HOPS Brewsletter - October 2012

by Jason Cox

HOPS – Homebrewers Of Pagosa Springs

 

Hiya HOPS Heads,

Well, lucky for you, it has been a while since my last Brewsletter (hold the applause, please). I’ve been a bit busy, as I am sure most of you can relate. Staying crazy busy is a funny thing. I think many of us create our own self-inflicted insanity. I mean, I don’t have to drive old VWs that need constant tinkering, have stupid chickens that need taking care of, have an insane beer fetish that keeps me brewing, bottling, cleaning and kegging for hours on end, but I do. All these ‘little’ things can add up to one big pain in the asparagus. My other problem is that I’m about as organized as a trailer park – post tornado. That certainly adds to my insanity. I figure if I could just get my poop in a group maybe I wouldn’t be so frazzled. But the thought of restructuring my organized chaos is daunting enough to make me want to drink beer. And in case you didn’t notice, motivation seems to fly out the window with the consumption of boozes. It’s a nasty cycle. It takes time to save time, but who has time to apply? That’s why I love beer. It’s like time stands still when you drink beer. Gazing deep into your pint glass you take a sniff. The slight, gentle aroma of hops lightly whisks your nose like a run-away Fruehauf smashing through a concrete barrier on Wolf Creek Pass. (Now that’s my kind of beer!) That first, flavor-blasted sip goes down so nice and refreshing. You slip away into beer-vana. Sure, all the crap of life continues to pile up in the background like a Texas freeway in an ice storm, but at this point, who cares? You have found peace, and somehow you have been removed from the insane world out there, which now seems to be in some way placed on mute. Ahh, for the love of it all – can’t I just stay here in my hoppy place? I think I’ll grab another beer and try…

 

Until next time, cheers and happy fermenting ~

 

Randini the Beer Spammer

 

Quote of the Day:  “There are three intolerable things in life: Cold coffee, lukewarm champagne [or beer], and overexcited women.” – Orson Welles

 

Tech Tip of the Day: Transferring beer using CO2 rather than a siphon (safer than carrying around glass carboys!): http://archive.maltosefalcons.com./tech/CO2_racking/

 

 

 

HOPS Meetings:

 

  • HOPS – New Business:
    • Next Meeting: Tuesday, the 23th is the next HOPS meeting, Pagosa Brewing Co at 6:00 PM. The YELLOW COLOR GROUP is up, so if you are in this group, make sure you have been in touch with your Color Group Leader to find out what is in the pipeline.
    • Style of the Month: Sour Beer (Oh yes, I’m serious!)
    • Discussion: Some ideas we want to go over include the following:

A)   Donated Homebrew Supplies – Raffle?

B)   Learn To Brew Day – November 3rd (Anyone want to host?)

C)      Other upcoming events found below.

 

UPCOMING LOCAL NEWS & EVENTS:

 

Mark Your Calendars:

 

  • October 23th – HOPS Meeting at Pagosa Brewing Co, 6:00 pm. Well, I guess we don’t really get going until 6:30, but come anyway.

 

 

  • November 3th : Learn to Homebrew Day! Let’s get together and brew some swizzle. Anyone interested in hosting?

 

NEWS:

 

  • For those of you that don’t already know, Eleanor and the Great Randini have a business where we sell spruce tips (new growth on spruce trees) to the beer brewing industry. We had a huge order from Goose Island Beer Co in Chicago this summer and they made a video about it. You may recognize a couple faces in there too… Check out the silliness here:
    http://www.gooseisland.com/pages/gran_g_s/314.php

 

  • Beer News Around Durango – For the latest news on the beer scene in Durango, check out http://beerat6512.blogspot.com/. Our neighbors to the West have a great beer town, 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!

 

 

Pagosa Brewing Company News / Events:

 

 

 

  • ~ Halloween Saturday ~ : 4pm - Tapping of Special Pumpkin Beers: Pumpkin Ale & Pumpkin Stout

 

5pm - Regular Menu & Dinner Specials

* Vampire Soup:

- Rich vegetarian tomato soup - $3.99/cup or $5.99/bowl

 

* Sloppy Boo's:

- Housemade sloppy joes using our Grass Roots Angus Beef served on a Garlic Toasted Bun w/ a side of Onion Rings! - $8.99

 

* Pumpkin Cheesecake:  

- Served with Whipped Cream - $5.49 

 

5pm - Kid's Coloring & Costume Contest (prizes)

8pm & 9pm - Adult Costume Contests (prizes)

 

 

 

FRONT RANGE & BEYOND NEWS & EVENTS:

 

 

 

 

 

 

FOR SALE / FOR FREE / WANTED:

 

  • Wine Bottles – We have some extra bottles around if anyone needs them. Most have been de-labeled. Contact The Great Randini at randy@speeddirect.com if’n ya wannum.

 

  • Interested in some new stainless steel homebrew kettles? Check out the email below if you are: 
    Good afternoon,
    My name is Ben Caya and I'm the owner of Spike Brewing LLC. I wanted to drop a quick note to your home brew club. If you're not aware, we make stainless steel home brew kettles. I just graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee with a degree in Mechanical Engineering. Over the past year my 'part time' business throughout school has turned into a full time job. We are a vendor on HomeBrewTalk.com and have been very well received thus far but I'd like to expand our reach to local home brewing clubs. I would really appreciate it if you could pass along information on Spike Brewing to your members. All our kettles can be seen and purchased on my website which is www.spikebrewing.com. As an token of our appreciation we have set up a 5% off coupon for any product we sell. To redeem the coupon members would only need to enter the discount code "Colorado" in the discount code section during checkout. Thanks for your time and if any members have questions or comments I would be happy to answer them personally.
    Ben Caya
    Owner - Spike Brewing LLC
    ben@spikebrewing.com
    262.370.4616
    www.spikebrewing.com

 

  • WANTED – Refrigerator that can be used for a kegerator.

 

 

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…

 

 

Links:

 

  • Homebrewing News – A website started by our buddy Bill Downs here in the Four Corners area that focuses on product reviews and more: www.homebrewingnews.com

 

  • 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.

 

 

 

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