Good Beer Fest - 2015

Come out and support your local craft and home brewers this weekend Good Beer Fest!  The festival is Saturday and Sunday, 12:30 - 6:30 both days, at Pemberton Park in Salisbury, MD.  Check out http://www.goodbeerfestival.com/ for more info.

The B.I.E.R. club will be located adjacent to the Beer Garden, beside the Xtreme Brewing and Delaware United Homebrew (DUH) tents.

We will be pouring samples of homebrew from club members and from Xtreme, as well as performing a homebrewing demonstration both days.  The good people at Xtreme Brewing have graciously donated the ingredients for the demonstration, and we're very appreciative of all their support to the local homebrewing community!

Hope to see you out there this weekend!

Cheers,

B.I.E.R.

B.I.E.R. Meeting Minutes - 8-26-2015

·         Location:  Chesapeake Brewing Company in Crisfield, MD

·         Attendance:  Justin Babcock, Ernie Bowden, Henry Burth, Mark Bushman, Bob Clark, Gabe Garde, Matt Norwood, Josh Owens,

·         Pear Extract Homebrew Tasting Session:

o   Mark Bushman’s:

§  Plonde ale - Munich, magnum, T58 dry saison yeast, seeds of paradise. Pear extract 2 lbs.

§  ‎Plale ale - Munich, magnum, us 05, juniper berries, mosaic dry hops, pear extract 2 lbs.

§  double Plale ale - same as above but 4 lbs of pear extract.

o   Gabe Garde’s:

§  Pear Saison

o   Ernie Bowden:

§  Pear-Apple Ale

o   Justin Babcock

§  Pear Hefeweizen

o   Josh Owens

§  No pear beer (loser) – instead brought some BetrothAle…

o   Overall notes:  The saison yeast from both varieties tends to lend itself very well to the pear flavor, and helps accentuate it.  The apple-pear also tended to do this quite well, and was fermented with a lower attenuating English Ale strain, so as to maintain some of the sugars from the extract.  The double Plale ale finished quite sweet, but definitely had a noticeable pear flavor.  Some thought this was more than the saison’s, some thought less.

·         Open forum discussion with Dave (head brewer) from Chesapeake Brewing Company included the following topics:

o   Scaling up recipes from small batches to larger ones and the lack of linearity in doing so

o   BAM (Brewer’s Association of Maryland) meetings and their effort to help get more breweries established in the state and help push through new legislation to make it easier on existing and future breweries operating in Maryland.

o   The distribution system for professional breweries and differences between Maryland and Virginia.  Also discussed were the zoning regulation differences between the states (Virginia appears to be more state-controlled, while Maryland appears to be more county regulated.)

o   All of the different taxes that are required by the states and the federal government.

Brewing demonstration at the ESO's 3rd Annual Craft Beer & Music Fest

This past Saturday, August 8th, the club participated in the ESO's 3rd annual craft beer & music festival by brewing 10 gallons of a Citra hopped American amber ale (Babcock's CC 10B). We were able to meet a lot of current home brewers and hopefully brought a few people into the fold of home brewing. The event was held at the ESO arts center in Belle Haven, VA.

The club was also represented online by the first photo in a series of photos published online at delmarvanow.com


"Justin Babcock of B.I.E.R Homebrew Club watches over the brewing process of an American Amber Ale during ESO Art Center's 3rd Annual Craft Beer & Music Festival Saturday, Aug. 8, 2015 in Belle Haven.  Staff photo by Malissa Watterson"

Minutes from our homebrew meeting on 6-25-2015:

• Upcoming events
• July 1st "Red white and Brew"
• August meeting in Crisfield, people bringing their pear beer to that meeting
• Upcoming AHA homebrew competitions in August
• Dominion Cup – 8/1 in Richmond
• Delaware state fair, also 8/1
• Delaware Homebrew Competition – 10/17
• Virginia Beer Blitz – December 2015
• Fall homebrew competition at WFF Rocket Club?
• How much interest, and what beer styles?
• Investigate "BE AN ATTRACTION" at Tall Tales - Running Sabco on a Friday as an attraction
• Nick set up BIER account with Matheson gas.  Basically, if we keep using this we might get a discount on gas (CO2, Beer gas, welders, etc).  Will post pricing soon.
• Conducted the Wort Tasting – Pilsen DME versus 2-row Brewer’s All-Grain.  Noted that the all-grain definitely had a more full-bodied flavor, maltier.  The Extract was much thinner.  Note that both worts had the same OG.

Some great new discounts for AHA members in the area!

I blatantly ripped this out of an email from the AHA, but hey why not?!

Below is a list of business in the area nearby most of our members that offer discounts for AHA members. Assawoman Bay brewing, a restaurant associated with them, and the 45th and 9th street Taphouse are all new additions.

These are in addition to 3rd Wave Brewing Company which offers 15% off all purchases & OC Brewing which offers $1 off all craft beer pints.

Just be sure to have your membership card on you and present it before they ring you up. As always, please tip based on the pre-discount bill amount. Bartenders and waitstaff need beer money too!

If you aren't an AHA member, please consider joining via our referral link or by clicking above on "Join AHA". They are a great organization that provides substantial support for our hobby via information resources, support of the BJCP and many other great things.

Assawoman Bay Brewing Company 15% off Beer, Food & Merchandise 4435 C Coastal Hwy Ocean City, MD 21842  www.assawomanbaybrewing.com Present your AHA membership card before ordering to save money at this and other participating businesses. Be kind to your servers. Please tip based on the pre-discounted total of your bill. Is your membership expired? Renew today and take advantage of AHA Member Deals.

Shallow Waters Restaurant 15% Off Beer, Food & Merchandise 4435 C Coastal Hwy  Ocean City, MD 21842  www.shallowwatersrestaurant.com Present your AHA membership card before ordering to save money at this and other participating businesses. Be kind to your servers. Please tip based on the pre-discounted total of your bill. Is your membership expired? Renew today and take advantage of AHA Member Deals.

45th Street Taphouse 15% Off Beer, Food & Merchandise 4501 Coastal Hwy Ocean City, MD 21842  www.45taphouse.com Present your AHA membership card before ordering to save money at this and other participating businesses. Be kind to your servers. Please tip based on the pre-discounted total of your bill. Is your membership expired? Renew today and take advantage of AHA Member Deals.

9th Street Taphouse 15% Off Beer, Food & Merchandise 3 9th St Ocean City, MD 21842  www.9taphouse.com Present your AHA membership card before ordering to save money at this and other participating businesses. Be kind to your servers. Please tip based on the pre-discounted total of your bill.

November 2014 DIY guide for STC-1000 based temperature controller

This was presented at our November 13th meeting. It is a basic guide to creating your own dual stage (capable of controlling cooling and heating) temperature controller based on the STC-1000.

The biggest take away is that this is an example! You can come up with any number of design variations very easily.

The club is a great resource for any questions you have. We have plenty of people that have built controllers based on the STC-1000 that can help out.

Feel free to ask any questions below in the comments!

Fall Newsletter:

For those not on our email distribution list, the Fall B.I.E.R. Newsletter can be viewed at the link below:

Fall B.I.E.R. Newsletter

Note:  You can also subscribe to our newsletter email list by clicking "subscribe" in the upper left hand corner of the window.