Bay Area Mashers Homebrew Club

Author: Gene Wood

  • November Members Meeting – 11/12/2015

    The November BAM members’ meeting is this Thursday, November 12th at 7pm at Faction Brewing in Alameda.  Our own Paul Keefer will be presenting on the art of blending beers.  Should be a great topic!

    Also, those participating in the SOQ IPA recipe showdown competition can bring a sanitized container in order to receive some free Drake’s yeast slurry to use in their recipes.  The SOQ will be judged at the BAM Christmas party on Saturday, December 12th, so you need to be brewing by this weekend at the latest in order to get your beer ready in time.

    Please let any of the officers know if you have any questions, etc.  We hope to see you all there!

  • Style of the Quarter – Q4 2015

    Smoked Beer SOQ Results
    Congrats to our winners – lots of great beers submitted!
    1. Mike Charlton with a Mesquite Smoked Chipotle Porter
    2. Owen and Will Imholte with a Session Scotch Ale
    3. Dan Morgan with a Smoked Apple Ale
    Q4 SOQ Contest
    We’re switching things up for this quarter’s comp – we’ve got a multi-gold medal winning IPA recipe from our very own Jason Davis that everyone will brew, with the resulting beers to be judged at the BAM Christmas Party in December using a ‘People’s Choice’ format.  A few details:
    • See attached for the recipe that was handed out last night
    • Contestants need to bring at least 1/2 gallon of beer to the xmas party (64oz growler, six-pack, etc.) – we’ll have a process to make it a ‘blind’ tasting
    • We will also plan to have the tap board up for those that can bring a full keg of their beer (perfect if you brew 10g – keep one / bring one!)
    1 final note on ingredients for the beer
    • I will be bringing some Drake’s 001 to the November meeting to share – if you’d like some, please bring a clean / sanitized container to the meeting

    Recipes:

     

  • UPDATED: October Members Meeting – 10/8/2015

    The October members’ meeting is coming up next week on Thursday, October 8th at 7pm at Faction Brewing in Alameda.  This month we will be talking about the next SOQ along with the Sacramento Beer Tour.

    The next SOQ will be a competition to brew an award-winning recipe yourself, and then we will see who can brew it the best. The small details are always what change a great recipe into a mediocre beer, and vice versa, so we’ll start with the strong recipe and see how everyone can prevail. The recipe that we chose was BAM’s Jason Davis’s IPA recipe which has won many, many awards at BJCP competitions. We will have our own Brian Buckingham (who also makes amazing IPAs) go over several tips and tricks on how to brew IPAs with award-winning success.

    Also, we will be serving some beer from Sacramento’s Track 7 brewery in order to get people pumped up for the upcoming trip. There are still tickets available (free to BAM members), so be sure to sign up ASAP if you’d like to join in.

    As always, feel to ask the officers if you have any questions about the above items, and we hope to see everyone Thursday at Faction at 7pm!

     

  • October BAM Social: Oktoberfest at Speisekammer

    Join us on Sunday, October 11th for our monthly social outing. This month it seems only fitting to go to an Oktoberfest at Speisekammer in Alameda There will be beer, music, meat and a bounce house, so how can you go wrong? The event is free to get in to, and runs noon until 6pm. As with all socials, the beer and food cost is not being paid by BAM, but show up and buy a beer and hang out with BAM members!
    Speisekammer is at 2424 Lincoln Ave in Alameda.
    Hope to see you there!

  • September 2015 Meeting

    Hey BAMers!  Thursday Sept 10th is the September members’ meeting for BAM, and this month the presentation is featuring Jason Davis talking about Kettle Souring.  If you’re not familiar with this method, this is a way to make sour beers in a matter of weeks (instead of months or years) without having to buy a second set of fermentation equipment.  We should also have a good selection of homebrewed kettle sours from various members to sample.

    As usual, the meeting social starts at 7p, with announcements and the presentation starting at 7:30p.  Hope to see everyone there!
    UPDATE: Here are the slides from the meeting on Fast Wort Souring.

  • August 2015 Meeting

    Hey Mashers! This month’s meeting Patrick be sharing and talking about a beer that ties together a lot of threads from past meetings. It’s a session IPA that was clarified with biofine.Patrick will hopefully bring one or two others to pass around as well to compare differences in grists and techniques. If you have a session beer on tap bring some to share and include in the discussion. See you all Thursday!

  • Style of the Quarter – Q3 2015

    At our July meeting, we announced the winers of the Q2 Style of the Quarter (SOQ), the “Rye” Challenge:

    • 1st place: James Duerr for his “Rye Bite” American Rye bee
    • 2nd place: Patrick Bennett and Brian Buckingham for their American Rye Stout
    • 3rd place: Gilbert Guerrero for his “California Rye” California Common beer

    Congratulations  to the winner!

    ­ Brian Buckingham, our SOQ coordinator, also  introduced the third quarter challenge, Smoked Beers! For those at the July meeting, you heard Lee Shepard talk about smoked beers, and tried a few samples, so are a leg up on the competition. For the rest, you can read the slides here.
    ­

    For this competition, you can enter any BJCP category of beer, so long as it incorporates smoked malt.

    Due date will be first Thursday in September (the 3rd), with entries being dropped off at the Oak Barrel in Berkeley.
    ­

    Start thinking through recipe and schedule brew day soon, as smoked beers almost always benefit from a longer period of mellowing. If you can’t wait to try all these amazing creation, be sure to volunteer for the judging sessions when Brian sends out the email. All experiences of judges (from novice to advances) are welcome, and it’s a great way to get a “taste” for the world of beer judging.

  • July 2015 Meeting

    For the July meeting, Lee will be presenting on how to make a smoke beer, which happens to be the upcoming Style of the Quarter.

    This is also a special meeting as it’s the once a year meeting where we all pay dues ($20 / year or $30 for a couple) and get our new membership cards. Come out with cash or credit card and get your new member card right then and there!

    We’ll also be handing out the final bottles of BioFine to those who took part in the group buy.

    Meeting’s on Thursday July 9th. Come out before 7pm to enjoy Faction beer in the taproom, 7pm to enjoy and share homebrew, and 7:30pm for the meeting.

  • June 2015 Meeting

    The June BAM meeting on the 11th will feature a presentation by Paul Keefer on the topic of “Tips and Techniques for Brewing in a Drought”.

    Topics will include conserving water (efficient cooling/no-chill/ways to reuse the water), water filtration/alternate water sources, and much much more.

    This information is pretty relevant, since we are kinda already in a drought. If you ever felt guilty about running 15 gallons of water through your chiller at the end of a brew session, this talk’s for you!

    As always, bring a glass, some brew to share, and your smiling faces* to Faction brewing, and we’ll see you there. *Those without smiling faces will also be allowed in, but are recommended to visit the bar at Faction before attending.

    UPDATE: Paul’s slides can be found here.

  • May 2015 Meeting

    Hey BAMers! Fresh off of our talk on session beers, we’ve got another great presentation scheduled for the club in May.

    As some of you may know, we have a couple barrel projects that are currently underway in the club, so we thought that barrel aged beers and barrel projects would be a great topic for next month’s presentation.

    Due to his vast experience on this, Daniel has volunteered to give this talk. We’ll also probably have some commercial examples of barrel aged beers for you to try as well. So get your tasting glasses ready, and we’ll see you at Faction Brewing Company in May.

    Never been to a BAM meeting? Thinking of joining the club? Our meetings are open to the public and we’d love for you to give us a whirl. Check out our new members section for more details.

    UPDATE:

    Check out the slides from Dan’s awesome talk on barrel aged beers. If you weren’t at the meeting, you missed some great “bunghole” puns. Definitely the most giggling at a BAM event that I’ve ever heard.