Old Ale -- Utopias barrel aged.

Well today, 7 Brew Free or Die members got together to add the Old Ales they had brewed into a Utopias Barrel.

The colors of the beers ranged from a dark copper to medium brown. The process was to sample each of the beers before adding to the barrel. The flavors ranged from dry to sweet, body of the beers also ranged from thin to medium/full.

Overall the hopes of those entering into this long term project was quite high. The estimate is that we have 43 gallons in the barrel.

The other barrel projects were sampled, keeping sanitation in mind, the Flanders Brown (aka. what was once a Baltic porter) has really started to improve quite a bit. To quote Bill H. "if anyone doesn't want their share, I will take it". The Russian Imperial in Utopias barrel, has a great toasted coconut and vanilla flavor/aroma, medium to full body... really exceptional.

Cranberry Challenge 2008

At the November 2008 meeting I presented information about Cranberry beers.

Here are my notes and a number of recipes for Cranberry beers of all styles.

I will be making the Crandaddy Braggot from Sam Calgione's book, and I invite others to try brewing some cranberry beers that we can taste next year.

Enjoy!

David Rosenbaum

3rd New England Regional Homebrew Competition

I would like to thank all the sponsors, entrants, and staff for the tremendous support that was
given to the 3rd Annual New England Regional Homebrew Competition, which took place on October 25th 2008, in Acton Maine.

We had 290 entries in the competition, up from 250 the previous year. Over 100 homebrewers had submitted entries, from as many as 19 states. The competition is still tallying up how much money was raised for The American Cancer Society, and The Good Shepard Foodbank of Maine.

Complete list of winners can be found here http://www.bfd.org/NERHBC/

Best of Show was won by Alastair Hewitt, who provided the following recipe for his dry stout.

Stout Lite

All-grain

Color

Stats OG 1.035 FG 1.011 IBU 39 ABV 3.10 % SRM 36

BJCP Style 16A. Stout, Dry Stout Description A low alcohol stout, stating at bottom of OG range and ending at top of FG range.

Recipe Details

Tasting Notes Low gravity fermentation is very clean, so drinkable after one week. Awards BOS winner - 3rd Annual New England Regional Homebrew Competition Boil Volume 8.00 gallons Boil Time 90 minutes Batch Size 7.00 gallons Yeast Wyeast 1056 (75% app. attenuation) Primary Fermentation Glass, 5 days @ 68F Secondary Fermentation none Other Fermentation Procedure Single step infusion mash, 75 mins @ 152F. Split batch and add 12oz of lactose to one half for a sweet stout (FG 1.018)

Style Comparison Low High OG 1.035 1.035 1.050 FG 1.007 1.011 1.011 IBU 30 39 50 SRM 36 35+ ABV 3.2 3.10 5.5

Fermentables

% Weight	Weight (lbs)	Grain	Note	Gravity Points	Color
75.7 %	7.00	American Two-row Pale		27.8	1.8
13.5 %	1.25	British Roasted Barley		3.9	575.0
10.8 %	1.00	Flaked Barley		3.4	2.2
	9.25			35.1

Hops

% Wt	Weight (oz)	Hop	Note	Form	AA%	AAU	Boil Time	Utilization	IBU
50.0 %	1.00	First Gold		Pellet	6.9	6.9	90	0.323	23.8
25.0 %	0.50	Willamette		Pellet	5.8	2.9	90	0.323	10.0
25.0 %	0.50	Willamette		Pellet	5.8	2.9	15	0.150	4.6
	2.00								39.0

Miscellaneous Ingredients

Weight/Units	Name	Notes
1 tsp	Calcium Carbonate	Start of boil
1 tsp	Irish Moss	Last 15 mins

European Amber Lager Club-Only Competition

It's autumn and the leaves are all over the ground. That means it's time for our third and final Club-Only Competition of 2008. We are going to be judging entries from BJCP Category 3 (European Amber Lager) under the 2004 Style Guidelines. So bring a Vienna Lager or an Oktoberfest for judging in Novembeer/Decembeer. We will not hold the judging as originally planned on November 21, but will move the date so as not to conflict with the meeting or clash with your Thanksgiving plans.

The same competition rules apply as always:

The beer must be ready to drink by the Novembeer 2008 BFD meeting at Todd and Mary Russell's house. It must be labelled with the brewer’s name and submitted in one of the following containers: 2 12 oz. bottles, 1 22 oz. bottle, or 1 container with at least 22 ounces of beer (i.e. growler, plastic soda bottle, etc.).

Contact any of the members of the Competition Committee (Todd, Phil, Billy K., Bill R. or Mary) if you have any questions.

Electing Club Officers for 2009

At the October business meeting it was suggested that club members who won't be at the holiday party should be allowed to vote for officers via email. There were good arguments made on both sides of this question, and it was left that I (as current President) would look at the bylaws and set a procedure for this year's election based on what I found. Here are the parts of the BFD bylaws that seemed to me to be relevant to this question:

Section II-4 - Rights and Liability of Members Each regular member of the club shall have the right to vote on club matters provided they are in attendance during a regularly scheduled BFD Business meeting.

Section III-3 - Election Dates Regular elections are held annually with nominations at the December meeting. Voting will be held at the last meeting of the year and the new officers take office on January 1st. Special elections may be held as determined by the majority vote of the club officers.

By my reading of the bylaws email voting for officers (or anything else) is not allowed because the right of members to vote is dependant upon their attendance at a regularly scheduled BFD business meeting (II-4) and officers are to be nominated at the December meeting (III-3).

As was discussed at the October meeting, in order to have time for people to know all the nominees for office and vote via email before the December meeting nominations would have to be closed before that meeting and the bylaws require the nominations to be made then. In practice, I see no reason why nominations cannot be made before December (at the October or November meetings) and then made official at the December meeting.

To change the way the elections are held will require changing the bylaws. These bylaws were revised a few years ago with LOTS of discussion and input from the members of the club. I don't think they should be revised without careful consideration and adequate time for members to discuss the changes being made - as required by the bylaws:

Section IX-2 - Procedure for Changes Any regular member may make a motion for a change in the bylaws at any regularly scheduled monthly business meeting. When changes are suggested, the petition must be presented in writing. The vote on this motion will be at the next regularly scheduled monthly business meeting. The officers of the club will make every reasonable attempt to notify all regular members of the impending vote within ten days prior to the vote, but they are under no obligation to do so. Failure to notify the membership does not negate the scheduled vote. A vote of the majority of the regular members in attendance is required to approve a change in the existing bylaws.

So, officers for 2009 will be voted on at the Business Meeting held in connection with the holiday party which will be at the Fairbrother's (in Londonderry) on December 13, 2008. The bylaws do not specify who will run the elections. In the past the Treasurer has done so, but this year the President will run the election because our current Treasurer is running for office and I am not.

Nominations for office (President, Vice President, Treasurer, and Secretary) will be open until I close them so that voting can begin during the December meeting. Nominations must be made at a business meeting because they require a second by another member. If you want to make a nomination and cannot attend the November or December meeting you can email the Vice President (who checks his email more often than I do) and he will bring your nomination forward at a meeting. If it receives a second at the meeting it will be considered a valid nomination.

The 12th Annual New England Homebrewer's Jamboree

When: Saturday September 6th, 2008
Where: Branch Brook Campground, Route 49, W. Campton NH

Public welcome, proceeds to benefit Make-A-Wish Foundation

See: http://www.homebrewersjamboree.com/ for more details.

Blues 'n' Brews 2008 Results

BFD members Chris Dodge, Jim Prucha, Todd Russell, and David Rosenbaum cleaned up at the Blues 'n' Brews homebrew competition last weekend! Chris finished third in the Best of Show with his Dil's Pale Ale and Jim, Todd, and David made big dents in their respective categories.

You can check out the results here:

http://www.foambrew.com/

Be sure to ask Chris, Jim, Todd, and David to share their award-winning brews with you at the September BFD meeting. Congratulations for showing FOAM how BFD brewers rock!

Belgian & French Ale results . . .

Six strong examples of Belgian and French Ales were poured on Friday, August 22. Three emerged to take the ribbons:

3rd - Bill Herlicka with a Belgian Specialty Ale (Strong Golden with caramel malts)

2nd - Todd Russell with a Saison

1st - Bill Rucker and Bill Herlicka with a Belgian Specialty Ale (rye and brett)

Congratulations to Bill, Todd, and Bill for their well-crafted beers!

Thanks to Erik, Bert, Rob, and Bill for judging them.

Geez look at all those hops!

The August meeting was held over Bert's, under the hops...



Here's Bert and fellow BFD member Dick with a portion of the hops that Bert grew this year.

Thanks for hosting the meeting Bert, great food, beverages and people, always a GREAT time!