From the Prez... The RUBBER CHICKEN NEXT MEETING: Studio 4, 2nd Floor 342 Market Ave SW Judging at 6:00, Meeting at 7:00 PM Wednesday, September 17, 2014 The New Style Guidelines are here!! The New Style Guidelines are here!! For the truly beer geeky amongst us, you may have heard that the BJCP will be updating the Style guidelines for 2014. This is true. The proposed draft is online for review. I took a look through them, and here are some of my comments: As I m sure we all know, the current (2008) style guidelines can be broken down like this: There are currently 28 categories. 23 beer categories, 3 mead categories and 2 cider/perry categories. These categories further break down into subcategories: 81 total subcategories of beer, 9 subcategories of mead and 9 subcategories of cider/perry. That adds up to 99 subcategories of beer, cider and mead. 2014 does a bit of expanding on these categories. Here s a nifty table for reference: BJCP 2008 2014 Beer Categories 23 34 Beer Sub Categories 81 103 Mead Categories 3 4 Mead Sub Categories 9 13 Cider/Perry Categories 2 2 Cider/Perry Sub Categories 9 11 Total Sub Categories 99 127 But wait That s not all! In the new BJCP, they have a new category and a new subcategories with several undocumented examples that don t have their own Category/Subcategory designation, just and indication that you have to clarify your entry. The new 21B subcategory is designated as Specialty IPA, and listed options are Black IPS, Brown IPA, White IPA, Rye IPA, Belgian IPA and Red IPA. And there is a new category 27 Historical Beer with no sub categories. But you have to designate which historical style your entry is: Gose (yay!), Piwo Grodzskie, Lichtenhainer, Roggenbier, Sahti, Kentucky Common, Pre Prohibition Lager (Classic American Pilsner), Pre Prohibition Porter, and London Brown Ale. So the 127 in the table above could easily be considered a 138! (Make that 139. I just noticed two variants listed under Kellerbier: Munich Kellerbier and Franconian Kellerbier). The stated intent in this major change to the guidelines is to better address world beer styles
as found in their local markets, keep pace with emerging craft beer market trends, describe historical beers now finding a following, better describe the sensory characteristics of modern brewing ingredients, take advantage of new research and references, and help competition organizers better manage the complexity of their events. I can t say as I disagree with this approach, although the above mentioned departure from a standard categorization regiment seems a bit odd. Another good idea driving these changes is that the larger categories are arbitrary groupings of beer, mead, or cider styles, usually with similar characteristics but some subcategories are not necessarily related to others within the same category. The purpose of the structure within the BJCP Style Guidelines is to group styles of beer, mead and cider to facilitate judging during competitions. Other changes that I think are worthy of note: The first two categories look like they are set up to catch all the mass marketed lagers. Mega Swill, if you will: Standard American Beer and International Lagers. The next few categories start picking up higher quality lagers, IMHO, the Czech Lagers, dark European lagers. Octoberfest beers have been re-named Festbier. Baltic Porter s are now listed under Strong European Lager, which makes sense, as historically Baltic Porters were lagers. A new entry to the guidelines in Australian Sparkling Ale, categorized under Pale English Beer. Once again, grouped for judging per character of the beer rather than regional or historical. Tropical Stout has been broken out of the Foreign Extra Stout category to stand on its own. Double IPA s have been added to the Strong American Ale category, as have Wheatwines. Belgian Trappist, Single s, Dubbel s, Tripel s and Dark Strong s no longer need languish in the Belgian Specialty category. They all have their own sub categories under Trappist Ales. Specialty Beers have their own section in the style guidelines, with American Wild Ales and Soured Fruit Beers. That should take a load off the Lambic category for all the beers that get entered because they went off.. Category 31 is Alternative Fermentable Beer, for substituting non standard grains in an established beer style, or a standard beer with added fermentable sugars. Specialty Beers has three sub categories now, Clone Beer, Mixed Style and Experimantal. Fruit Meads now has a Stone Fruit and a Berry sub category broken out from Other Melomel, and Metheglin (Spiced Mead) is further broken out into Spiced Fruit and Spiced Herb or Vegetable sub categories. The broad Open Category Mead is now Specialty Mead, with Braggot, Historical and Experimental sub categories. The Cider and Perry section has delved into Political Correctness by changing the name of Common Perry and Common Cider to New World Perry and New World Cider to indicate ciders and perries made with culinary fruit. I feel so Bourgeoisie now! The Specialty Cider category has added an Ice Wine subcategory (Yay!) and a Herbs/Spices sub category. A change to the style guidelines has been overdue. In light of the explosion of craft breweries and homebrewing in general, it looks to me like this is a good attempt to capture it all. It will sure make it a lot harder to Run the Table, and enter every single sub category in a competition! ~ Eric
5 Tips on Barrel Aging from Avery Brewing Co. We caught up with Avery Brewing Co. s (Boulder, Colo.) senior brewer and barrel herder, Andy Parker, and asked him for some tips on barrel aging homebrew. easy choice to accentuate the rich, caramel-y Madeira flavors with a grist heavy on caramel malts. The resulting sour beer even looks like Madeira. 3. Expect Occasional Failure Don t be afraid to throw a batch of beer away. Putting beer in a barrel means that you re embracing the chaos factor a little bit. You re not in a sanitized carboy or tank anymore, so your beer might be exposed to ambient yeast and bacteria. Sometimes that beer won t turn out the way you d hoped, and that s fine dump it and start over. Those mistakes will help you figure out how to make it better on the next run. All good brewers dump beer from time to time. 1. Avoid Unnecessarily Long Aging Periods More time in the barrel does not necessarily make a better beer. Even with our 15-16% ABV barrel-aged stouts we re getting all the flavor from that barrel within the first two months. At around four months the flavors are still vibrant, but if we wait much longer oxidation starts to ramp up and the flavors start to mellow. Somewhere around twelve months we start to see more porous barrels oxidize heavily and we have to punt them from the batch. I d rather take the beer out when at the peak of flavor, and if people want to age it in the bottle they can make that choice. 2. Treat the Barrel as an Ingredient The barrel will be a major flavor component, so think of it in the same category as malt and yeast. I rarely come up with a recipe and then start looking for specific barrels. I usually get some great barrels first, then come up with a malt bill that will complement them. When we acquired some really nice Madeira barrels, we didn t give any thought to a pale beer or a stout. It was an 4. Utilize Staves and Chips Oak staves and chips are your friend. A single turn on a barrel will extract almost all of the flavor from whatever spirit had been in there, and with each successive turn you ll lose more of the oak tannins. If you want more oak flavor on later batches, don t be afraid to try out oak chips. They re available in many different roasts and flavors, so you can really get experimental with them. And because of the increased surface area, it won t take long to get the flavor you re looking for. 5. Let Your Taste Buds Decide When the beer tastes great to you, take it out! I m frequently asked how I know when a project is really done. It s done when you think it tastes incredible. Don t worry about leaving it in the barrel for a few months to try for even more awesomeness. If it s that good, odds are that your beer will decline instead of improve. Get it out of the barrel and drink it. ~ American Homebrewers Assoc.-How to Brew
that receives the honor of Radegast Club of the Year will receive an award to display and a stipend for their chosen charity. How to Enter Entry form submissions for the Radegast Club of the Year Award are due by March 31, 2015. The submission form collects contact information for a club representative and offers the opportunity to upload resources that prove your club s worthiness. If your club has an annual report, slide show, video, song, website or anything that demonstrates its awesomeness, be sure to include it in your submission. If you need help with the form or have questions, please contact us. Entries will be reviewed and voted on by an impartial panel of judges from the AHA Governing Committee. Remember, the award will be announced at the 2015 National Homebrewers Conference! Radegast Club of the Year A great homebrew club does many things in addition to brewing. These clubs also focus on experimenting, learning, education and volunteer work. Exceptional clubs work hard to make an impact on their community. The Radegast Club of the Year Award, named for the Slavic god of hospitality and the creator of beer, is an achievement not obtained through competition, but an award won for doing great things. The award will be given once a year and announced at the American Homebrewers Association (AHA) National Homebrewers Conference. Award Criteria To win this award, AHA-registered clubs have to show what activities set them apart as an awesome group in their community. Brewdays, festivals, demonstrations or charity, we want to hear about anything that makes you a proud member of your homebrew club. The club
PRIMETIME BREWERS COMPETITION PAGE Club Only Competition (COC) Calendar 2014 Jan: Holiday Party (Rockford) Feb: Scottish & Irish (9) Mar: English Brown (11) Apr: Cider (27 & 28) May: Breakfast Stout (KBS Clones) Jun: NHC (no meeting) Jul: Best of Cellar (1-23) Aug: American Ale (10) Sep: Specialty IPA (Black, Brown, Red, White, Belgian, Rye) (Session, Standard, Double) (All combinations) Oct: German Lagers 2,3,4,5,22a Nov: Best of Cellar 24,25,26 Dec: Christmas Beers Individual Competitions can be found at: www.homebrewersassociation.org SAVE THE DATE(S) Sep 13: Hogtoberfest at Eric s ranch. Sep 27: Michigan Mead Cup, Frankenmuth Oct 14: Founders Sensory Evaluation Class Nov 1: National Learn to Homebrew Day August American Ale Club Competition 1st Steve VanderLaan American Amber Ale 2nd Jason Zomerlei American Pale Ale 2nd Jeremy Gavin American Pale Ale 3rd Chad Zomerlei American Pale Ale 2014 Brewer of the Year (Through August) Jason Zomerlei 36 Jeremy Gavin 28 Chad Zomerlei 24 Andy Gallagher 20 Brent Zomerlei 16 Eric Fouch 12 Jeff Coffee 12 Steve VanderLaan 12 Neil Johnson 8 Jeff Carlson 8 John Applegarth 8 Jim Verlinde 8 Joe Feistritzer 4 Club Officers President: Eric Fouch ( fouch.eric@gmail.com) V. P.: Brent Zomerlei (brent@zomerlei.com) Treasurer: Jeff Carlson (carlsonj@gvsu.edu) Secretary & RC Editor: Jim Verlinde (jbverlinde@comcast.net) Webmaster: Brandon Roberts (blroberts90@gmail.com) SUPPORT OUR SPONSORS THEY SUPPORT US!!
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