HOPS Pagosa

HOPS – Homebrewers Of Pagosa Springs

 

Hello HOPS Heads,

As I sit here working on the Brewsletter, I hear that distinctive sound resonate from the other room. A sound I have heard so many times. A sound that brings warm, familiar feelings of good times and good people. “Pgh-Chscht!” The sound of a fine craft brew in a can getting opened! Eleanor is making the best of this sunny Saturday afternoon sitting on the porch, soaking in some rays with a can of some fantastic brew while my sick head is staring at a monitor merely dreaming about the beer she is enjoying. The canned craft brew industry has been exploding lately. It used to be that only crap beer that barely even passed for beer was only found in cans. If you wanted good beer you wouldn’t even consider the canned section, you would head straight to the bottles. Not any more – with kick a$$ breweries filling the shelves with the latest ‘can-coctions’ you can find tons o’ fun in a can. Plus, you get all the benefits of being green, not getting light-struck beer, fresh flavors and easy pack-it-in pack-it-out usability. If you have been avoiding the canned beer because of the negative connotations of yester-decade, I would suggest reconsidering. There are some amazing beers out there waiting to be discovered! And now for the moment I have been waiting for… that happy, hoppy sound that resonates in my beer soaked cranium. The sound that means the day is about to get a little bit better than it was just a few minutes ago. The sound that brings happy thoughts and prevents violent reactions due to craft beer deprivation. My hands claps a cold can of Avery Brewing Co’s India Pale Ale, the one that has “Hop Freaks Unite!” printed on the label (one of my favorite cans right now). I look at the pull tab with eager anticipation, knowing what lies beneath. I eagerly pull the tab and release that wonderful sound that has been silenced for too long. Can you hear it? Ahhh yeah, and it’s goooood too!

 

Cheers, and happy fermenting ~

 

Randini the Beer Spammer

 

Tech Tip of the Day: Carbonating bottled beer. We have had several people bottle their beer only to find a few weeks later that there is no carbonation. If this is the case a lot of times it is because the yeast did not have enough time to start consuming the priming sugar and start fermenting. Many times you can take the uncarbonated beer bottles, bring them up to room temperature (around 70 degrees or so) and lightly tip them back and forth to stir them (mixing the yeast and sugar, but not shaking crazy-like). Leave the beer bottles at 70 degrees for a week or so, then try one and see if the fermentation took. So far in the last month or two we have had two club members do this and ta-da! Presto-chango the beers were carbonated! In the future, be sure to leave the bottles at 70 degrees or so for a week or so after bottling or so…

 

Quote of the Day: “That was way back when I was a beer wimp…”

 - Mary Schnose, my own mother, remembering the days before she discovered the joy of hoppy beers!

 

 

HOPS Meetings:

 

• HOPS – New Business:
• Next Meeting: This coming Tuesday, the 28^th is the next HOPS meeting, Pagosa Brewing Co at 6:00 PM. The GREEN COLOR GROUP is up, so if you are in this group, make sure you have been in touch with your Color Group Leader (Laura) to find out what is in the pipeline.
• Style of the Month: English Brown Ales
• FFO (First Friday Out) – The first Friday of February (the 2nd) we will meet at Kips.
• Discussion: Some ideas we want to go over include the following:

A)      Membership Dues – Time for us to squeeze some money out of you!

B)      United Way Brew Event (Schedule date and recipe – more info below)

C)      Durango Pub Crawl – we are working with the homebrew club in Durango about doing to gathering / pub crawl in March. Bring ideas on what you would like to do. Tastings? Presentation Topics? Just looking for ideas…

D)      Homebrew Hoedown Plans – we need to decide if we are hosting another event. Last year we did it in June. Do we want to do it again?

E)      BJCP Club Competition? Also paired in June with the Hoedown maybe?

 

 

UPCOMING LOCAL NEWS & EVENTS:

 

EVENTS:

 

• Tuesday, February 28th – HOPS Meeting: This coming Tuesday is the HOPS Meeting (normally the fourth Tuesday of the month). We will meet at Pagosa Brewing Company at 6:00 PM. This month we will be going over some of the upcoming events and agenda items above, along with the Style of the Month. This time English Brown Ales. For more info on these styles, check out the descriptions listed on the BJCP website here: http://www.bjcp.org/2008styles/catdex.php (Category 11) Check out Liquor Stories below to see browns that are in stock!

 

• First Friday Out, February 3rd – The first Friday of the month we like to drink beer. Ok, we like to drink beer more often than that, but we usually get together somewhere around town, and this time around we will meet at Kips. See you there 6:00!

 

• United Way Brew Event - Bill Tramarco in our HOPS club is involved with the local United Way chapter based in Pagosa Springs and we chatted with him recently about their upcoming annual appreciation celebration in April. We'd like to get HOPS club members together to brew some beers that we can donate to the event and use to help support United Way. We will send out more details soon and we should brew by early March to give the brews sufficient time to be ready by the event in early April. Post any suggestions or thoughts you have about this on this thread and we'll take everything into consideration. What better way to support charity than to make homebrew!

 

• Durango Homebrew Gathering / Pub Crawl – Sometime in March we are planning a get together with the Homebrew Club in Durango. This will probably include a homebrew tasting at Ska, along with tours & presentations then followed by a tour of beer spots including other breweries and Lady Falc’s. More details will follow as we get them.

 

Dates to Keep In Mind:

• Late February - March 28: National Homebrew Competition Entry Registration
• May 5: AHA Big Brew
• May 14-20: American Craft Beer Week
• June 21-23: National Homebrewers Conference
• August 4: Mead Day
• November 3: Learn to Homebrew Day

 

NEWS:

 

• Ska 2012 GABF Pro-Am Homebrew Competition: Here is an email from Ska regarding the homebrew competition coming up:

 

Greetings Homebrewers!

Happy 2012 to all!  Just wanted to let everyone know that we will be holding our annual GABF Pro-Am HomebrewCompetition during American Craft Beer Week again.  The dates for American Craft Beer Week are May 14-20, 2012.  Registration will begin in mid-late February but just wanted to touch base with everyone so you could begin to plan ahead.  Please let me know if you have any questions.

 

Cheers,

 

Kristen Muraro

Events Coordinator

Ska Brewing Co.

Office:  970-247-5792 Ext: 35

Cell:  970-946-0715

Kristen@skabrewing.com

225 Girard St.

Durango, Colorado 81303

 

 

• Beer at 6512 Blogspot is Back! - http://beerat6512.blogspot.com/ is a beer blog based out of Durango. Our neighbors to the West have a great beer scene, along with some great writers and this is a fun place to check up on the happninz. Erich Hennig, my brew-brotha-from-anotha-motha just joined the team. Check it out – I think you will enjoy it!

 

• Local Beerlover Networking Website: Check out www.brewerfest.com for a social beer lover’s networking site. It works kinda like Facebook, only without all the loser teenagers counting how many totally irrelevant “friends” they can amass proving how completely lame they are. This site is actually cool! (Yes, a big fan of Facepuke here…) Joseph from Pagosa Brewing started this one up and it has some great photos of HOPS junk, plus it is free to join! Sign in and rock out with your beer out.

 

Pagosa Brewing Company News / Events:

 

 

• Hop Rhizome Source: Want to grow your own hops? You can harvest wild hop rhizomes locally or you can purchase rhizomes from different suppliers. Here is one that sent our club an email: 
  To: Homebrewers of Pagosa Springs 
  I’d like to introduce myself, my name is Andy McCormick and I own Arrowhead Hops, a small hop yard in central Iowa 30 minutes north of Des Moines.  Arrowhead Hops is happy to announce the 2012 hop rhizome pre-order sale through March 1st! Pre-ordered rhizomes will be delivered in early spring.  All rhizome varieties will be $2.75 each for club members, quantities allocated for this sale are limited and no minimum purchase is required. Please email Arrowheadhops@yahoo.com with variety and quantity if you wish to place an order.
  Brewer’s Gold, Chinook, Galena, Mt. Hood, Nugget, Sterling, Willamette
  Thanks
  Andy McCormick
  Arrowhead Hops

 

FOR SALE / FOR FREE / WANTED:

 

• Free Fridge (Great for a Kegerator) – If a HOPS member is interested in building a kegerator I found a free fridge that would be great for the job. Email me for more info – randy@speeddirect.com. Again, don’t reply to this email or you will send it to every beer drinking fool on the planet. Really.

 

• All Grain Brew Equipment Wanted – Yours truly is looking for some misc. all grain brewing equipment. I mainly need a wort chiller and a sparge arm.

 

Anybody else have anything you want to list? Beer related or not, just lemme know and I will circulate your stuff around the universe. Well, my universe…

 

Liquor Stories:

 

      Our tribute to local liquor stores that like beer, and not just crap beer, I mean Real Beer! Not all of them are cool enough to contribute to this kick a$$ Brewsletter, so be sure to treat the ones that do with some extra business. Usually you will get a hook up too!

 

Silver Dollar Liquors:

 
New 6pks

 

Deschutes                     Red Chair

                                    -Northwest Pale Ale

 

Left Hand                     Fade To Black

                                    -Pepper Porter

 

New Bombers

 

Jolly Pumpkin               Calabaza Blanca

                                    -Barrel aged Arisan White Ale

 

Great Divide                 Espresso Oak Aged Yeti

                                    -Coffee Imperial Stout

 

New Belgium                La Folie

                                    -2012 Sour Brown Ale

 

Goose Island                Pere Jacques

                                    -Belgian Style Abby Ale

 

6pk of the Month

 

Big Sky                        Moose Drool

 

 

Bomber of the Month

 

Samuel Smith                Nut Brown

 

Browns In Stock

 

Big Sky Moose Drool, Avery Ellie’s Brown, Samuel Smith Nut Brown,  Ska Buster Nut Brown, TommyKnokker  Maple Nut Brown, Twisted Pine Honey Brown, Ska Ferries Wear Boots

 

 

Star Liquors (Durango):

 

  

UNSUBSCRIBE – Not now, I’m busy… “Pgh-Chscht!”