artificial
carbonation. Therefore, we're stuck
with natural carbonation. It works
fine, but produces a healthy layer of
sediment in the keg. Moving a full
keg more than a few feet stirs up
clouds of sediment that take a day or
two to settle. Drawing off a pint be-
fore moving helps some, but a good
jostle in the car on the way to a party
will still make a crystal-clear Vienna
lager look like a soupy orange
milkshake.
A Simple Solution
Moving your beer off its sediment
to another keg via counterpressure is
DAN FINK
Staff Writer
a quick, easy so-
lution. The beer's
carbonation level
remains intact,
and the receiving
keg is ready to
move with no
sediment. In ad-
dition, the tech-
nique can come in
handy for transferring homebrew or
even commercial beer from awlt.ward
half-barrel kegs into soda kegs for
easy carrying (or for limiting con-
sumption!). It's a snap to fill a friend's
keg with a sample of your brew, and
no quality will be lost in the process.
Finally, if you ferment (either primary
or secondary) in soda kegs, the trans-
fer technique will allow you to rack to
an aging or conditioning tank without
lifting kegs and with no risk of
oxidation.
Principles
The process is quite simple. The
empty receiving keg is flushed of air
and filled with C02 at the same pres-
sure as the beer. C02 pressure then
pushes the beer out of the keg and off
the sediment, and because transfer
pressure is set higher than the natu-
ral pressure in the beer, no carbon-
ation is lost. As pressure in the
receiving keg increases from the in-
coming beer, the excess gas is vented
through a bleed valve. The dip tube
on the originating keg is capped to
avoid sediment intake, and the beer
flows down the dip tube of the receiv-
ing keg to avoid foaming.
How to Build It
The only accessory you'll need to
build is a keg pressure gauge with a
bleed valve (see Illustration 1, next
page). The pressure gauge is avail-
able from any beer or soda keg sup-
plier, and everything else is from the
hardware store. Total cost is less
than $15. When constructing the de-
vice, the only trick is to seal all threads
with Teflon tape or pipe thread com-
pound. Simply apply to the threads
and screw everything together. The
device is handy all through the kegging
process, allowing you to check and
adjust keg pressures quickly and eas-
ily.
Capping the dip tube of the condi-
tioning keg ensures that no sediment
will be transferred to the receiving
SUMMER 1991 ZYMURGY 41
A= soda disconnect to 301/4'
male flare
B = 1/4' female flare to 1/4' female
flare (swivel)
C = 1/4' mate flare to 1/4' male pipe
adapter
D .. 1/4' female pipe tee
E = 1/4' male pipe needle valve
F = 1/4' male pipe pressure gauge
(0-30psl)
Illustration 1. Pressure gauge/bleeder
keg. It's not mandatory, but your
beer will be clearer if you do it. Cut-
ting an inch off the end of tube also
works, but then you'll waste beer the
next time you dispense with that tube.
To make the cap, simply fit a copper
end cap onto a one-inch piece of half-
inch diameter copper tube, and cut
two notches crosswise on the end of
the dip tube to prevent the cap from
being sucked toward the end of the
tube and blocking the outflow of beer.
Slip the cap over the end of the dip
tube before filling the conditioning keg
with beer.
The only remaining step is to as-
semble a jumper tube. It should have
liquid-line disconnects on both ends.
Preparing to Transfer
In preparing to transfer beer,
sanitize your receiving keg and all of
its parts, plus your jumper tube as-
sembly. Rinse well, then reattach all
keg parts and tighten down. Your full
keg of carbonated beer should already
have an end cap on the dip tube, but
don't panic if you forgot that step last
week when you filled it-you'll still
leave a majority of the sediment
behind.
Now, remove the air from your
sanitized receiving keg. Set your
regulator at about 10 psi and attach
the gas hose to the liquid out side of
the keg, then attach your new gauge
assembly to the gas side. Pressurize
the keg, then turn off the gas and vent
the keg with the bleed valve. Repeat
this four or five times and your keg
will have a nearly pure C02 atmos-
phere inside.
Take a pressure reading on your
full keg of beer with your gauge as-
sembly. At 60 degrees F, most keg
beers will be around 15 to 20 psi (2 to
2.25 volumes of C02), though at
higher temperatures your pressure
will be higher, too. Set your regulator
at five to 10 psi more than this read-
ing (so if your beer keg read 20 psi,
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42 SUMMER 1991 ZYMURGY
you'd set your regulator at 25 psi). If
this requires you to exceed 40 psi or
so, play it safe and reduce your regu-
lator pressure down to 30 or wait un-
tillater and cool the keg down more.
If your pressure is that high, you most
likely overprimed, and the slight loss
of carbonation during transfer will
reduce foaming during transfer and
dispensing.
If you are transferring un-
carbonated beer from a fermenter, the
beer's natural pressure is zero, so just
set the regulator at five to 10 psi. In
any case, transferring at more than
10 psi over the natural level can cause
excessive foaming, and I recommend
against it unless you want foam
spraying all over the room out of your
bleed valve.
Let's Do It!
It's time to transfer. Pressurize
your receiving keg to the level you
just set on your regulator, then do the
same to the full keg of beer. Attach
your pressure gauge to the receiving
keg, and connect your jumper tube
between the liquid outputs of the two
kegs. Notice that almost no beer moves
anywhere. That's because the pres-
sure in the two kegs is equal. Crack
open the bleeder valve and release
gas until the receiving keg pressure is
the same as (but not below) the pres-
sure reading you got from the beer
keg (if your reading was 20 psi and
you set your transfer pressure at 25
psi, don't let the pressure in the re-
ceiving keg drop below 20 psi or you'll
lose some carbonation).
As the beer flows, you'll have to
twiddie with the bleeder valve to keep
the flow going. As beer enters the
receiving keg, the pressure in it will
rise, and as it approaches the pressure
set on the regulator, the flow will slow
and eventually stop. With practice,
you'll find a setting on the bleed valve
that keeps the transfer steady and
allows you to do other things while
the transfer takes place. Just don't
allow it to drop below the natural
pressure in the beer.
When the transfer is complete,
shut everything off and clean your
equipment. Your sediment-free, per-
fectly carbonated beer is ready for the
party, so load it up and have a good
time! ~
FoR THE BEGINNER
RUSTY McCRADY
From Haze to Clarity:
Defining the Fining Agents
Fillet of a fenny snake.
In the cauldron boil and bake;
Eye of newt, and toe of frog,
Wool of bat, and tongue of dog ...
-William Shakespeare
(Macbeth, Act IV, Scene 1)
D
ortunately no brew-
master ever tried any-
thing so nasty as these
witches' suggestions, but
would you believe fish in-
nards1 seaweed, clay, powdered plas-
tic and wood chips? In fact, brewers
both professional and amateur have
added some pretty strange things to
their cauldrons to turn that cloudy
wort into clear beer.
As Dave Miller points out in the
Complete Handbook of Home Brew-
ing, while the most common cause of
cloudiness in homemade beer-chill
haze-is a natural result of brewing
and has no effect on taste, ''it drives
him (and many of us otherwise suc-
cessful brewers) up the wall." So it
makes sense for all of us to get famil-
iar with the arsenal of weapons we
have at our disposal that will reduce,
if not completely eliminate, this and
similar phenomena that keep our
beers and ales from looking as perfect
as the ones we see on TV ads.
Some '
1
fining'' or clarifying agents
are extremely easy to use; others are
so tricky and difficult that I must
question their practicality. Therefore,
the menu presented here will run from
the easiest and most practical to the
most difficult, although I'm certain
you'll agree that many of the sub-
stances, including the mast widely
used, fall into the "strange" category.
One clarifier that I have no hesi-
tation about recommending is the cu-
riously named "Irish moss," which is
dried brown seaweed. It is available
in powdered, flaked and whole form.
Powder is the most common, and you
should crush larger chunks before
adding the moss to make sure your
measurements are accurate. Irish
moss is often referred to in Great Brit-
ain as "copper finings" because it is
always added to the traditionally cop-
per brewing kettle during the boil.
Only one-half teaspoon of pow-
dered Irish moss is needed per five-
gallon batch. It's added before the
last 20 minutes of the boil and later
strained out along with the spent hops,
if hops too have been added. Increas-
ing the amount of Irish moss or the
boiling time will not give you
clearer beer! Boiling the moss
more than 20 minutes will de-
grade its effectiveness, and us-
ing more than the recommended
amount can cause a slimy gel in
the brew kettle and possibly in
your fermenter.
How does it work? You
might want to know before you
go adding seaweed to your beer!
As a matter of fact it works
quite well, according to Gordon
Allen-Wardell, an amateur
brewer and apiculture professor
at the University of Maryland.
As he explains it, "the nega-
tively charged starchy polymers
in the Irish moss attract the
positively charged protein
chains in the boiling wort and
sink them to the bottom of the kettle."
Chill haze is caused by suspended
proteins in beer, therefore the less
protein left in suspension the better.
To dispel some of the mystery
behind the use of the various sub-
stances catalogued here, I spoke with
another scientist, Wendy Aaronson of
Brew Masters Homebrew Shop in
Rockville, Md., whose day job is work-
ing as a microbiologist for the Food
and Drug Administration. Aaronson
explains that "A lot of the actions of
fining agents in brew preparation are
based on positive-negative attractions.
They work like magnets, helping to
attract, and then they settle out pro-
teins and yeast."
If we're working with magnets, it
might be wise to use a positively
charged one to go along with the nega-
SUMMER 1991 ZYMURGY 43
tively charged one we have in Irish
moss. Indeed we have our choice
between two: isinglass and common
household gelatin, both of which at-
tract negatively charged proteins and
yeast, according to Allen-Wardell.
Gelatin is the easier of the two to
prepare. One-half teaspoon is dis-
solved in four to six ounces of water
which is heated (but not boiled) and
then added to the beer just after the
gelatin dissolves (at racking or bottling
MARCON
time).
Isinglass, on the other hand, is
less easily dissolved. Charlie Papazian
in The Complete Joy of Home Brewing
recommends preparing it in a weak
acid solution before adding it to the
beer just before racking or bottling.
Very dilute lemon juice-one-half
teaspoon per six ounces of water with
one-half teaspoon of isinglass will clear
a five-gallon batch.
You may have heard that isinglass
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44 SUMMER 1991 ZVMURGY
comes from the swim bladder of a
sturgeon, and this is true. (After all,
caviar is a delicacy, so why not?) How
the shredded swim bladder of a large
fish came to be used to clarify beer
was a mystery to me until explained
by Steve Pards, brewmaster at the
British Brewing Co. in Glen Burnie,
Md., and graduate of Edinburgh Uni-
versity, Scotland. It seems the ancient
Scots used the swim bladders of the
largest fish they could find-stur-
geon-to carry beer around with them
(same idea as a wine skin). Sure
enough, they noticed that the beer
thus packaged was clearer than that
kept in barrels.
Amazing how some great ideas
originate. Now if we only knew who
first got the idea of dumping sea weed
into beer.
Another substance that clears
protein from beer also has origins in
the ancient practices of an island
people, in this case the Polynesians.
The substance is papain, also used in
meat tenderizers, an enzyme from the
fruit and leaves of the papaya plant.
Allen-Wardell explains that papain
breaks down protein in beer. He said
"In the tropics, Polynesians wrap meat
in papaya leaves and bang it with a
mallet. I've seen this done from In-
donesia to Fiji."
Papain is temperature sensitive,
and should be added to the wort or
fermenting beer at room temperature.
It is not nearly as available as the
above fming agents, nor is it as o m ~
monlyused.
Two additional agents that are
used specifically to combat chill haze
are Polyclar and bentonite. The former
is a powdered plastic and the latter is
derived from clay-in fact, it is named
for Fort Benton, Mont., where the clay
was originally found.
For Polyclar, the normal dosage
is one-quarter to one-third ounce per
five gallons ofbeer, though up to one-
quarter cup can be used with ex-
tremely hazy brews. Polyclar does
not affect head retention or mouth
feel, and will actually remove any
browningthatmay have occurred from
oxidation.
When using bentonite alone or in
combination with Polyclar, Dave
Miller suggests adding two ounces of
bentonite to three cups of just-boiled
water and forming a slurry in the
blender. Polyclar, bentonite or a com-
bination of the two should be added
just after fermentation, a few days
before racking or bottling.
Both materials fall to the bottom
of the fermenter along with the at-
tached protein particles and are left
behind at racking. Don't overuse ei-
ther clarifier-small amounts of the
polyphenols they remove are essen-
tial in preventing oxidation of the fin-
ished beer. If you stick with the
recommended amounts, however, you
have nothing to worry about.
I might add from personal experi-
ence that aside from the fact that chill
haze is largely benign, it is also tem-
porary. Two or three weeks of refrig-
eration will make it disappear
magically (the proteins that cause it
finally settle out). Alternatively, rais-
ing the temperature of the refrigera-
tor to around 55 to 60 degrees F (13 to
15.5 degrees C) will usually drive away
the haze.
One new arrival to the finings
lineup is silica gel, the same stuff
that's packed with cameras to keep
them dry. According to Allen-Wardell,
it also "absorbs" (collects) protein par-
ticles in much the same way as does
good old gelatin.
And yes, you could try beechwood
chips. But only if you feel !ike clean-
ing them, rinsing in very hot water,
sterilizing them in your microwave
oven and then repeating the process
every time you use them. There's got
to be an easier way, and the choices
are many, as you've read in the previ-
ous paragraphs.
So there are lots of ways to clear
your beer. But above all, bear in mind
that there is no substitute for sanita-
tion and proper procedures, and there
is nothing you can use to defeat
cloudiness caused by bacterial con-
tamination or wild yeast. Be sure to
do everything right from beginning to
end, whether or not you use any of
these clarifying agents. 9
Rusty McCrady is a high
school teacher and homebrewer,
not always in that order. He made
his first brew 19 years ago from a
recipe calling for Blue Ribbon
malt extract and 20 pounds of cane
sugar. McCrady has been brew
ing steadily since 1982, using much
more rewarding recipes.
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BME WINNERS CIRCLE
First Place and Best of Show "BME Dopplebock"
New York City Invitational, June 3, 1990
First Place "BME Pilsner"
New York City Invitational, June 3, 1990
First Place "BME Weizen Dopplebock"
Southern New England Regional, May 5, 1990
First Place "BME Druk"
New York City Invitational, June 3, 1990
First Place "BME Pilsner"
AHA 12th Annual National Competition, June IS, 1990
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SUMMER 1991 ZVMURGY 45
WINNERS CIRCLE
DAN FINK
ead, that glorious elixir of the gods. Sum-
mer is the perfect time of year to start
building up your stock of that wonderful,
golden honey wine, especially since mead
is not nearly as sensitive as beer to high
fermentation temperatures. In fact, a temperature of 75
degrees F (24 degrees C) during the primary fermentation
will speed things along, helping prevent stuck batches
without producing fuse! alcohols and other off-flavors com-
mon in beers made at higher temperatures.
Mead does take a good long time to ferment and clear,
but there's a solution to that problem, too. Brew a batch a
month all summer long, and by winter you'll be savoring it
in front of a crackling fire as the snowflakes fall, with
plenty left over for the summer to come. If you decide to
attempt the prickly pear cactus mead recipe here, you'll
have to wait until autumn to pick the ripe fruits, but the
final product will be worth the anticipation!
The specialty and fruit beer recipes included here are
quite unique, too-imagine surprising your friends on Hal-
loween with a genuine pumpkin pie beer! All the recipes
won prizes at the 1990 AHA National Competition, so you
can't go wrong, no matter what you choose.
And finally, Brews Brother Jack Hagens' India pale
ale is a wonderful concoction, taking first place in the 1991
Hail to Ale club competition. Be sure to try the recipe that
beat out 42 other club entries from around country, each of
which already had won its own local club competition.
Congratulations, Jack!
SPECIALTY BEIER
Third Place
Sal Pennacchio
Staten Island,
New York
"Punkin Ale No. 3188:
Hold the Cool Whip"
Ingredients for 5 gallons
illustro\loroa by Martin Ho"
4 pounds Munton and Fison lager malt
46 SUMMER 1991 ZYMURGY
4 pounds Munton and Fison pale malt
2 pounds Briess six-row malt
1/2 pound 40L crystal malt
1 whole pumpkin (9 pounds)
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
2 ounces Fuggles hops (90 minutes)
1 ounce Hallertauer hops (90 minutes)
1/2 ounce Fuggles hops (2 minutes)
1 teaspoons salt
2 teaspoons gypsum
Me.V high-temperature liquid ale yeast in a one-
pint starter
1/2 cup brown sugar to prime
Original specific gravity: 1.065
Terminal specific gravity: 1.016
Boiling time: 90 minutes
Primary fermentation: five days at 65 degrees F (18.5
degrees C) in plastic
Secondary fermentation: 14 days at 65 degrees F
(18.5 degrees C) in glass
Age when judged (since bottling): 18 months
Brewer's specifics
Clean and quarter the large pumpkin. Bake for about
30 minutes, strain and puree the pulp in a food processor.
All grains and processed pumpkin were infusion mashed
for 90 minutes at 154 degrees F (68 degrees C).
Judges' comments
"Smells like a pumpkin pie. Nice orange pumpkin
color, long-lasting head. Nice gingery flavor lingers."
"Cinnamon up front and just a little overpowering. I
get the cinnamon right on the tongue with a little pumpkin
flavor. Cinnamon is a little too much. Fine job."
"Head retention like whipped cream! The balance is
excellent (my personal inclination would be to lighten
bitterness by 10 percent). I'm impressed. You did it! You
made a truly balanced pumpkin pie beer! The Pilgrims and
the Great Pumpltin would be very proud of this beer-yeah!"
Second Place
Jeff Andersen
FRUIT BEER
Santa Rosa, California
"Fletcher's Ale"
Ingredients for 3 gallons
3 1/2 pounds Great Fermentations light malt extract
1 pound Great Fermentations amber malt extract
2 1/2 pounds mashed raspberries
1/4 ounce Perle hops (40 minutes)
1/4 ounce Wakatu hops (40 minutes)
1/4 ounce Tettnanger hops (steeped 30 minutes)
Wyeast 1056 Chico liquid ale yeast
1/2 cup dextrose to prime
Original specific gravity: 1.043
Terminal specific gravity: 1.010
Boiling time: 40 minutes
Primary fermentation: five days at 68 degrees F (20
degrees C) in glass
Secondary fermentation: five days at 68 degrees F (20
degrees C) in glass
Age when judged (since bottling): 10 months
Brewer's specifics
Mashed berries were added to wort for a 30-minute
steep along with finishing hops. Filtered off with hops
after cooling.
Judges' comments
"Good color and clarity. Large bubbles, low head
retention. Nice raspberry flavor! Appropriate body, just
what I'd expect. Good job! Could have been a little
sweeter."
"Nice bouquet, but could linger a bit longer. Raspberry
fruit profile a little thin-excellent mouth feel. Very nice
beer, but would like a little fuller raspberry flavor."
1991 HAIL TO ALE
CLUB COMPETITION WINNER
Jack Hagens
North Bend,
Washington
Representing
the Brews Brothers
"India Pale Ale"
Ingredients for 10 gallons
14 pounds British malt
5 pounds Klages malt
3 pounds wheat malt
1 pound toasted dextrin malt
1 pound toasted Munich malt
3 1/2 ounces Chinook hops (60 minutes)
11/2 ounces Cascade hops (60 minutes)
6 ounces Cascade hops (30 minutes)
1 ounce Cascade hops (dry hopped)
3 teaspoons gypsum
Wyeast 1028 liquid yeast in a one-quart
starter
3/4 cup corn sugar to prime
Original specific gravity: 1.065
Terminal specific gravity: 1.015
Boiling time: 60 minutes
Primary fermentation: seven days at 60 degrees
F (15.5 degrees C) in glass
Secondary fermentation: three and one-half
weeks at 60 degrees F (15.5 degrees C) in glass,
then two days at 65 degrees F (18.5 degrees C)
with finings added.
Age when judged (since bottling): three months
Brewe1's specifics
Mashed grains in an upward step mash. First
stage was at 130 degrees F (54.5 degrees C) for 1
hour. Second step at 155 degrees F (68.5 degrees C)
for 2 1/2 hours. Final step was at 167 degrees F (75
degrees C) for 30 minutes.
Judges' comments
"Fruity and estery in the aroma. Golden color
and great head retention. A little bit sweet on the
finish, nice hop bitterness-malt balance. Slightly
salty-appropriate. Very nice hops, needs a bit
more attenuation and alcohol
1
great example of the
style!"
"Great hops! Excellent color and head retention.
Great effort, hops really grab you and don't let go.
Good balance, fine aftertaste. Medium body, very
good for style. Could I have a case to go?"
SUMMER 1991 ZYMURGY 47
Second Place
Cory Bailey
Sandy, Utah
"TGI Porter"
PORTER
Ingredients for 5 gallons
8 pounds two-row malt
1 pound Munich malt
1/2 pound crystal malt
1/2 pound black patent malt
1/2 pound chocolate malt
1 ounce Bullion hops (60 minutes)
1/2 ounce Cascade hops (60 minutes)
1/2 ounce Cascade hops (2 minutes)
1 teaspoon gypsum
1/4 teaspoon Irish moss
cultured Sierra Nevada yeast in a one-pint starter
3/4 cup dextrose to prime
Original specific gravity: 1.057
Terminal specific gravity: unknown
Boiling time: 60 minutes
Primary fermentation: two days at 70 degrees F (21
degrees C) in glass
Secondary fermentation: six days at 66 degrees F
(19 degrees C) in glass
Age when judged (since bottling): three months
Brewer's specifics
Added 2 1/2 gallons of water at 130 degrees F (54.5
degrees C) to grain. Held at 122 degrees F (50 degrees C)
for 30 minutes. Added 5 quarts of water at 208 degrees F
(98 degrees C), raising temperature to 144 degrees F
(62 degrees C). Added heat and held at 154 degrees F
(68 degrees C) for 10 minutes. Added heat and raised
temperature to 158 degrees F (70 degrees C), then held
until conversion. Raised temperature to 170 degrees F
(76.5 degrees C) and lautered in a Zapap lauter-tun. Sparged
with 41/2 gallons of water at 170 degrees F (76.5 degrees
C).
Judges' comments
"Fruity, herbal aroma, later a bit sherrylike. Good
balance, smooth, slightly sticky texture. Well balanced,
with alcohol a bit high for the style."
''Beautiful beer, hard to fault. Body is, if anything,
light. But not too light. A very fine porter, I'd like to have
more.u
"Good roast in aroma, little hops, clean. Good balance,
slightly old (some oxidation in aftertaste). Overall a very
good porter, on the alcoholic side, which masks some other
flavor components."
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48 SUMMER 1991 ZVMURGY
BROWN ALE
Second Place
Charles Lawhon
Holly Springs,
North Carolina
"Dottie's Brown Ale"
Ingredients for 3 gallons
3 1/3 pounds American Brewmaster dark malt extract
6 ounces crystal malt
4 ounces chocolate malt
1/2 ounce Fuggles hops (60 minutes)
1/2 ounce Willamette hops (15 minutes)
1/2 ounce Willamette hops (finish)
1 teaspoon water salts
1 teaspoon Irish moss
Wyeast 1084liquid yeast in a 25-ounce starter
1/2 cup corn sugar to prime
Original specific gravity: unknown
Terminal specific gravity: 1.012
Boiling time: 60 minutes
Primary fermentation: seven days at 70 degrees F (21
degrees C) in plastic
Age when judged (since bottling): four months
Brewer's specifics
Steeped grains for 25 minutes while raising tempera-
ture from 60 degrees F (15.5 degrees C) to 212 degrees F
(100 degrees C). Boiled all3 gallons of wort.
Judges' comments
"Good sweet aroma. Nice malt flavor and good bal-
ance. Aftertaste fades a bit quickly, ,and could use more
malt character. Very good beer, but needs a bit more of
everything to bring flavor out."
"Caramel-sweet, good low bitterness level. Aftertaste
fades quickly. Body thin. A beer like Newcastle brown ale,
but caramel character needs to be reduced. More maltiness
needed."
"Boost the malt for more body and character."
FLAVORED MEAD
Second Place
Buck Wyckoff
Houston, Texas
"Prick Pearly's
Cactus Mead"
Ingredients for 5 gallons
8 pounds clover honey
37 medium pricldy pear
cactus fruits
2 packages Red Star
sherry yeast
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What Cabernet Sauvignon grapes are to red wine,
Maris Otter barley is to ale malt.
M
aris Otter is a rare, old fashioned two-row barley, low
in yield per acre and tough to grow. Seasoned brewers
still insist on the delicious, rich, plump, nut-like
character and the finesse that the variety gives their pale and
brown ales, porters, stouts and barley wines. Crisp Malting Ltd.
of Great Ryburgh continues to contract with local Norfolk
farmers to supply them this extraordinary barleycorn. Crisp
maintains one of the few remaining traditional floor maltings in
England. Their fine pale, crystal, and dark malts are now
available to micro- and home brewers in the U.S. and Canada
through Liberty Malt Supply Company and their retail agents. Dealer inquiries welcomed
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i:r America's finest selection o:f malt -t:r Founded in 1921 -t:r
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Special offer-Michael Jackson video "The Beer Hunter" 2 Volume set- $24.95
Original specific gravity: 1.122
Terminal specific gravity: 1.008
Primary fermentation: three months at 50 degrees F
(10 degrees C) in glass
Age when judged (since bottling): two and one half
years
Brewer's specifics
Prickly pear fruits mashed and steeped at 186 degrees
F (85.5 degrees C).
Judges' comments
"Lots of prickly pear, some honey, slightly fruity in
aroma. Alcoholic, sweet, fullbodied, not a lot of honey, but
it's there. Smooth. A lot of prickly pear, nice sweetness,
good fruitsweetness balance. Really good prickly pear
mead-keep up the good work!"
"Huge expression of honey, fruit comes through; slight
mustiness. Good legs, good alcohol, nice balance. A very
big mead with good balance."
TRADITIONAl. MEAD
Second Place
Walter Dudley
Denver, Colorado
"New Moon Mead"
Ingredients for 5 gallons
16 pounds South Dakota fresh honey
50 SUMMER 1991 ZYMURGY
5 teaspoons yeast nutrient
salts
5 teaspoons acid blend
Lalvin EC1118 yeast
Original specific gravity:
Unknown
Terminal specific gravity:
Unknown
Primary fermentation: three
weeks at 76 degrees F (24.5
degrees C) in glass
Secondary fermentation: two
months at 76 degrees F (24.5
degrees C) in glass
Age when judged (since bottling): seven months
Judges' comments
"Moderate honey aroma. Lovely gold color, clear.
Sweet start, nice honey flavor with a hint of citrus, very
sweet lingering finish. A nice clean mead. Could probably
benefit from more aging."
"Honey, apple, sulfur and grassy aromas. Needs more
honey aroma. Color and clarity excellent. Nice honey
flavor, very good! Could use even more honey flavor, but
this is great!"
''Beautiful expression of honey. Could be stronger, but
it's very nice and delicate! Nice acid balance, good thick
body. Needs more alcohol to cut honey. Did fermentation
stick or slow down?" 9
Bad Dreams and Mead
Dear Professor,
Last night I had an anxiety dream
about my mead. I dreamed that my
wife, feeling a need to recycle
my carboys, poured my fer-
menting mead into a square
wide-mouthed flower vase and
floated the fermentation Jock
perfectly upright on the open
container of mead.
Upon discovery I was
livid! I yelled at her! I jumped
up and down repeatedly. I
was just on the verge ofbring-
ing her to tears when I awoke.
Please help me interpret
this dream. What does it all
mean?
Ever your student,
Jack Roosevelt
Boulder, Colorado
Dear Jack-o,
DEAR PROFESSOR
PROFESSOR SURFEIT
the hottest months.
On the way home from work I
spend most of the time thinking about
my frosty homebrew in the fridge and/
or a refreshing shower.
A classic case of feeling
guilty. When was the last time
Professor Surfeit, Hb.D., Wurryphree, Colo.
you shared your mead with your wife?
Maybe you should take down the elec-
tric cage surrounding your mead. I
mean after all, what's a few good bottles
of mead shared with the one you love?
C'mon Jack, loosen up. I know for a
fact that mead is best when shared
and can be a man and woman's best
friend.
Guilty,
The Professor, Hb.D.
Take a Bath, Buddy
Dear Professor,
Hope you can help me with a
problem I have each summer during
As I arrive home, I'm burdened
with the weight of indecision. Should
I quaff a quick one or hit the showers?
Sometimes the decision takes an
excruciatingly long time. Once it tdok
30 seconds.
I know you can help.
Trying to avoid the stress,
Martin Jordan
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Dear Martin, ole buddy,
Hey listen, just take a bath. Re-
lax. Don't worry and have a home-
brew. You deserve it. But if you really
must take a shower, decant that bottle
of homebrew into another clean bottle
and long neck it to your thirsty lips.
No stress in Canada please,
The Professor, Hb.D.
Country Pumpkin
Dear Professor,
Michael Jackson's New
World Guide To Beer describes
a pumpkin beer brewed in the
United States. The novelty of
this beer appeals to me and I
would like to try making a
batch. I brew from grain and
would appreciate a recipe and
mashing particulars.
Sincerely thirsty,
Richard Pinnell
Nipean, Ontario, Canada
Dear Richard,
Must you? Must you
brew from all grain? Must you
brew from all grain and want
tomakeapumpkinbeer? Must
you want to do this and live so
far from me? Must you prob-
ably brew this and never get to share it
with me? Must you?
I've tasted some great pumpkin
brews. Hey they really can taste like
beer and like pumpkin. Go easy on the
pumpkin pie spices, should you choose
to use them, and you've got yourself a
winner, like Sal Pennacchio of Staten
Island who took third place in the
1990AHANational Competition. Look
for his recipe in this issue.
But in essence, for five gallons,
mash 10 pounds of grain with the
cooked pulp from a 1 0-pound pump-
kin and add 1 to 2 teaspoons of pump-
kin pie spice or none at all.
Must you,
The Professor, Hb.D.
SUMMER 1991 ZVMURGY 51
Ring Around the Collar-
Revisited
Upon further inspection, I saw that it
was in all bottles, whether brown or
clear. The beer tasted good and in all
other ways seems to be acceptable.
This "ring around the bottle'' is some-
thing I would like to eliminate. Hope
you can diagnose the problem and
give me the cure.
Dear Professor,
I recently brewed a batch and
had a rather unpleasant surprise
when I picked up a bottle to do my
first tasting. The beautiful coppery
color that could be seen in some of the
clear bottles had a very ugly ring of
some substance around the interior of
the bottle right at the top of the beer.
Your patient,
patiently waiting your reply,
Kip Will
Shelby, Ohio
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52 SUMMER 1991 ZVMURGY
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Dear Kip,
Yep. You got it. Ring around the
collar. Whether you think you can
taste it or not, you've got a bacterial
contamination. You may be happy
with your beer. But I can assure you,
once you get rid of the cause of the
bacteria and the bacteria, you will like
your beer a whole lot better. Or my
name doesn't end with an Hb.D.
Forget any cleaner or sanitizer you
may be told to buy. Get good old
cheap, and very effective, household
bleach. Add 2 ounces of bleach for 5 to
8 gallons of cold water. Use a plastic
trash pail. Soak the bottles overnight
and the next day those rings (probably
you have several in each bottle from
successive batches) will be gone. Soak
your carboys with cold water and 1 to
2 ounces of bleach. Soak your hoses
and rubber corks and fermentation
locks.
Now you're on the right track.
Yes, and rinse the bleach-soaked
items with hot tOP water. Don't worry.
Bleached out,
The Professor, Hb.D.
fermentation forever?
Dear Professor,
I am a new brewer and have en-
countered a problem with a large
percentage of the beers I've brewed
becoming overcarbonated as they age
until they reach the point of gushing.
Some of the beers have shown signs of
autolysis-bubbles rising in the air
lock after days of inactivity, and some
have not so I can not relax when
brewing. I have lost many dollars in
wasted materials.
I have read the Complete Joy of
Home Brewing over and over search-
ing for the answer, but after paying
particular attention to sanitation and
trying to control temperature, my
problem continues. Could either of
the following be the cause? They were
not addressed in the book.
(1) Water-My water comes from
a private well. r have had it tested for
contamination, and the results show
it is as good as city water. Remember
I must rinse with this water after
sanitizing, right?
(2) Temperature-I do not have a
basement. The lowest temperature I
can maintain is 75 degrees F (24 de
grees C) in the summer, 68 degrees F
(20 degrees C) in winter. Storage
temperature is about 70 to 75 degrees
F (21 to 24 degrees C) in summer, 60
to 65 degrees F (15.5 to 18.5 degrees
C) in winter.
Please send anything that may
help me relax.
Thanks,
Bernard Dotts
Charlotte, North Carolina
Dear Bernard,
Oh, how you play that same old
song. But it ain't sweet music, is it?
Yep, I've heard of this prolonged
fermentation a lot. In fact, I
automatically ash (in your case I loohed
at your letterhead), ((where ya from?"
Not that I'm looking to change the
subject or anything like that, but it
seems that long fermentations are nwre
prone to the warmer climates and
seasons.
The way I figure it, long fermen-
tations are often a result of some hind
of wild yeast that just likes to breah
down those unfermentables and fer-
ment them-slowly. Where'd you get
them? Maybe from the air. Maybe
from your yeast source. Some dried
yeasts will have wild yeast counts large
enough to make a difference.
Bernard, try changing your yeast
brand. Then try looking at your
sanitization techniques.
By the way, autolysis isn't hnown
for producing a lot of bubbles. You
just got some wild yeast in there. You
say you rinse with tap water. Hot tap
water is best.
I bet it's the yeast
you started with,
The Professor, Hb.D.
Chill Haze in Racine
Dear Professor,
After reading zymurgy from
cover to cover, it seems many home-
brewers have a problem with chill
haze. My question is what is chill
haze (it sounds too meteorological),
should the first-time brewer be con-
cetned and what can I do to prevent
this from occurring. Thank you for
your time and cooperation.
Sincerely,
Gregory T. Westrich
Racine, Wisconsin
Beer & Brewing, VoL 10
A whole Conference in your
hands. Over a dozen talks by
expertsinhomebrewing. Get
it for your library and your
beer. You'lllove it!
$20.95 (AHA Members $18.95), plus $3.00 domestic P & H.
Brewers Publications, PO Box 287, Boulder, CO 80306-0287,
(303) 447-0816, FAX (303) 447-2825.
. Dear Gregory,
Hey now, remember, RDWHAH
(relax, don't worry, have a homebrew).
Chill haze is precipitated protein,
tasteless and odorless, but causes a
haze at cold temperatures. Want to
minimize it? Brew darker beers with
roasted malts. That will reduce chill
haze. Keep the finished beer cold in
the fridge for a few weeks, then it will
settle out. But above all don't get bent
out of shape. At the first sign of weak-
ness, grab a stone mug.
Keep on brewin'
The Professor, Hb.D.
Sweet Brewing Dreams
Dearest Professor,
I wanted to take advantage of
Valentine's Day to express the effer-
vescent feelings that have been brew-
ing since I joined the AHA.
Oh where to begin. Wafting,
bubbling, gurgling, foaming. All I
think about are your comforting,
gentle words supporting me in this
path. Sometimes I even imagine us
brewing together.
In this recurring dream of mine,
you and I are standing around a
steaming kettle of boiling, frothy
wort-our bodies dripping with sweat
and our eyes glazed with the sweet
stickiness of the moment. I watch
your muscles ripple through the frayed
threads of your shirt as you grasp the
long sturdy handle of the wooden stir-
ring spoon. I turn to you and in my
deep throaty voice say, "Sparge me,
extract my sugar, increase my gravity,
barrel me." Your twinkling eyes lock
with mine, your head slyly tilts down,
and with an enigmatic smile you
breathe, "Relax, baby, don't worry, I'm
your homebrew."
I always wake up in a cold chill
haze at this point in the dream and
can't sleep for hours. This lack of
sleep is affecting my job and family
relations. I can't afford a psychiatrist
and can't talk to my husband. Please
relieve me!
I continue to pay my AHA dues in
hopes that my check will touch your
malty hands, somehow connecting our
spirits. Is my imagination too wild for
you?
Am I hopping up the wrong tree
or is there a chance that I could ever
be your head brewer? Y au so bring
out the yeast in me.
See you in my dreams, my precious
little malt worm,
A Shy Brew Baby
Dear Babe,
Baby, baby, baaabeee. Ohhhhh
how I love to call you sweeeeeet baby.
Until we meet, I'll remain,
The Professor, Hb.D.
SUMMER 1991 ZYMURGY 53
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Avanable from your quarrty
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THE BEST FROM KITS
alt may be the soul of
beer, but creativity is
the soul ofhomebrew.
Brewing seems a bit
like alchemy. When I
brew, I feel like Doctor Frankenstein
must have felt in one of his better
moments-as though the liquid in my
kettle is the primordial soup (yum!),
and I'm creating life. Perhaps this is
why I only brew during thunder
storms. It might even explain the
hunched-over posture of my brewing
partner, Igor.
Now, if Doctor Frankenstein were
handed a homebrew kit, he'd prob
ably eye it a bit suspiciously, as though
someone were trying to sell him Im
mortality-In-A-Drum. The good doc-
tor would probably appreciate the ease
and convenience, but might also feel
that this is the sort of thing that can
take the fun out of being a mad
scientist.
Last issue, I talked about some of
the simple changes that can be made
to kit beers to remedy the deficiencies
of the recipes printed on the labels-
conversion to a l l ~ m a l t addition of
aroma hops and wort boiling. This
time around, we'll expand on that
theme just a bit, with the aim of
bringing as much madness as pos-
sible into this mad science.
Most homebrew kits were not de-
signed by hop fanatics. In fact, some
are downright anemic when it comes
to bitterness. Fortunately, however,
it's easy to correct this. We can modify
the recipe to increase the ratio of
hopped malt extract to gallons of wort,
or we can add more bittering hops, or
we can do both. If you like assertively
KURT DENKE
DAN FINK
hopped beers, these options will im-
prove your appreciation of kit beers
immensely.
Similarly, kits for darker styles
of beer tend to be extremely gentle in
specialty grain flavor. This is particu-
larly true for stout kits, which usually
have only a hint of the roasted barley
character that a typical commercial
stout has. Here, the solution is just
the same-either increase the kit-to-
water ratio or add some specialty
grains to bringuptheflavorsyou want
in your beer. If you like full-flavored
beers, don't be timid. Frankenstein's
monster wasn't everyone's kind of fel-
low, but he made one heckuva first
impression.
With two of the kits reviewed
here, I made smaller batches than the
standard five gallons, using just one
can of extract. You can multiply these
proportions by two if you prefer a more
normal-sized batch.
Mountmellick Brown Ale
Mountmel!ick is a well-known
name in kits, especially for its excel-
lent Irish stout kit. Since
Mountmellick stout is one of the most
full-flavored kits on the market, this
seemed like a promising product.
For 2 1 I 2 gallons:
4 pounds Mountmellick Brown
Ale kit
1 ounce Styrian Goldings hops
ale yeast
1/4 cup cane sugar (for priming)
We boiled the extract with 1 1/2
gallons of water for 10 minutes, added
1/2 ounce of Styrian Goldings, boiled
for another five minutes and then
added the remaining 1/2 ounce of
Styrian Goldings. We topped up the
volume to 2 1/2 gallons, cooled it and
pitched the yeast. All the standard
miracles happened, and there was
beer.
Wow! This beer has a rich choco-
late-brown color and a nice full body.
There is a definite roasted flavor,
probably from chocolate malt and/or
black malt, and a pleasant medium
hop bitterness.
Munton & Fison
Yorkshire Bitter
Munton & Fison has recently in-
troduced a new line of kits in 4-pound
cans, including a Yorkshire Bitter. A
couple of winters ago, I had the privi-
lege of touring the Samuel Smith
Brewery in Tadcaster, Yorkshire, and
drinking Old Brewery Bitter in real
SUMMER 1991 ZYMURGY 55
Chill Out!!
The best selections of
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56 SUMMER 1991 ZVMURGY
ale form. Sam Smith's is one of the
last British brewers using oak casks
for dispensing, and may be the only
brewer still using the eccentric York-
shire blue slate square fermenters.
These fermenters, literally con-
structed of massive sheets of blue
slate, are quite a sight when the fer-
mentation is active. The foam sort of
boils and gurgles, and bits of it actu-
ally leap into the air from the vigor of
the ferment. It's not unlike the afore-
mentioned primordial soup.
George Hummel, a fellow Phila-
delphian, brewed this one up like so:
For 5 gallons:
4 pounds Munton & Fison
Yorkshire Bitter kit
3.3 pounds Northwestern Gold
hopped extract
1 ounce Hallertauer hops
11/2 ounce Styrian Goldings
1 teaspoon gypsum
1 teaspoon salt
Ale yeast (from kit)
Your local homebrew store prob-
ably doesn't have any Yorkshire blue
slate. Of course, if you have friends in
the stone business in Yorkshire, you
can bolt together your own slate square
fermenter, but you'll have a devil of a
time hoisting the thing up onto the
kitchen table at bottling time. George
used a carboy-less romantic, but
easier on the back.
The malt, gypsum, salt and 1/2
ounce ofHallertauer hops were boiled
for 60 minutes. Another 1/2 ounce of
Hallertauer was added 30 minutes
from the end of the boil and 1 ounce of
Styrian Goldings hops was added five
minutes from the end of the boil. The
last 1/2 ounce of Goldings was used
for dry-hopping in the fermenter. The
sort of embellishment that this recipe
represents is the perfect way to per-
sonalize a kit beer to fit your indi-
vidual taste. Of course, all sorts of
other things could be done to this and
other kit beers. This is only a single
sample out of millions of possibilities.
This beer came out just great!
The color was a deep reddish to light
brown, and the body was pleasantly
full. The bitterness was neither too
light nor tongue-numbing. A cask of
this, a wheel of Stilton and theN orth
York moors could make for a wonder-
ful weekend.
Arkell's Lager
English lager is the official drink
of those famous British soccer fans,
who inspired the term "lager lout.
1
'
This kit, however, is manufactured by
the well-respected Edme Malt Prod-
ucts Co. and bears the name of a highly
regarded regional brewery in Swindon,
Wiltshire. Accordingly, you don't have
to be loutish to brew with it. The label
depicts a steam locomotive and the
logo of the Great Western Railway,
relics of the grand old days of rail
travel when Swindon was a major rail
center. But on to the beer.
For 3 gallons:
4 pounds Arkell's Lager kit
1/2 ounce Saaz hops
lager yeast
3/8 cup cane sugar (for priming)
We boiled the 4 pounds of extract
in one gallon of water with 1/2 ounce
of Saaz hops for 10 minutes, then
strained it off into a carboy with 2
gallons of top-up water. The OG was
1.053, the FG 1.013. This batch was
, fermented with lager yeast in a refrig-
erator. If you can't manage a cold
fermentation, the Edme ale yeast that
comes with the kit is just fine.
This beer had a rather surprising
deep copper color, with a definite
caramel aroma, which possibly indi-
cates caramelization during the ex-
tract concentration process. The body
was very light and the bitterness very
low, making it a suitable beer for
people with extremely gentle tastes-
! would suggest adding some bittering
hops to give this beer a bit more oomph,
but it may be just the thing for intro-
ducing skittish, anti-bitter people to
home brew.
-KurtDenke
A New Edme Stout Kit
A trend is building in the home-
brew kit market-all-malt beers that
need no sugar or malt extract added.
Edme Ltd. said it recently has changed
its stout kit to focus on quality in-
stead of quantity. The old kit made
five gallons and called for the addi-
tion of corn sugar. The new version
contains about the same amount of
malt extract, but makes three gallons
of beer with no corn sugar or extra
malt required.
I brewed the new Edme stout ac-
cording to their directions, adding no
hops, malt or specialty grains. The
instructions called for boiling the wort
15 minutes, then pouring it into a
primary fermenter containing cold
water. I used a five-gallon glass car-
boy as a primary. I used Edme yeast
and did not rehydrate it before pitch-
ing, as the instructions did not men-
tion that procedure. The OG was
1.040.
The fermentation started within
four hours, and at 60 degrees F (15.5
degrees C) the yeast finished the ma-
jority of its work in only three days. I
kegged the stout with one-quarter cup
of corn sugar for priming after nine
days of fermentation. The FG was
1.009, giving about 4 percent alcohol
by volume.
The result was impressive, a big
improvement over a kit with corn
sugar. The stout was very smooth
and creamy and had no off-flavors.
The body was a little on the thin side
and the roasted grain flavors were
subtle but definitely present. The hop
bitterness was not high but balanced
well with the malt. The national beer
judge with whom I tasted the results
was very impressed-he said it was
one of the best kit beers he had tried.
Steeping and removing one-quarter
pound roasted barley and one-half
pound crystal malt in the brewpot
before adding the kit would improve
the body and roasted flavor, but the
kit was very tasty as it was.
The trend toward all-malt, no-
sugar kits is a positive one for the
whole brewing community. It gets
beginners started on the right foot,
while giving more experienced brew-
ers a good, quick-and-easy beer to
make when there's no time for brew-
ing from scratch. In upcoming issues
of zymurgy, we'll be reviewing more
of these new all-malt kits.
-Dan Fink
"Our news is as fresh as your Beer!"
For the latest news, views, rumors, etc. on
the "craft-brewed" beer movement, read the
Dude, I can't wait another minute. Enclosed is my check for $14.95. Please
send me one year of the totally awesome Celebrator Beer News. "I'm stoked!"
send to:
Box 375
Hayward,
CA
94543
Nrune -------------------------------
Admess. ____________________________ __
City _____________ State _ Zip
Phone __ _
(Or, send $1 for sample issue First Class Mail!)
The American Homebrewers Association
C[u6-0nfg Competition
Weiss is 9 { ~ e
Send your club's bestwheatbeertothe "Weiss Is Nice" competition.
Entries due August 2, 1991. Three bottles per entry, $5 fee. Please
use the AHA Sanctioned Competition entry and recipe forms. All clubs
registered with the AHA are eligible.
Send all entries to: American Homebrewers Association, 736
Pearl Street, Boulder, CO 80302. Call (303) 447-0816 for
details and rules.
SUMMER 1991 ZYMURGY 57
King Kooker
REVIEWS
Big Brute of a Burner
Brewing is always a blast, but
heating a house with the brewpot in
summer is most defmitely not, not to
mention tying up the kitchen for a few
hours at a time. Some dedicated
brewers have constructed 10- to 15-
gallon outdoor
11
picobreweries," while
others simply prefer the great out-
doors for their five-gallon batches.
Brewing outside requires a burner of
some sort, and quite a few brands of
propane and natural gas burners are
on the market.
I recently tried the King Kooker
(formerly called the Cajun Cooker)
made by Metal Fusion Inc., with my
outdoor all-gTain setup. I had made
burners from two different hot water
heaters, but ran into some problems.
It took more than 45 minutes to bring
10 gallons of water to a boil and the
burners were very fussy about how
much oxygen was available. They
also were prone to being blown out by
the wind, a constant problem in my
mountain location.
The King Kooker is a very simple
design made of bar steel. It burns
58 SUMMER 1991 ZYMURGY
propane only (not natural gas), but
the fuel is inexpensive and widely
available. My water heater burners
put out about 35,000 BTU at full blast;
the King Kooker can manage 125,000
BTU. The Kooker comes with six feet
of propane hose, a regulator and a
flame control/shut-off valve. A steel
baffie can be swung into place over
the flame outlet to avoid hot spots.
Remember that burners such as this
one should not be used indoors! In
addition to producing huge volumes
of water vapor, they remove oxygen
from the air and can result in dangerM
ously high levels of C02 and other
gases indoors.
I've been very impressed with the
King Kooker's performance. When
heating mash and sparge water (or
bringing water for an extract batch to
a boil), I swing the baffie out of the
way and crank up the flame. It will
boil 10 gallons of water in only 20
minutes. Your results may differ
somewhat, as my home is at 9,000
feet above sea level. It could easily
heat a 31-gallon brewpot-the flames
go around and up the sides of my half-
barrel pot when the burner is turned
up full blast, so I throttle it down for
brewing. However, the manufacturer
recommends against using anything
larger than a 23-gallon pot. The
burner also is quite resistant to the
wind. Propane use is hard to measure
because it varies so much with my
outside temperature, but I average
three batches of all-grain beer (using
two burners) or five batches of extract
beer (using one burner) from a 20-
pound propane tank.
When there are sugars in the pot
(malt extract, mash runoff, honey,
etc.), the baffie must be swung into
place and the burner throttled down
to avoid scorching the wort. I've never
scorched a batch using these proce-
dures, but I guarantee it would scorch
if you don't follow them. The burner's
manual recommends using the baffie
only when mashing, but I disagree-
it still heats very fast with the baffie
in place and burned wort is a taste no
one enjoys!
The pot supports are steel bars
welded to the frame. The burner
stands about a foot high and even my
dented half-barrel keg boilers are very
stable on it. That's a good thing, too.
In my three-vessel gravity-flow sys-
tem, the top burner sits five feet off
the ground, so the top of the keg is
over eight feet in the air. Any insta-
bility could cause a disaster!
I highly recommend the King
Kooker to homebrewers. I've tried
other burners that function well, but
the King Kooker puts out more heat
than most others on the market and
sells for nearly half the price of many.
, Plus, after you add up the cost of
buying a regulator, valve and hose for
a homeMbuilt water heater burner,
you've gone over half what the King
Kooker costs, and with it there's no
labor involved except carrying it in
from your mailbox.
The King Kooker is available from
many homebrew retailers. To find a
dealer near you or for information on
other burners by Metal Fusion Inc.,
contact them at 623 Maria St., Kenner,
LA 70062.
-Dan Fink
fjiiiiijiiijii) here are a lot of things
American: apple pie,
Thanksgiving, Canyon-
lands, hot dogs, baseball,
Lyle Lovett and N anci
Griffith. But at the risk of sounding a
bit too provincial, I've got another to
add to the list. Yes, I do live in Colo-
rado with a view of the Continental
Divide each day. As I commute to
work I watch the sunrise in the rear-
view mirror and the mountains to the
west glow with morning light. Know-
ing that ahead of me beyond the
mountains and in back of me on the
plains, Colorado cowgirls are out there.
Doing what cowgirls do.
I sip my new brown ale. It's m ~
dium bodied, brown, noticeably bitter
with a happy aroma and flavor. Noth-
ing like an English-style sweeter
brown ale. This seems American to
me. An invention by American home-
brewers who know no limits when it
comes to hops. I've named this brew
Colorado Cowgirl because I think there
isn't anything more American than a
Colorado Cowgirl.
Notoverpoweringwith bitterness,
but assertive enough to quench a dusty
thirst. It is at the low end of the hop
quotient for what I call American-
style brown ale.
So let's cut the shuck and jive
and get on with the recipe.
Recipe for five U.S. gallons
6.6 pounds B.M.E Vienna Amber
malt extract
3/4 pound crystal malt
5 ounces chocolate malt
5 Homebrew Bittering Units of
bittering hop (I used one
ounce of 5 percent Fuggles )
2 teaspoons gypsum (if your
water is very soft)
1/2 ounce Fuggles or Geldings
hops for flavor
3/4 ounce your favorite finishing
hop for aroma (! use my
homegrown Cascade hops)
11/4 cup dried malt extract or 3/4
cup corn sugar for bottle
priming.
2 packages ale yeast or liquid
culture
WORLD OF WORTS
CHARLIE PAPAZIAN
Colorado Cowgirl
Brown Ale
crusheCl
crystal and chocolate malt to
11/2 gallons of water and bring up to
150 to 160 degrees F (66 to 71 degrees
C) and hold for 30 minutes. Then
strain all of the grains out and discard
the spent grain. Add the malt extract,
gypsum and bittering hops and boil
for one hour. Twenty minutes before
the end of the boil, add the 1/2 ounces
flavoring hops. During the final two
minutes of the boil add your finishing
hops for aroma.
Strain out the hops and add the
hot wort to two gallons of cold water
in a cleaned and sanitized fermenter.
Add cold water to bring to five gallons
total volume. When cooled to below
70 degrees F (21 degrees C), add yeast
and ferment.
When ready to bottle, boil corn
sugar or dried malt with 11/2 cups
of water and use to prime for car-
bonation. Wait a couple of weeks or
so and then relax, don
1
t worry and
toast a homebrew to some of the
prettiest girls in all the land-
Colorado Cowgir Is. liJl
SUMMER 1991 ZYMURGY 59
HOMEBFIEW BUTTERING UNITS
Homebrew Bittering Units are a measure of the total amount of bitter-
ness in a given volume of beer. Bittering units can be easily calculated by
multiplying the percent of alpha acid in the hops by the number of ounces.
For example, if 2 ounces of Northern Brewer hops (9 percent alpha acid)
and 3 ounces of Cascade hops (5 percent alpha acid) were used in a
10-gallon batch, the total amount ofbittering units would be 33: (2 x 9) +
(3 x 5) 18 + 15. Bittering units per gallon would be 3.3 in a 10-gallon
batch or 6.6 in a 5-gallon batch, so it is important to note volumes
whenever expressing bittering units.
STOP GUESSING .. ??? SAVE TIME ... !!!!
Use Personal Brewmaster Ver 1.0 and your PC to:
PRINT Date & Batch info on Bottle Cap Labels.
Place repeat ORDERS for SUPPLIES with a few easy
keystrokes and forget time consuming Order Forms.
SAVE and EDIT your Favorite Brewing Recipes.
Other utilities include Label Maker&Brew Review
Order Ver. 1. 0 for $49 plus ($4.95 S/H). Get 480 Bottle
Cap Labels, 48 Bottle Labels,and 25 Order Envelopes
FREE! MS. res. add 6% Tax. Send Chk/MO to:
JOHNNY BEER, P.O. Box297, Hickory, MS. 39332
or leave msg (601) 646-4767
/"'-/"-"
CASCADE
B E E R N E W S
From the Center of America's
Brewing Renaissance
Cascade Beer News brings you the best in beer and
brewing from the nation's leading beer writers.
Subscriptions cost $18 for 12 bi-monthly issues,
or $12 for six issues.
For Subscription or Advertising information:
P.O. Box 12247
Portland, OR 97212
(503) 224-4114
60 SUMMER 1991 ZYMURGY
Everything you need
for beermaking or wine making!
* Malt Extracts & Kits
* Grains & Hops
* Brewing Supplies
& Equipment
We have been supplying home
fermenters tor over 20 years -
write or call today!
*Brewing Yeasts*
Full Line- Liquid & Dry
(800) 342-1871
(206) 365-7660
FAX (206) 365-7677
THE CELLAR
Dept. ZR, Box 33525
Seattle, WA 98133
Northeast
Brewers Supply
(800)-352-9001
If you live EAST of the
ROCKY MOUNTAINS and
You're Not Buying From Us
Then You're Probably
PAYING TOO MUCH
For Your Homebrew Supplies.
CALL For Our FREE Catalog
and See the Difference!
This Month's Specials:
IREKS 3kg Malt Extract: $14.10
Wort Chiller: $22.50
Post 0 ffice Box 232
West Kingston, RI 02892
( 401) 789-9635
ALABAMA
Lower Alabama LAGERS: The most ex*
citing news from the LA LAGERS is that they
exist! They are a heady bunch of seasoned ama-
teurs in the Mobile area dedicated to the avoid-
ance of pain and inevitable frustration of
attempting to reinvent the wheel.
Contact Manrten van der Gieasen, 4701
Seabrook Road, Wilmer, AL 36587.
ARIZONA
Brewmeisters Anonymous: On Feb. 24
the club held a brew marathon in response to a
dream that president Cassandra had. Six
members gathered at the Clark house with their
equipment and brewed 70 gallons of beer in an
eight-hour period.
Dues are $15 per year, meetings the second
Sunday of the month. Contact Clark Nelson,
6707 S. McKemy St. No. 16, Tempe, AZ 85283,
or call (602) 897-1775.
CALIFORNIA
The Barley Bandits: Barley Bandit offic-
ers for the 1991 brewing year are Terry Hale,
president; Kevin Verble, vice-president; Dick
Reese, secretary-treasurer; Vin Ludwig and Sam
Piper, activities directors; and Charles Kasicki,
newsletter editor.
Dues are $12 annually. Contact Dick Reese,
105 S. Glendon St., Anaheim, CA 92806, or call
(714) 630-6527.
Brewbirds of Happiness: Contact: Kelly
Dunham, 1229 Lerida Way, Pacifica, CA 94044,
or phone (415) 355-7143.
Crown of the Valley B1ewing Society:
The club is small, but their membership has
been growing lately. They'd love to have new
members from the Pasadena and San Gabriel
Valley areas meetings at members' homes.
Dues are $12 per year, $18 for couples.
Meetings are the second Sunday of the month.
Contact Greg Stark, 1428 N. Allen Ave., Pasa-
dena, CA or call (818) 794-7989.
Draught Board: The Draught Board re-
centlyco-sponsoredits first competition, the 1991
Bay Area Brew-Off, a great success with 110
entries in seven categories.
Dues are $1 per meeting or $7 per year for
the newsletter. Meetings are the second Saturday
of the month. Contact Harry Graham, 126
LaQuebrada Way, San Jose, CA 95127, or call
(408) 258-2792.
Inland Empire Brewers: The First An-
nual Nevada Winterfest Competition sponsored
NEW CLUBS
See regular listings for news from most of these
newly-formed clubs.
CALIFORNIA
Strand Brewers Club: Peter Chin Sang, 3432
Studebaker Rd., Long Beach, CA 90808, (213)
425-8700.
COLORADO
Foam on the Range: Pasquale Girolamo, 24859
Pleasant Park Rd., Conifer, CO 80433, (303) 972-
8379
ILLINOIS
Brewers of South Suburbia (BOSS): Steve
HOMEBREW CLUBS
DAN FINK
by the Las Vegas branch of the club was held
Jan. 19-20 in Las Vegas with 117 entries. As of
March 1, the membership stood at 226.
Dues are $12 per year, meetings the first
Thursday of the month. Contact John Oliver,
1268 Lomita Road., San Bernardino, CA 92405,
or call (714) 886-7110.
The Maltose Falcons: The Falcons were
the prime organizers of the first annual Southern
California Homebrewers Festival in Temecula,
Calif., which drew nearly 300 people. If you are
in the Los Angeles area, please contact them!
Dues are $20 per year, meetings the first
Sunday of each month. Contact R. Bruce Prochal,
c/o the Home Wine and Beer Making Shop, 22836
Ventura Blvd, No, 2, Woodland Hills, CA 91364,
Monterey Bay Brewers: A new club, MBB
held its first meeting and family picnic on St.
Patrick's Day at St. Patrick's Homebrewin Santa
Cruz. Most of the 12 members are new home-
brewers who are very interested in having new
members.
Contact Lynne O'Connor, 106 Hagar Court,
Santa Cruz, CA 95064, or call (408) 459-0178.
Redwood Coast Brewers; Future meet-
ings will include presentations by local master
brewers, a project to further develop the club's
cooperative yeast bank, and a summer beach
party. They also look forward to organizing the
Santa Cruz County Fair's homebrew competi-
tion again this summer.
Dues are $12 per year. Contact Michael
Byers, 707 Pelton Ave. No. 108, Santa Cruz, CA
95060, or call (408) 426-3005.
Shasta County Suds'ers: The club cel-
ebrated its lOth birthday at theJ anuary meeting.
The chocolate cake proved Fred Eckhardt right-
chocolate and beer go great together, and none of
either was left.
Dues are $12 per year, meetings the second
Saturday of the month. Contact RaymondAult,
PO Box 839, Anderson, CA 96007, or call (916)
347-5475.
San Luis Obispo Brewing Society
(SLOBS): New members are cascading upon the
SLOBS with no relief in sight. The February
meeting featured a Pilsener competition. A
SLOBfest is scheduled for June-July because the
food brought by members is always so good.
Dues are $1 per month, meetings the third
Monday of the month. Contact Howard Gootkin,
1568 Frambuesa Drive, S.L.O., CA 93405, or
call (805) 541-0713 in the evening.
Stanislaus Area Associated Zymurgists
(SAAZh The recently formed SAAZ had its first
meeting at the new St. Stan's brewery/restau-
Kamp, PO Box 461, Monee, IL 60449.
NEW HAMPSHIRE
Brew Free or Die: Ed Boisvert, 36 Otterson
St., Nashua, NH 03060, (603) 889-2331.
New Hampshire Bier Nuts: David Weisberg,
34 Hardy Ct., Keene, NH 03431, (603) 357-7962.
NEW JERSEY
The Yeastie Boys: Joe Sabin, 13 Burd St.,
Pennington, NJ 08534-2809, (609) 737-1085.
NEW YORK
Name to be Announced: Helene Windt c/o
rant. For the February meeting, SAAZera trav
eled to Davis where they toured the Back Alley
and the SudWerk, and also toured Dead Cat
Alley and Rubicon Brewery.
Contact Micah Millspaw, 309 S. Sixth Ave.,
Oakdale, CA 95361, or call (209) 847-9706.
COLORADO
Deep Wort Brew Club: June 15-16 mark the
club's third annual Great Outdoor Brewoff
which, as in the past, will take place high in
the Front Range of Colorado. The event pro-
vides a showplace for outdoor brewing tech-
niques, fine homebrewed beers and barbecue
expertise,
Dues are $5 per year, meetings the third
Thursday of the month. Contact Bob Wood, 4515
Ranch Circle, Colorado Springs, CO 80918, or
call (719) 531-6450.
Hop, Barley and the Ale'ers: Interest in
homebrewing in Boulder continues hlgh. Up-
coming rituals include Beer and Steer (July 20)
and the annual picnic (Aug.l7). Come join them
for the fun!
Dues are $15 per year, picnic the fourth
Thursday of the month at the Boulder Brewing
Co. (subject to change), Contact John Bates, 862
Cypress Drive, Boulder, CO 80303, or call {303)
499-4012.
The Unfermentables: Denver's newest
homebrew club, the Unfennentables, will make
you a beer you can't refuse. The 50 members
include grain brewers, extract brewers, begin-
ners and even a few professionals. Meetings
feature a guest speaker and beer of the month.
Dues are $15 per year, meetings the third
Tuesday of the month. Contact Jim Hansen,
1240 Vine St., Denver, CO 80206, or call (303)
333-9182.
CONNECTICUT
Underground Brewers of SE Connecti-
cut: The club tried a new approach to manage
the more than 30 members who attended the
monthly meeting. They split the group into six
panels, each with a mix of new and experienced
members. Each of the 22 beers in the competition
was tasted by two panels, with the best brews
tasted by a panel of experts at the end of the
evening,
Dues are $5peryear, $10 fordrinkingmem
hers. Meetings are the third Wednesday of the
month. Contact Paul Connolly, Box 105,
Rowayton, CT 06853, or call (203) 854-9539.
Kedco, 564 Smith St., Farmingdale, NY 11735-
1168, (516) 454-7800.
NORTH DAKOTA
Prairie Homebrewing Companions: Ray
Taylor, 917 22nd Ave. N, Fargo, ND 58102.
PENNSYLVANIA
HarrlsburgAreaHomebrewersAssociation
(HAHA): Tom Scotzin, 65 C N, 5th St., Lemoyne,
PA 17043, (717) 737-0483.
Homebrewers of Philadelphia and Suburbs
(HOPS): George Hummel c/o Home Sweet
Homebrew, 2008 Sansom St., Philadelphia, PA
19103, (215) 569-9469.
SUMMER 1991 ZYMURGY 61
Solus Sed
Non Solicitus
In 1978 or '79, I
was in graduate school
at Indiana University
and saw an ad posted
on campus advertising a
new and easy way to home-
brew beer. As it turned out, the ad was by
a fellow with a local franchise for home-
brew products. As a beer lover for many
years, I was skeptical of homebrew, be-
cause of the bad experiences I remembered
with the old Prohibition-style brewing of
my youth. But this stuff was great! A
number of other friends in grad school were
similarly interested, and we began getting
together regularly, helping each other
through the learning process. Then we all
scattered to different parts of the country.
I moved to Berea, which is dry, and
consequently intensified my own efforts at
home. But I missed the camaraderie, and
there were no clubs locally (nor are there
yet-dryness is of epidemic proportions in
Kentucky, and my employer frowns on such
activities). I remembered from my youth a
program in the Boy Scouts called the "Lone
Wolf Scout," which was for boys out in the
boonies who wanted to belong to the Scouts
but who had no troop available. Seemed
sensible to me, so I began this "Lone Wolf
Brewer" thing, the core of which is that old
assembly from graduate school, but others
have joined as well.
DELAWARE
First State Brewers: The First State
Brewers continue to be an active club. Theme
tastings dominate the meetings, with parallel
brewings, lagers, potlucks, and darks included.
Demonstrations include kegging homebrew and
club competitions, which add to the fun.
Dues are 515 per family per year, meetings
the third Wednesday of each month. Contact
Charles Garbini, 705 Manfield Drive, Newark,
DE 19713, or call (302) 368-3417.
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
Brewers United for Real Potables
(BURP): BURP's lOth anniversary year began
with the annual India pale ale competition in
January. In early February, BURPers brewed a
Thomas Hardy-style barley wine destined to be
consumed at the 20th anniversary celebration in
2001.
Dues are $15 {individual) or $20 (family)
per year, meetings are monthly. Contact wn.
liam Ridgely, 7430 Gene St, Alexandria, VA
22310, or call (703) 9715744.
GEORGIA
Covert Hops Society: The Covert Hops
Society needs your help! A bill legalizing home
brewing was passed by the Georgia House of
Representatives. It will be considered by a Sen
ate committee over the summer (see related story
in "Brew News"). They ask homebrewers every
where to write the committee chairman and urge
him to seek committee approval and Senate
passage ofHB62. Please write: Senator Arthur
Langford, Chairman, Senate Consumer Affairs
Committee, Room 320, LOB, Atlanta, GA 30334.
Dues are $10 per year, meetings the third
Tuesday of each month. Contact Ken Dobson,
M.D., 2340 Sanford Road, Decatur, GA 30033
5529, or call (404) 634-5980.
62 SUMMER 1991 ZYMURGY
We now have membership-if a no
dues, no meetings, no officers club can have
members-in Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana,
California, Texas, North Carolina and pas
sibly Michigan (we can't find the guy right
now, but he is undoubtedly keeping the
faith). Our motto is "Salus sed non
solicitus"-alone, but not worrying-and
our logo/label features a wolf on a mesa
howling at a full moon, the craters of which
are magically formed from the bubbles i a ~
ing from the froth of a gigantic mugofbeer.
We very much appreciate the support
of the AHA, and the club copy of zymurgy.
When I receive it, I read it cover to cover,
and bring specific items to the attention of
various members. Some of them have their
own subscriptions, and some do not, but
they all appreciate the information. We
have also produced an "Introduction to
Homebrewing'' handout for prospective
members.
I am not willing to release the names of
the members because some of them are
situated like myself-it is considered bad
form to be involved in such a dubious enter
prise as the creation and personal use of
mind-altering substances, i.e. ethyl alcohol
Anyhow, all that is by way of remind
ing others to treasure their enviable posi
tion and reminding them that there are
still some of us out here who must remain,
alas, overly circumspect in our private lives.
Prosit!
Michael Berheide, Prime Minister and
Secretary General, Lone Wolf Brewers
ILLINOIS
Association of BloomingtonNormal
Brewers (ABNORMAL): An article about
homebrewing and the ABNORMAL brewers ap
peared in the Bloomington newspaper, the a n ~
to graph. A good deal of interest was stiiTed up
by the article, and the club experienced an influx
of new members.
Dues are $12 per year, meetings the second
Monday of the month. Contact Tony McCauley,
404 Tilden, Place, Normal, IL 617611432, or
call (309) 452-1084.
Brewers of Southern Suburbia (BOSS):
BOSS was formed in November by homebrewers
for homebrewers, but membership is open to a n y ~
one who appreciates good beer. Iri three months
the membership has grown from five to 23.
Dues are 510 per year, meetings the first
Friday of the month. Contact Steve Kamp, PO
Box 461, Monee, IL 60449, or call Dean Leto at
(708) 479-2900.
E.Z. Brewers: E.Z. Brewers has been reor
ganizing due to heavy attrition, They presently
list 70 homebrewers in the southern Illinois re
gion, with about eight active members.
Contact Doug Diggle c/o Old Town Liquors,
514 S. Illinois, Carbondale, IL 62901, or call
(618) 457-3513.
:MUGZ: The person responsible for this
month's newsletter did not mail them out--sorry!
Dues are $10 per year, meetings the last Sunday
of the month. Contact David Cashion, 927
Cleveland Road, Colona, IL 61241, or call {309)
792-9299.
Prairie Schooners: The Schooners are be
ginning a comparative brewing series to identify
differences in brewing techniques and ingredi
ents. The first project is for several members to
brew the same recipe, then compare samples.
Dues are $12 per year, meetings the second
or third Thursday of the month. Contact Karl
Menninger, RR1, Box296, Petersburg, IL 62675,
or call (217) 6322995 (evenings).
IOWA
Heartland Homebrew Club: Dues are $12
per household, meetings monthly. Contact Craig
Olzenak, 1030 High St., Grinnell, IA 50112, or
call (515) 236-4033.
KANSAS
Kansas City Bier Meisters: Jackie Rager
was rewarded for a year of brewing by being
named 1990 Midwest Brewer of the Year.
Rapscallions: Dues are $10 per year,
meetings irregular. Contact Richard Seaton,
2476 Coolidge, Wichita, KS 67204, or call (316)
838-3427.
KENTUCKY
Louisville Area Grain and Extract Re
search Society (LAGERS): The LAGERS sec
ond annual Picnic Extravaganza featured 30
gallons of draft, all-grain goodness. The LAGERS
are planning their second annual pilgrimage to
the Oldenberg Brewery in August. All members,
guests and area clubs are encouraged to attend.
Dues are $12 a year. Contact David R.
Pierce, PO Box 22588, Louisville, KY 40252, or
call (812) 948-9969.
LOUISIANA
Redstick Brewmnsters: Club members
brewed 10 gallons of light ale to be kegged and
served at the Brew-Off. The possibility ofhaving
an annual crawfish boil and Oktoberfest was
discussed.
Contact Charlie Milan, PO Box 17661, Ba
ton Rouge, LA 70893, or call (504) 343-204 7.
MAINE
Maine Ale and Lager Tasters (MALT):
Several MAL Tsters will be attending the N a tiona!
Conference in Manchester for Club Night and
other activities. Car pools will be arranged.
Preparations are under way for the Common
Ground Homebrew Competition on Sept. 21 at
the Windsor Fairground.
Dues are $10 per year, meetings the fourth
Monday of the month. Contact Michael
LaCharite, 6 Madelyn Ave., Topsham, ME 04086,
or call (207) 729-0225.
Maine Homebrew Society: The Society
was formed in April to provide a club environment
for brewers living in the Portland, Maine, area.
As a new club, they are looking for responsible
members and a clubhouse that will allow brew
ing during meetings.
Dues are $5 per month, meetings the first
Mondayofthe month. Contact Victor Baillargeon,
7 Turner St., Portland, ME, or call (207) 773
6858.
MASSACHUSETTS
Barleyhoppers: Member Dan Young wrote
a paper that was an experiment to show the
differences among four kinds of mashing, using
the same ingredients. The club tasted all four
brews and split evenly between infusion and
two-step infusion,
Dues are $12 per year, meetings the first
Wednesday of the month. Contact Mark Larrow,
154 King St., Northhampton, MA 01060, or call
(413) 686-0150.
The Boston Wort Processors: The Worts
capped off a successful brewing year by winning
the Northeast HomebrewClub of the Year. award
for the second straight time. Bill Murphy was
awarded the Wort Processor Homebrewer of the
Year.
Dues are $18 a year, or $12 for an associate
membership. Meetings are the first Friday of
the month. Contact Steve Stroud, 15 Dunbar
Ave., Medford, MA 02155, or call (617) 395-
6822.
The Gambrinus Society: The Gambrinus
Society has been meeting each month. They had
a very successful party at Christmas, with a
potluck supper, special ales and gift exchange.
New members joined that night. They have
heard from several prospective members via zy-
murgy Club News.
Contact Herbert Holmes, RR 1 Box 168, 92
Marsh Road., Barre, MA 01005, or call (508)
355-2753.
Trubadours: Trubadours has instituted a
club brewer of the year competition with points
earned from head-to-head competitions, imagi-
native beer names and presentationa at meetings.
Dues are $5 annually, meetings the last
Wednesdayofthemonth. Contact Jon P. Stavros,
46 Chalfonte Drive, Springfield, MA 01118, or
call (413) 783-1395.
MICHIGAN
Ann Arbor Brewers Guild: For March,
April and May the club presented the beers of
"Brewola II," their club exercise where many
members brew the same recipe.
Dues are $6 per year, meetings once a month
alternating Mondays and Thursdays at members'
homes. Contact Rolf Wucherer, 1404 White,
Ann Arbor, MI 48104, or call (313) 663-8196.
MINNESOTA
No Name Yet: The first successful meeting
was in March. A name will be chosen soon.
Future activities such as group brewing, bulk
buying and brewery tours were discussed, and a
wide variety of great homebrewed beers were
tasted.
Meetings are the first Saturday of every
other month. Contact Terry Sprung, 204 lOth
Ave. NE, Rochester, MN 55906, or call (507)
285-0591.
Northern Ale Stars Homebrewers
Guild: The second annual Northern Ale Stars
beer tasting was a whopping success, with over
260 members of the public sampling more than
35 commercial beers, plus a commemorative
homebrew.
Dues are $10 per year. Contact Don Haag,
5426 Beartrap Road, Saginaw, MN 55779, or
call (218) 729-6302.
MISSOURI
Missouri Winemaking Society: At the
March meeting AI Marks, enologist at the
HermannhofWineryin Hennann, Mo., spoke on
sparkling wines. The tasting will be ofhomemade
and commercial social wines and sparkling\vines.
Meetings are the third Thursday of the
month. Contact Herman Easterly, 3847 Flora
Place, St. Louis, MO 63110, or call (314) 772-
0722.
MONTANA
Zoo City Zymurgists: Elections were held
in February. Skip Madsen continues as president,
Chuck Zad.ra is the new treasurer and Neo.l
Christensen is the librarian.
Dues are $10 per person or $15 per couple,
meetings the second weekofthemonth, Contact
Skip Madsen, 1240 S. Second, Missoula, MT
59801, or call (406) 543-6929.
NEVADA
Washoe Zephyr Zymurgists: WZZ and the
Reno Homebrewer hosted the HWBTA Nationo.l
Competition in March, Although WZZ failed to
unseat the champion Sonoma Beerocrats in the
club competition, they did take second place!
Dues are $10 per household per year, meet-
ings the second Friday of the month (usually) at
BATCH lATCH DRAFT SYSTEMS
Complete Systems
and individual
components
available
5 gallon and new2.2
gallon systems
available
Available at The Finest Homebrew Retailers
Call For More Information
1-800-762-2560
Marc C. Fritz Inc. 11 Market St. Potsdam, NY 13676
CELEBRATE A DECADE OF
AMERICAN BEER
OverSOO
beers, over
200 draught
beers, over
150 American
breweries,
over 6,000
beer lovers.
The biggest,
the best, the
only.
Ten years of
serving the
finest beers
made in this
country. A
chance to
taste all the
great beers
under one
roof. A beer
lovers heaven.
Oct 4 & 5, Denver Merchandise Mart
Denver, Colorado
For ticket, hotel and airline information, call or write the Association of Brewers, PO
Box 287, Boulder, CO 80306-0827, (303) 447-0816, FAX (303) 447-2825.
SUMMER 1991 ZVMURGY 63
members homes. Contact Eric McClary, 6185
Franktown Road., Carson City, NV 89704.
NEW JERSEY
Mid-Atlantic Sudsers and Hoppers
(MASH): The club is growing quickly, with a 50
percent increase in membership in the last six
months. All meetings will be on the second
Saturday of odd-numbered months, though any-
one wishing to have a party any other time is free
to do so.
Dues were raised to $15per year because of
the postal rate increase. Contact Ed Busch, PO
Box 105, Flagtown, NJ 08821, or call at (908)
359-3235.
South Jersey Fermenters Homebrew
Club: SJF membership continues to grow, with
over 15 active members. EKperience levels range
from the brand new brewer to those the
homebrewer with more than 10 years of experi
ence,
Dues are $12 per year, meetings the last
Thursday of the month. Contact Mark Scelza,
617 W. Second St., Florence, NJ 08518, or call
(609) 4990962.
NEW MEXICO
The Los Alamos Hill Hoppers: The Hill
Hoppers meet monthly to taste homebrew, visit
breweries and brewpuba, and share recipes and
techniques. Recent meetings have included
viewings ofMichael Jackson's 'The Beer Hunter''
series.
Dues are $10 a year, meetings the third
STOUTS,ALES, LAGERS, PORTERS,BITTERS, PILSNERS, OR MEADS
MAKE THE KIND OF BEER YOU LIKE
THE COMPLETE JOY OF HOME BREWING
From America's leading authority on
home brewing, Charlie Papazian, comes
this definitive, easy-to-follow guide to
brewing everything from the lightest
lager to the darkest stout.
THE COMPLETE JOY OF HOME
BREWING includes a complete home
brewer's glossary, a fascinating history
of beer, over 50 fantastic recipes-from
Cherry Fever Stout to Monkey's Paw
Brown Ale, and much, much more!
THE COMPLETE JOY OF HOME
BREWING Charlie Papazian
88369-4 $8.95 352 Pages
"DEALER INQUIRIFS INVITED" AVON BOOKS, Room 723AHB
105 Madison Ave., New York, NY 10016 Tel: 212-399-1357
I
r
l
64 SUMMER 1991 ZVMURGY
Wednesday of every month in members homes.
Contact Michael Hall, 505 Oppenheimer Drive
Unit 1302, Los Alamos, NM 87544, or call at
(606) 662-2130.
NORTH CAROLINA
Piedmont Institute of Sud Sippers: Dues
are $10, meeting the second Wednesday of the
month. Contact Corbett Brown, 2805 Lamroe
Road., Greensboro, NC 27407, or call (919) 854-
3266.
Triangle's Unabashed Homebrewers
(TRUB): TRUE began the year with a compari
son ofbottled porters and &touts to determine if
there really was a difference between the styles.
Examples made by club members of each type
compared quite favorably to the better commer
cial varieties.
Dues are $15 a year, meetings the second
Wednesday of the month, Contact L.H. Adams,
1409 Rosedale Ave., Durham, NC 27707, or call
(919) 493-0857.
NORTH DAKOTA
The Prairie Homebrewing Companions:
The PHBC ofF argo-Moorhead was born in Sep
tember 1990 during a weekend field trip to vari
ous brewpubs and microbreweries in
Minneapolis-St. Paul, An organizational meet-
ing held at "Sherlock's Home," Raymond Taylor
was elected president, Martin A Draper, vice
president, Neil Gudmestad, treasurer, and Phillip
Nolte secretary,
Contact Ray Taylor, 917 22ndAve. N, Fargo,
ND 58102, or call (701) 293-3679.
OHIO
Bloatarian Brewing League: Home
brewers will meet can collectors when the BBL
co hosts a tasting with the American Breweriana
Association June 29 at the Drawbridge Inn. The
third annual BBL regional beer garden ''Beer
and Sweat" party at Oldenberg will be Aug 17.
Beer lovers, club members and others, are wel-
come. Contact your club or the BBL for more
details.
Dues are S15 per year, Contact Larry Gray,
7012 Mt. Vernon Ave, Cincinnati, OH 45227, or
call (513) 271-2672.
The Society of Northeast Ohio BrewerS
(SNOBS): Started in October 1990, the SNOBS
are at 80 members and growing. The club is
planning a summer camping trip and an Okto
berfest, and will be taking field trips to Oldenberg
(Aug. 17-18) and Toronto/Buffalo.
Dues are $25per person, $40 per household.
Meetings are the first Monday of the month,
Contact Rick Seibt, c/o the Great Lakes Brewing
Co., 2516 Market Ave., Cleveland, OH 44113, or
call (261) 383-1414.
OKLAHOMA
The High Plains Draughters: This is a
new club with a current membership of 11 and
growing. Monthly meetings consist of a demon-
stration and/or discussion of some aspect of
brewing and tasting members', beers, with dis
cussion of recipes and techniques,
Meetings are the third Tuesday of the month.
Contact Kent Keller, 8313 NW 113th St., Okla-
homa City, OK 73162, or call (405) 721-0508.
OREGON
Oregon Brew Crew: The Fourth Annual
Oregon Brewers Festival is tentatively ached
uled for the weekend of July 1921. Brent
Hoffman and Sharon Davenport will coordinate
volunteers. Fred Eckhardt conducted a beer and
chocolate tasting in February.
Dues are $15 per year, meetings the second
Tuesday of the month. Contact Tom Gronke,
1037 NW 20th No. 110, Portland, OR 97209, or
call {503) 227-3034.
Southern Oregon Brewers Society
{SOBs): The SOBs are just over a year old, yet
some 35 persons have aggregated around home-
brewing and the joys of distinctive beer. Several
members will take the BJCP examination Sept.
21 in Grants Pass, Ore. The SOBs have beds for
those who must come from a distance.
Dues are $5 yearly, meetings the third
Sunday of the month. Contact Hubert Smith,
PO Box 150, Selma, OR 97538, or call {503) 597-
2142.
PENNSYLVANIA
Homebrewers of Philadelphia and
Suburbs (HOPS}: Dues are $15 individual, $20
household. Contact George Hummel c/o Home
Sweet Homebrew, 2008 Sansom St., Philadelphia,
PA 19103, or call (215) 569-9469.
Three Rivers Alliance of Serious
Homebrewers (TRASH): The new officers for
1991-2 are Mark Benson, president; Tim
Henigin, vice president; Greg Walz, secretary,
and Kathy Benson, treasurer. Plans were dis-
cussed for a regional competition featuring only
bock and mead.
Dues are $10 per year plus $5 per meeting,
meetings the first Sunday of the month. Contact
Greg Walz, 3327 Allendorf St., Pittsburgh, PA
15204, or call (412) 331-5645.
RHODE ISLAND
Brewing Lagers Or Various Intriguing
Ales to Extreme Satisfaction (BLOVIATES):
At the last club meeting, members decided to
change the name from R.I. Association of Brew-
ers to BLOVIATES, which is defined in the dic-
tionary as one who speaks with great wind. Notice
to all R.I. brewers who are not yet BLOVIATES:
they know they are out there, so call! They
welcome all new (and old} members with open
kegs.
Contact Jim Sullivan, 123 Beach Ave.,
Jamestown, RI 02835, or call (401) 423-3251.
TENNESSEE
Bluff City Brewers: The Bluff City Brew-
ers are busy this summer getting ready for the
Mid-South fair. During the 10-day fair more
than a million people stroll through the grounds,
and the Bluff City Brewers are there. For in-
formation on attending the fair or entering the
contest, contact them.
Dues are $20 annually, with meetings the
third Thursday of each month. Contact Chuck
Skypeck, 761 Beasley, Memphis, TN 38111, or
phone 1-800-826-BREW.
East Tennessee Brewers Guild: The East
Tennessee Brewers Guild serves the brewers of
the Knoxville and Oak Ridge areas. Meetings
are on the first Tuesday following the first Mon-
day of each month.
Dues are $7 per year. Contact Dev Joslin,
112 Newcrest Lane, Oak Ridge, TN 37830, or
call (615} 482-7591.
TEXAS
Cowtown Cappers: After disappointment
at the last Dixie Cup, the club is heartened {not
to say amazed!) that in March it took the Blue-
bonnet trophy away from North Texas for the
first time ever, fighting off strong challenge from
the Foam Rangers as well.
Dues are $20 per year, meetings the third
Thursday of the month. Contact Fred Jackson,
c/o the Winemaker Shop, 5356 W. Vickery, Fort
Worth, TX 76107, or call (817) 377-4488.
North Texas Homebrewers Association:
The NTHBA laments the loss of former president
Paul Seaward to San Francisco and newsletter
publisher Brad Krohn to Portland. Membership
is up to 80 plus. Meetings are on the second
Tuesday of each month, usually at DeFalco's in
Olla Podrida. Dues are $15 per year, and mem-
bership privileges include a discount at favorite
homebrew shops and bars.
Contact Mike Leonard c/o Wine-Beer Magic
of Texas, 13931 N. Central Expressway No. 320,
Dallas, TX 75243, or call (214) 234-4411.
UTAH
ZZ Hops: The club is always looking for
new faces (and beers} to attend. Future meetings
are currently scheduled for June 7, July 12 and
Sept. 16.
Dues are $5 annually. Contact Cory Bailey,
10194 Buttercup Drive, Sandy, UT 84092, or cal
(801) 572-7884.
VIRGINIA
Brewers Association of Northern Vir
ginia {BANOVA): Since forming in November
1990, BANOVA has expanded rapidly in the
Northern Virginia area. Plans are under way for
an extensive social calendar in the coming year
highlighted by a trip to the old Dominion Brew-
ery, a Bier und Wurst Fest and a prolific pasta
pig-out party.
Dues are $20 a year, or $30 for a family
membership. Meetings are monthly. Contact
Miles D. Smith, 6936 Regent Lane, Falls Church,
VA 22042, or call {703) 237-8956.
Hampton Roads Brewing and Tasting
Society: The club's 40-plus members represent
the cities ofVirginia Beach, Norfolk, Portsmouth,
Chesapeake, Newport News, Hampton and
Williamburg. Elections were held at the March
meeting and the new officers are Joe Heil,
president; Chris Jones, vice president; Ron
Young, treasurer; and Bruce Rader, newsletter
editor. Meetings are the first Wednesday of the
month.
Contact Ronald R. Young, 2301 Kingsman
Lane, Virginia Beach, VA., 23456, (804) 427-
5695.
James River Homebrewers: Interest in
homebrewing in the heart ofV!.rginia continues to
grow. The club invites all central Vrrginia brewers
and beer lovers to join the most progressive brewclub
in the Southeast. Dues are $15 per year prorated,
newsletter subscriptions nre $9. For information,
call the club's 24-hour voicemail service, the
BrewsLine at (804) 750-6828.
WASHINGTON
The Brews Brothers: Represented by Jack
Hagens, the Brews Brothers won first place in
the AHA Hail to Ale competition. Plans are
progressing for the Brews Brothers regional
homebrew competition near the end of 1991.
Dues are $12 a year, meetings the second
Saturday of the month. Contact John Polstra,
9346 California Drive SW, Seattle, WA 98136,
or call (206) 932-6481.
South King County Homebrewers Club:
The club is in the process of picking a name apd
other attributes but as yet has no formal officers.
This has not dampened the enthusiasm of the
members in their quest for companionship and
exchange of brewing ideas and recipes.
Dues are $15 per year, meetings the third
Thursday of the month. Contact Larry
Rifenberick, 7405 S. 212 No.103, KentWA 98032,
or phone (206) 872-6848.
WISCONSIN
The Bidal Society Homebrewers of
Wisconsin: The club took second place in the
club award at Kansas. Brian and Linda North
took first place in fruit beer, second in barley
wine and second in the "no commercial com-
parison" category. David Norton took second in
wheat beer and second in sweet stout.
Continued on page 68
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SUMMER 1991 ZVMURGY 65
The Homebrew Connection
The Cooper Shop The Whip & Spoon
One Vineyard Lane 161 Commercial St.
These fine retail shops across North America
PO Box 130 PO Box 567
11onee,IL 60449-0130 Portland, ME 04112
offer homebrewing ingredients and supplies.
708.5348790 207-774-6262
Plan to visit them when you are in the area.
Country Food & Liquor Maryland
19454 S. Route 45 Brew Masters Ltd.
Alabama
Portable Potables
Mokena, IL 60448
12266 Wilkins Ave.
Birmingham Homebrew
1011 41st Ave.
708479-2900
Rockville, MD 20852
1917 29th Ave. S.
Santa Cruz, CA 95062
Jantac Cellars
301-984-9557
Birmingham, AL 35209-2617
408-476-5444
PO Box 266 The Flying Barrel
205-871-BEER/800-BUY-MALT
St. Patrick's Homebrew
Palatine, IL 60078
111 S. Carrol St.
Pearly Gates
106 Hagar Court
708.397-7648
Fredrick, MD 21701
2308 Memorial Parkway SW
Santa Cruz, CA 95064
Leisure Time
301-663-4491
Huntsville, AL 35801
408459-0178 123 S. Mattis
Terrapin Brewers Association
205-534-6233
Country Fair Shopping Center
Route 2 Lot 5B
Alaska
Colorado Champaign, IL 61821
La Plata, MD 20646
Alaska Mill & Feed Co.
The Brew-It Company 217-352-4007
301-932-1706
1501 E. 1st Ave.
129 Remington Ave.
Lil' Olde Winemaking Shoppe
Massachusetts
Fort Collins, CO 80524
Anchorage, AK 99510
800-748-2226
4 S 245 Wiltshire Lane
Beer And Wine Hobby
907-276-6016
Sugar Grove, IL 60554
180 New Boston St.
Arizona
Liquor Martine. 708-557-2523
Woburn, MA 01801
Brewmeisters Supply Co.
1750 15th St.
Old Town Liquors
617-933-8818/800-523-5423
Boulder, CO 80302
1924 W. Aster Dr.
303449-3374
514 S. Illinois Ave.
Beer Makers Supply
Phoenix, AZ 85029
Carbondale, IL 62901
441 Neck Rd.
602-843-4337
North Denver Cellar 618-457-3513
Lancaster, MA 01523
California
4370 Tennyson St.
Iowa
508-368-4343
Barley And Wine Home
Denver, CO 80212
Biedennan Brewing Supply
Peen's Country Living Inc.
303433-5998
Fermentation Supply
PO Box 164
Twin City Mall
1907 Central Ave.
Reinheitsgebot Home Brew Supply
Elkader, !A 52043
Leominster, MA 01453
Ceres, CA 95307
402 Main 508 -53 7-4 518/80 0-9 22 -84 90
209-538-BREW
PO Box 1024
Lena's Liquors
Beermakers of America Lyons, CO 80540
1544 Superior St.
The Modern Brewer Co.
Webster City, lA 50595
2304 Massachusetts Ave.
PO Box 777
303823-5363
515832-4042
Cambridge, MA 02140
Colfax, CA 95713
Connecticut
617-868-5580
916-8788527 /800-6555682 Kansas
(800 number is for CA only)
Crossfire Brewing Supply
Bacchus & Barleycorn Ltd. The Village Store
BeerMakersofAmerica-SanJose
PO Box 530
8725 Johnson Dr. 999 Maine Rd., PO Box 3051
1040 N. 4th St.
Somersville, CT 06072
Merriam, KS 66202
Westport, MA 02790
San Jose, CA 95112
203-623-6537
913-262-4243 508-636-2572
408288-6647
The Mad Capper Kentucky The Vineyard-Home Brewers
The Fermentation Settlement
PO Box 310126
Nuts N Stuff, Inc., Bulk Foods and Vintners Supply
1211 C Kentwood Ave.
Newington, CT 06131-0126
2022 Preston St. PO Box 80
San Jose, CA 95129
203-667-7662
Louisville, KY 40217 Upton, MA 01568
408-973-8970
S. E. C. T. Brewing Supply
502-634-0508 508-529-6014
Great Fermentations of Marin c/o S!MTAC
Winemakers Supply & Pipe Shop The Witches Brew
87M Larkspur 20 Attawan Rd. 94 77 Westport Rd. 25 Baker St.
San Rafael, CA 94901 Niantic, CT 06357 Westport Plaza Foxborough, MA 02035
415- 459-2 520/80 0-542-2520 203-739-3609 Louisville, KY 40222 508-543-2950
502-425-1692
Michigan Great Fermentations of Santa Rosa
Wine Art of Smith-Tompkins
840 Piner Rd. #14
1501 E. Main St., Rt. 202
Louisiana
The Ba"el Shop
Santa Rosa, CA 95403
Torrington, CT 06790
The Beersmith 41 Courtland St.
70 7- 544-25 20/80 0-5 44-1867
203-489-7137
8158 Harry Dr. Rockford, MI 49341
Home Brew Supply
Baton Rouge, LA 70806 616-866-3 327/80 0-648 -98 60
6781 Sueno Rd.
Delaware 504-924-6544
Diversions Beer and
Isla Vista, CA 93117
Wine Hobby USA-Delaware
Maine Winemakers Supply
2306 W. Newport Pike
805968-7233
Stanton, DE 19804
Maine Home brew Supply 140 E. Front St.
The Home Brewery
302-998-8303
PO Box 202 Traverse City, MI 49684
775 S. Gifford, Suite 9
Gorham, ME 04038 616-9466500
San Bernadino, CA 92408 Georgia
207-642-3658/207-773-6858
Missouri
714421-0331 Wine Craft of Atlanta
The Purple Foot Downcast
E.C. Kraus Sales
Napa Fermentation Supplies
3400 Wooddale Drive NE
116 Maine St., Dept. Z
PO 7850
724 California Blvd.
Atlanta, GA 30326
Waldoboro, ME 04572
9001 E. 24 Hwy.
Napa, CA 94559
404-266-0793
207-832-6286
Independence, MO 64054
707-2556372
Illinois R.S.V.P. Discount Beverage
816254-7448
R & RH omeFermentation Supplies Clzicago Indoor Garden Supply & Redemption Center Inc. The Home Brewery
8385 Jackson Rd. 297 N. Barrington Rd. 887 Forest Ave. PO Box 730
Sacramento, CA 95826 Streamwood, IL 60107 Portland, ME 04103 Ozark, MO 65721-0730
916-383-7702 708-885-8282/800-444-2837 207-773-8808 417-485-0963/800-321-BREW
66 SUMMER 1991 ZYMURGY
IMO Homebrewand
Meadery Supply
PO Box 25485
St. Louis, MO 63125
314-487-2130
St. Louis Wine & Beermaking
7352 Manchester, Suite 100
Maplewood, MO 63143
314-644-4664
Winemakers Market
4349 N. Essex Ave.
Springfield, MO 65803
417-833-4145
Nebraska
Home brewing Supply Co.
2805 N. 97th Ave.
Omaha, NE 68!34
402-39!-0649
Nevada
Budgie Myster Home Brew Co.
2404 Howard Dr.
Las Vegas, NV 89104
702-457-9671
New Hampshire
The Brewer's Basement
PO Box 521
Dover, NH 03820
603-749-2198
Orfordville Home Brew Supplies
Rt 25A RRI Box !06A
Orford, NH 03777
603-353-4564
Salisbury Brewing Supply Co.
114 Garvins Falls Rd.
Concord, NH 03301
603-224-8270
Now York
Bottom of the Barrel
280 E. Dominick
Rome, NY 13440
315-339-67 44/800-437-3451
The Brewery
11 Market St.
Potsdam, NY 13676
315-265-0422/800-762-2560
East Coast Brewing Supply
124 Jacques Ave.
Staten Island, NY 10306
718-667 -4459/fax987 -3942
Fall Bright
9750 Hyatt Hill
Dundee, NY 14837
607-292-3995/607-292-6908
Hennessy Home brew Inc.
470 N. Greenbush Rd.
Rensselaer, NY 12144
518-283-7094
The Homebrewer's Connection
198 Smith Rd.
Spring Valley, NY 10977
9!4-425-5560/800-BREW!23
KEDCOBeer& WineMakingStore
564 Smith St.
Farmingdale, LI, NY 11735-1168
516-454-7800
Milan Malt Shoppe
RD 1, Box 196
Red Hook, NY 12571
914-756-2741
Milan Wine & Beer Brewing Lab.
57 Spring St.
New York, NY 10012
212-226-4780/800-BEER-KEG
Party Creations
RD 2 Box35
Red Hook, NY 12571
914-758-0661
S&R Homebrmving
& Winemaking Supplies
PO Box 544 Union Station
Endicott, NY 13760
607-748-1877
North Carollna
Alternative Beverage
114-0 Freeland Lane
Charlotte, NC 28217
800-365-BREW
Oklahoma
Urban Technology
2911 W. Wilshire
Oklahoma City, OK 73116
405-843-1888/800-356-3771
Oregon
F.H. Steinhart Co.
234 SE 12th St.
Portland, OR 97214
503-232-8793
Home Fermenter Center
123 Monroe
Eugene, OR 97404
503-485-6238
Pennsylvania
Ambler Woodstove & Fireplace
Butler & Bethlehem Pikes
Ambler, PA 19002
215-643-3565
BREW by YOU
3504 Cottman Ave.
Philadelphia, PA 19149
215-335-BREW
Bryant Brewing
RD 1,Box 262
Austin, PA 16720
814-647-8526
Country Wines
3333 Babcock Blvd.
Pittsburgh, PA 15237-2421
412-366-0151
Home Sweet Homebrew
2008 Sansom St.
Philadelphia, PA 19103
2!5-569-9469
Rhode Island
East Coast Homebrew Supply
PO Box 1010
Mapleville, RI 02839
401-568-6155
Hobby Witzemakers Supply
1270 Post Rd.
Warwick, RI 02888
401-461-0780
Tennessee
Allen BiermakeJZs
4111 Martin Mill Pike
Knoxville, TN 37920
615-577-2430
Squash Blossom Market
5101 Sanderlin, Suite 124
Memphis, TN 38117
901-685-2293/901-324-BREW
The Winery and Brew Shop
60 S. Cooper St.
Memphis, TN 38104
901-278-2682
Texas
Beer & Wine Magz'c
13931 N. Central Expwy,
Suite 320
Dallas, TX 75243
214-2 34 -4411/80 0-9 66 -4144
Defalco Wine & House Beer
12215 Coit Rd., Suite 232
Dallas, TX 75248
214-233-7895
Utah
Art's Brewing Supplies
640 South 250 West
Salt Lake City, UT 84101
80!-533-8029
The Straw Ibis
52 Federal Ave.
Logan, UT 84321
801-753-4777
Vermont
The Nevin Dubin Homebrew
Supplier at K and K Beverage
1341 Shelborne Rd.
South Burlington, VT 05403
80 2-658 -9595/80 2-8 77-2318
Vlrglnla
The Compleat Gourmet Inc.
3030 W. Cary St.
Richmond, VA 2322!-3502
804-353 -9606/800-7 77-96 06
Eats Natural Foods CoOp., Inc.
1200 N. Main St.
Blacksburg, VA 24060
703-552-2279
Heartwood Crafts/Brew Supplies
POBox 2501
Lebanon, VA 24266
703-889-2741
Washington
Brewers Warehouse
4520 Union Bay Place NE
Seattle, WA 98105
206-527-504 7
The Cellar Home Brew
14411 Greenwood N.
Seattle, WA 98133
206-365-7660/800-342-1871
Jim's 5 Home Brew Supply
& TradiJional Beer Emporium
N 2619 Division St.
Spokane, \VA 99207
509-328-4850
Liberty Malt Supply Co./
Pike Place Brewery
1432 Western Ave.
Seattle, WA 98101
206-622-!880
West VIrginia
Stone's Throw
at the Mountain Peoples Market
1400 University Ave.
Morgantown, WV 26505
304-291-6131
Tent Church Vineyard
RD 1, Box 218
Colliers, WV 26035
304-527-3916
Wisconsin
Haupt Ba"el & Cooperage Co.
1432 S. First St.
Milwaukee, WI 53204
414-645-7274
Hedtke's IGA Market
308 Clark St.
Hatley, WI 54440
715-446-3262
Life Tools
401 N. Clay St.
Green Bay, WI 54301
414-432-7399
The Malt Shop/
Kettle Moraine Vinyards
N. 3211 HighwayS.
Cascade, WI 53011
414-528-8697
Nort's Worls
7625 Sheridan Rd.
Kenosha, WI 53143
414-654-2211
Canada
FSJ Brmv Haus
8221100 Ave.
Fort St. John, BC V!VJ !W7
Canada
604-787-2739
Marcon Filters
40 Beverly Hills Dr.
Downsview, ON M3L lAl
Canada
416-248-8484
Pacific Coast Vintners and
Brewers Ltd.
3419 Kingsway
Vancouver, BC V5R 513
Canada
604-433-8918
If you are interested in having your shop
listed, please call Linda Starck,
(303) 447-0816, for all the details.
SUMMER 1991 ZYMURGY 67
~
-<' ~ \P
I- Main Street rn
I
Medaryville ~
Indiana 47957
(219)843-5422
[email protected]
Quality Comes First
~ O u r malts and hops are kept
in constant cold storage.
~ O u r malts are professionally
ground using a roller mill.
w ReadymashTM grists offer
wide selection and convenience.
Order your malts and hops
"just in time"
Call, write or email to get the
ball rolling ...... .
Want To Go
Pro?
Don't miss the
Microb1ewery Event
of 1991!
The National Microbrewers
and Pubbrewers Conference
and Trade Show
September 4-7, 1991
Hyatt Regency Hotel
Buffalo, New York
Presentations Trade Show
Information Contacts Beer
For details contact Jeff Mendel,
Institute for Brewing
Studies, PO Box 287,
Boulder, CO 80306-
0287. Phone, (303)
447-0816.
68 SUMMER 1991 ZVMURGY
Continued from page 65
Dues are $36 per year, or a trial member
ship for $13, Meetings are the third Thursday of
the month. Contact David Norton, c/o Nort's
Worts, 7625 Sheridan Road, Kenosha, WI 53140,
or call {414) 654-2211.
Boars Head Brewing Club: 1991 will
mark the ninth year of the Boars Head Brewing
Club. Club members, some of who have been
with the club from the start, plan to compare
summer ales brewed during the warmer weather.
When fall comes, the club will challenge members
to brew the most palatable stout for consump
tion toward the end of next winter.
Contact Jeff Pariah, 2321 Trillium Drive,
Eau Claire, WI 54 707,or call (715) 8390555.
TheBrewtownBrewmasters: TheMarch
meeting brought their knuckleheads together to
vote among 12 fine bocks to represent the club in
the AHA's Bock is Best competition. The club
voted overwhelmingly to stay with the knuckle
headed loose format of no dues, no officers, no
shoes, no shirt, no service.
Contact Mark May, 4280 N. 160th St.,
Brookfield, WI 53005, or call (414) 781BREW.
Central Wisconsin Amateur Wine Club:
The club will start the season on Sept. 12 at the
Central State Bank in Marshfield, Wis. Come
have a look and listen, and join them if you like
it! The club strives for the betterment of wine
and beer making through programs, judginga,
films and trips to wineries and breweries. They
welcome anyone.
Dues are $10 annually, meetings the second
Thursday of the month September through May.
Contact Edward R. Holt, 1200 E. 26th St.,
Marshfield, WI 54449, or call (715) 3849441.
King Gambrinus Court of Brewers: Art
Steinhoffreeently showed hie beers at the Kan
a as City Biermeistera Competition and took frrat
with his Texas brown ale, plus frrst and best of
show with his pale ale. The club attended the
Blessing of the Bock, put on by the Lakefront
Brewery in Milwaukee on March 17.
Contact Art Steinhoff, 7680 Big Pine Lane,
Burlington, WI 53105, or call (414) 539-2736.
AUSTRALIA
Amateur Brewers Association-
Victoria: 1991 started off with a cheese and
beer tasting held at Barry Hastings' Brewery
during February. A wide range of Dortmunder
and other German beers together with some
delightful Australian cheeses were enjoyed by
all assembled.
Contact Bany Hastings, 10 Aston Heath,
Glen Waverley, 3150, Australia, or phone (03)
561-4603.
CANADA
The Brewnosera: The Brewnosers are still
growing in number and expertise. Recent meet
ings have included a demonstration bre,vingnight
for beginners and experienced homebrewers to
share tips and techniques, and brewing contests
where look-alike and best-of-clase categories re
ceived the frrstever Brewnoserclubcontestprizes.
Meetings are the second Monday of the
month. Contact Jeffery Pinhey, 2325 Clifton St.,
Halifax, NS, Canada, call {902) 4255218, or use
CompuServe ID 74040,3137.
Campaign for Real Ale {CAMRA): The
Victoria, B.C., chapter of CAMRA held a home
brewing seminar at the Fogg n' Sudds Restau
rant in January. The 30 in attendance heard
from a variety of speakers on common beer faults
and judging, full-mash brewing, improving the
standard kit, modifying refrigerators for dis
pensing draft, U-Brew stores and membership
and publications from the AHA.
Contact CAMRA Victoria, 1440 Ocean View
Place, Victoria, BC V8P5K7 Canada, or phone
(604) 595-7728.
Edmonton Homebrewers Guild: By the
time you read this, the club will have held an
outstanding open competition in June with well
over 100 entries. The current executive will
dissolve as easily as tears in beer during the
September annual general meeting, and a new
executive will set off on trembling legs for the
next club year.
Dues are $25 per year. Contact Michael
Kelly, 4835 151 St., Edmonton, AB, Canada, or
call (403) 437-5157.
Royal Canadian Malted Patrol: February
featured the club's frrst ever AHA-sanctioned
competition, the"WortYouBrewin?" It attracted
134 entries. The grand prize was airfare to
Boulder, Colo., to judge in the f1rat round of the
Nationals and attend Homebrew Day festivities.
Contact BettyAnn Sather, 3419 Kingways,
Vancouver, BC V5R5L3, Canada, or call {604)
433-8918.
JAPAN
Foreign Fermentations: The club writes,
"Hello, America! It's too hot to brew here due to
primitive conditions, although we are soliciting
suggestions on how and what to brew at 90
degrees F and above-no air conditioning. We
extend a warm invitation to homebrewers ev
erywhere to visit Tokyo and let us be your hosts."
Contact Crayne Horton, Kopo Hiro 105,
Kugenuma Tachibana 1155, Fujieawa, T251
Japan, phone 0466-24-2806.
NEW ZEALAND
Auckland Guild of Winemakera and
Brewers: Treasurer Howard Ries was awarded
Champion beermaker at the River Valley open
competition in February for his dry stout, brewed
with malt extract, wheat, specialty grains and
liquid yeast from Canada.
Dues are $20/$24, meetings the fourth
Wednesdayofthemonth. Contact Hec Denniston,
426 Sandringham Road, Auckland 3, 868 428.
Manukau Amateur Winemakers and
Apiarists Club: The membership in the last
few years has nearly doubled, in fact, they are in
the process of finding rooms suitable for their
size. Their main job now is planning to host the
northern region of the New Zealand Federation
of Home Brewers. The convention will be in
Papatoetoe in August-September. All are we}.
come.
Contact Basil Dempsey, 18 Picton St.,
Papatoetoe, New Zealand, phone (09) 2785453.
North Shore Fermenters: The new com
mittee for the NSF is president, Alf Cameron;
editor, Ike Ansin; treasurer, Glen Sullivan; sec
retary, Stephanie Dron; librarian, Bill Dron;
functions organizer, Samantha Dron; and raffle
organizer, Greg Barnaby. At their fll'stmeeting,
resolutions were passed to hold a variety of
functions during 1991.
Dues are $15 single and $20 double. Meet
ings are the third Wednesday of the month.
Contact Mrs. Ike Ansin, 13 Sundown Ave.,
Whangaparaoa, New Zealand, or phone 0942
48209.
Waimea Amateur Winemakers and
Brewers Society: Contact Mrs. Marie Stephens,
4 Chtm:hill Ave., Richmond, Nelson 7002, New
Zealand, or phone 47100.
SWEDEN
Feirjiisningsarmen {Fermentation
Army): A new homebrew club has formed in
Stockholm. HA.ken Lundgren and Svante Ekelin
are the first (and currently only) members.
Membership is expected to increase to 10 very
soon. The big event in Sweden is the Swedish
National Competition, run by the Swedish
Homebrewera Association. HOgaktingsfullt!
Contact the Fermentation Army c/o Svante
Ekelin, HumlegA.rden, S-186 96 Vallentuna,
Sweden, telephone (762) 35515.
CLASSIFIED
Deadlines: Spring-December 15, Summer-March 20,
Fal/,-June 7, Special Issue-August 16, Winter-September
20. Pre-payment required. Please specify in which issue(s)
your ad is to run. Call Linda Starck, Advertising Manager,
at (303) 447-0816 for options and rates.
INGREDIENiliS
Extensive stock of grains, hops, yeast and
supplies at the right price. FREE catalog.
Frozen Wort, POB 947, Greenfield, MA
01302-0947. Tel: 413-773-5920.
MAKE QUALITY BEERS I Free catalog
and guidebook. Low prices, fastest service
guaranteed. Reliable. Freshest hops,
grains, yeast, extracts. Full line equip-
ment. The Cellar, Dept. AZ, PO Box
33525, Seattle, WA 98133. (206) 365-7660,
1-800-342-1871.
BAY ARIAN CRYSTAL MALT-Light and
Dark. Large selection ofhops, malt extracts
& grains. Bulk light and dark syrups for
the brewer on a budget. Since 1971. Call
(713) 523-8154 or write for Free Catalog:
DeFalco's Home Beer Supplies, 5611
Morningside Dr-Z, Houston, TX 77005.
ADVANCED BREWERS BUY
DIRECT-Brewery-grade malt, rice
and wheat extracts. Fifteen different
hops. Liquid yeast cultures. Quantity
discounts. American Brewmaster, 2940-
6Z Trawick Road, Raleigh, NC 27604.
(919) 850-0095.
BEER AND WINE MAKERS-request
free catalog, fast reliable service. Large
selection of malt, hops and concentrate.
The Purple Foot, 3167 S. 92nd St., Dept. Z,
Milwaukee, WI 53227. (414) 327-2130.
BREW MORE FOR LOTS
LESS FREE CATALOG-GRAINS,
EXTRACTS, YEASTS, 18 DIFFERENT
HOPS, EQUIPMENT-BRYANT BREW
lNG, RDl, BOX 262, AUSTIN, PA 16720.
NO BRAG, JUST FACT!!
We are the lowest priced
supplier of brewing
ingredients in the midwest.
Bulk sales only.
Brew for Le$$ (Chicago)
1-800-34 7-3011
18 Munton & Fison Beer kits export Pilzner
Old Ale Australian Draft & Lager Etc.
8.95 + 3.95 P&H, 1.00 P&H additional per
can. Home Winery Supply, Dundee, MI
48131.
Raw Hop Flowers
9 varieties of the Pacific N.W. finest. Free
Catalog. FRESHOPS, 36180 Kings Valley,
Philomath, OR 97370. 503-929-2736.
Non-Liquid Assets
Our gelatin yeast cultures differ from the
popular liquid cultures in two big ways.
One culture lasts a full brewing season &
the average cost is 15/Brew. For more
information contact: Stew's Brew, RR 4
Box 243, River Falls, WI 54022. (715) 425
2424.
THE HOMEBREWERS' STORE
1800-TAP-BREW
ENGLISH ALE KIT $15.95
6lbs. Telford's (imported) unhopped amber
malt extract syrup, Three ~ O z pkgs. Hops
(pellets), an English Ale LIQUID yeast
culture, complete instructions, AND
SHIPPING! Checking or Money Order to:
THE HOMEBREWERS' STORE, PO Box
82736 Kenmore, WA 98028.
FRESH HOPS ALL YEAR!
Whole hop
11
plugs" imported varieties
vaccum packed. 5 ~ o z $6.99. Unique
homebrew kegs. Mid-South Malts, 2537
Broad, Memphis, TN 38112. 1800-826-
BREW.
BEER & WINE MAGIC
Complete line of ingredients. Supplies for
beginner to advanced brewer. Three
gallon cornelius - $39.95. 13931 N.
Central Expy #320, Dallas, TX 75243.
FREE CATALOG 1-800-966-4144.
SUIUUUES
WRITE FOR FREE CATALOG of
brewing supplies. Home Sweet Home-
brew, 2008 Sansom St., Philadelphia, PA
19103.
Service
Satisfaction
Selection
Savings
FREE CATALOG
Alternative Beverage
800-365-BREW
SERIOUS BREWERS in Midwest take
note-lowest bulk prices on varietal
extracts, malts and hops. Free catalog.
Green Acres, 216 Vork Road, Esko, MN
55733. (218) 879-2465.
BOTTLE CAPS-Seven gross-$7.50 post
paid. Hayes' Homebrewing Supply, 208-A
W Hamilton Ave. #17, State College, PA
16801.
BEERMAKERS-WINEMAKERS-
Free Illustrated Catalog-Fast Service-
Large Selection-Kraus, Box 7850-Z,
Independence, MO 64053. (816) 254
0242.
RYE MALT
Try so1nething different!
We have the nearly impossible
to find RYE mall. The MALT
SHOP had a ton of RYE
malt made exclusively for us.
Only $ L09lb. or $43.60/ 501bs
**"'**'*****
Check aut the low prices on our
American Inade n1al ts & extracts
SUMMER HOP SALE
Cascade pellets ... I lb ......... $7.50
Cluster pellets ..... I lb ......... $7 .50
Hallerlau pellets . I lb ........ $9.95
ALL WYEAST ......... $3.50 each
THE MALT SHOP
N 3211 li wy S. cascade. WI
53011
Call for our free catalog
1 (800) 235 0026
SUMMER 1991 ZYMURGY 69
CLASSIFIED
continued from page 69
BEER AND WINEMAKERS
For free catalog call (612) 522-0500.
Semplex, Box 114 76Z, Minneapolis, MN
55411.
WILLIAM'S BREWING
features an extensive selection of unique
supplies including. home breweries, draft
systems, brewing kits,
ture controllers, bottling aids, and our own
line of fresh malt extracts and liquid yeast.
Free 32-page Catalog/Newsletter.
William's Brewing, Box 2195-YS, San
Leandro, CA 94577. (415) 895-2739.
large selection, low prices, prompt service.
Free catalog, S & R Homebrewing and
Winemaking, PO Box 544, Union Station,
Endicott, NY 13760. (607) 748-1877.
FREE CATALOG!
SEBASTIAN BREWERS SUPPLY
7710 91st Ave.
Vero Beach, Florida 32967
1-407-589-6563
free catalog - 145 malts. Winemaking
Shoppe, 4 S 245 Wiltshire Lane, Sugar
Grove, IL 60554. (708) 557-2523.
TBA- New beer/wine making supply
pany. One day we'll be your supplier.
Send for free catalog. TERRAPIN BREW-
ERS ASSOCIATION, ROUTE 2 LOT5B,
LAPLATA, MD 20646.
N
arleymalt
& Vine
'
.
New England's Best Selection 0/"
Brewing Supplies
Full Service Retail Outlet
Free Mail Order Catalog
"Free Freight (orders over$30)
, -800-666-7026
4 Corey St., W. Roxbury, MA. 02132
24 Hour Mail Order Line (617) 3270089
/nl"ormation Is The Most Important
Ingredient
70 SUMMER 1991 ZYMURGY
BEERMAKERS
Free catalog. Large selection malt extracts,
grains, fresh hop flowers compressed into
1/2 oz. discs. Yeast Bank
1
" , equipment,
accessories. Country Wines, 3333y Babcock
Blvd., Pittsburgh, PA 15237.
THE BEVERAGE
PEOPLE
We wrote the book on homebrewing.
Free Catalog, Free Newsletters.
Discounts on quantity supplies from
America's most :respected dealer. Great
Fermentations of Santa Rosa. See our
ad, pg. 25.
The search stops here for homebrew
supplies. Over 750 items available
10% discount with first order - fast
shipments - satisfaction guaranteed.
Call800-345-CORK, 3118 US 12 E., Niles,
MI 49120 for free catalog.
SOUTHWEST CAP & CORK
CONNECTICUT may not have a lot going
for it-but now it has great brewing sup
plies at great prices! Write or call: S.E.C.T.
Brewing Supply, c/o SIMTAC, 20 Attawan
Rd., Niantic, CT 06357. (203) 739-3609.
M-F8-5.
FREE HOPS
WITH EVERY ORDER. HUGE SELEC-
TION OF EQUIPMENT & SUPPLIES -
BEST PRICES! FREE CATALOG/
NEWSLETTER. KANE'S BREWHAUS,
105 E. 4TH ST., TROY, ID 83871-0516.
(208) 835-5263.
10% offfirst order!
Lowest prices around!
For free catalog write: Make Your Own
Beer! Suite 123-Z, 4215 Winnetka Ave N,
New Hope, MN 55428.
Please Help! New homebrew shop.
Free Catalog. St. Patrick's Homebrew,
106 Hagar Court, Santa Cruz, CA 95064,
408-459-0178.
Thermostat Controlled Re-
frigeration Kit, Brew better beer &
prevent off-flavors that fermenting by
varying temperatures create. Easy to in
stall, 40 to 90 F, illustrated instructions,
write for brochure or send $130 for kit to
Wolf, 12239 Westlock Dr., Tomball, Tx.
77375. Order in Tx. add $10. Custom
orders welcome.
WOOD BEER CASES- Tired of keeping
your beer bottles in holders?
With our easy to follow, illustrated plans
& a few hand tools you can have a sturdy
wood beer case. Send $8.95 to: ARCTIC
SAWDUST MFG. CO., PO Box 671123,
Chugiak, Alaska 99567.
15.5 Gal. Brew Kettle
Made from keg $65. Also available,
tom SS plumbing + thermometer. Use for
mash/lauter tun or sparge. For more in
formation- Write Kettle, 1507 NE 76 St.,
Seatle, WA 98115.
Wort chillers $22 standard custom sizes
available. 303-467-3219. Rob Nelson,
works great!
SPECIFIC GRAVITY
CORRECTION CHART
A high quality and easy to use guide for
obtaining the proper correction value for
hydrometer measurements at any tern
perature. 8 1/2 x 11 and suitable for fram-
ing. Satisfaction Guaranteed. Send $3.00
to: Yukov Company, Box 114E, R.D. #2,
Windber, PA 15963
MEADMAKERS: Send $1.00 for FREE
price list and Mead recipe. Gyoparka's
Honey Shoppe, Box 185, Geneseo, IL 61254
IMO Home brew and Meade1y Supply
is the place for all your ZYMOTICAL needs.
Honey, herbs, spices, dried flowers, reci-
pes. 50# 2-row Malted Barley $29 + UPS
33 Qt. Enamel N+Brewpot $29 UPS paid
IMOHMS, PO Box 25485, St. Louis, MO
63125.
MAKING MEAD?
Use mesquite honey- 12lbs $9- 24 lbs
$16- Plus UPS- Chaparral Corp. 1655
W Ajo #154, Tucson, AZ 85713.
WORLD BEER REVIEW-newsletter
for the beer gourmet and enthusiast.
Request free copy or subscribe now for
only $16.50. WBR, Box 71A, Clemson, SC
29633.
DIGITAL
THERMOMETERS
Either one
Any two
1" DIA, FACE
4 1/2" S.S.PROBE
.1' RESOLUTION
REPLACEABLE BATTERY
0-160'F #6825
68-220'F #6830
$21.75 + $2.50 P & H
$39.95 + $2.50 P & H
AMERICAN BREWMASTER
2940-6 TRAWICK RD.
RALEIGH, NC 27604
919-850-0095
STAINLESS DRAFT SYSTEMS
Excellent condition used 5 gallon pinlock
soda keg with new 2 gauge C0
2
regulator,
all fittings, tap hose, and hand faucet only
$150; kegs alone $35 ea. Prices include
shipping to continental US. Black Moun-
tain Homebrew Supply. (619) 375-0192.
BREWER'S CATALOG. Stainless-steel
draft systems, all-malt kits, fresh quality
supplies. Koeppl's Master Brewer, 2311
George St., Rolling Meadows, IL 60008.
DRAFT SYSTEMS, CTSP
Filters, Bottle Fillers
Everything for complete homebrewer: SS
systems, books, parts. Braukunst, PO Box
786-Z, Duluth, MN 55801.
Maine Homebrew Supply
Free Catalog. Full line of supplies and ingredi-
ents. Lowest prices, Hop plugs, liquid yeasts, T-
shirts, pub paraphernalia. We do not charge for
handling. Club discounts. Visa/MO. PO Box
202, Gorham, Maine 04038. (207) 642-3658 or
(207) 773-6868.
Brewking Brewsacks
Self-contained Brewing System that works!
Just add water-make 400 ozs. great La-
ger or Traditional Bitter. $28.95 + applic.
tax & $2.50 P & H. Buckeye Brewer's Sup-
ply, POB 24147, Dayton, OH 45424, MC &
VISA accepted.
1-800-933-8492
THE HOMEBREWERS' STORE
1-800-TAP-BREW
Beef Jerky: Goes great with homebrew!
How to select, prepare, marinate, and
smoke homemade beef jerky. Send $5.00
to Wayne, Box 275, Jamestown, RI 02835.
CUSTOM LABELS for homemade beer &
wine. Thousands of graphics, borders, 50
type styles. $2.00 for catalog. Computer
Graphic Labels, 6822 Spickard Dr., Hun-
tington Beach, CA 92647.
FREE FROM THE AHA!
Circle only the items you want.
How-tos
942 How to Teach a Homebrew Class*
943 How to Start a Home brew Club
944 Editorial and Photo Guidelines for submissions to zymurg.J
946 Outline for Intermediate Brewing
* Contact the AHA for free informative handouts for your students.
(303) 447-0816
Lists
937 Additives allowed in beers commercially brewed in the U.S.
939 Homebrew clubs in Canada, New Zealand, Australia and the U.S.
940 Beer-related magazines, newspapers, journals, newsletters
941 Micros and brewpubs in the United States with city and state
Especially for the Beginner
945 How to Brew Your First Batch of Beer
947 How to Use Specialty Malts, with Malt Extract Conversions
948 The zymurgist' s Guide to Hops
General Information
931 An Introduction to the American Homebrewers Association
932 zymurg.J Mini-Index 1978-1990
933 The New Brewer magazine Index 1983-1990
934 The Beer Enthusiast Catalog
A catalog of beer books, T-shirts, glassware and fun things.
935 Introductory CompuServe Information Service kit (members only)
Includes free subscription and $15 worth of time on the AHA's beer forums.
936 Application and info for the AHA's Sanctioned Competition Program
bjc The Beer Judge Certification Program Booklet
HERE'S HOW TO OBTAIN THE ABOVE INFORMATION:
AHA members: It's all free to you but you must enclose $2.00 to cover postage and
handling costs. P & H is free if merchandise is ordered at the same time. Circle
only those items you want.
Nonmembers of the AHA: Please send for our catalog and information on the
AHA.
Name ___________________________ Phone __________________ __
Address __________________ c_ ____________________________ __
City------------------------------ State/Province ---------
Zip/Postal Code Country------------------
ALSO AVAILABLE FROM THE AHA
Helpful Information for the First-Time Brewer, Relax, Don't
and have Your Own Home brew vvith the help of these guidelines, charts and
articles. It's a hefty so please enclose $2 for postage and handling.
0 Please send me the Beginner's Package. Enclosed is a check for $2.
American Homebrewers Association, PO Box 287, Boulder, CO 80306-0287.
(303) 447-0816, FAX (303) 447-2825.
142
SUMMER 1991 ZYMURGY 71
Tips For the b
Aspiring Beer Snob
Remember when beer was some-
thing you drank to look stupid? Beer
was just an excuse and since every-
body drank the same bland, canned
excuse, it didn}t matter what it was
called. Beer was a means to an end.
Beer was there to enable you to dance
or flirt (or vomit) or do anything you
felt almost capable of doing ordinarily.
The Microbrew Revolution has
changed the way we drink beer. In
stead of drinking it to get somewhere
(i.e. drunk) and then forgetting it, beer
now requires constant attention.
For example, walk into a pub that
has 179 taps and try asking the bar
tender for a "draft." Drinking beer is
suddenly very complicated. There are
so many weird things it's hard to know
what to order.
The sad thing is, the trouble only
begins when you buy a beer. After
you buy it you have to talk about it!
And it's not like you can get away
with vague generalizations like "This
beer is good" or "I'm wasted" any-
more, because some 97-pound weak-
ling with a hydrometer in his breast
pocket is going to make you look like
an idiot in front of your date. To look
cool in today's beer environment you
need to know the key words and
phrases that all the beer experts use.
"Hoppy"-This is the greatest
and most flexible of all beer words.
Go to a bar that has 179 taps. Close
your eyes and spin in circles. Stop
and point to the first beer you can see
clearly. Order it. Take one sip and
declare. "It tastes kind ofhoppy." No
one will disagree. Everyone will think
you know a lot about beer.
72 SUMMER 1991 ZYMURGY
"Complex"-Is one of the most
elusive of beer words. More ethereal
than "happy," it bestows the highest
possible honor on a beer despite wide-
spread disagreement about what it
means. I assume it is the opposite of
11
simple" but I'm not sure what
"simple" beer tastes like. Suffice it to
say that "complex" is even more im-
pressive than happy and should only
be used when no other adjective is
possible.
''Quite Nice"-When in despair
you can always fall back on this simple
understatement. It sounds vaguely
British and implies you really know
more than you're letting on.
'Pint"-Always ask for a
11
pint
11
of beer whenever you are drinking,
even if you know they only serve it by
the thimble. All cool beer is served in
"pints." "Glasses" are for water, or
worse.
''Light"-An important thing not
to say! The word "light" is the enemy
of all good beer. People who walk into
sophisticated beer parlors and ask for
a "light" beer are begging to be hu-
miliated. The proper term is "Some-
thing Mild." If you must have a beer
that is truly without taste, ask for it
directly. There are plenty of tasteless
microbrewed beers out there and ev-
eryone will respect your honesty if
you just come out and say that's what
you want.
use. Next time you are in a brewery
or a public house, invite your date to
go home and ''hop the wort," or "sparge
the grist." If anyone asks what these
phrases actually mean, just wink. No
one cares what they really mean. They
sound dirty and that's all that counts.
Reprinted from Beer Dreams,
the Beer Brewers of Central Con-
necticut. Written by Richard Leider,
Cascade Beer News, Oregon.
Various Sexual Innuendos-One
of the benefits of your new micro-
brewed literacy is your access to a
huge pile of new sexual innuendos to
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