Upcoming Events
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Thursday, Sept 15, 5pm-8pm
@ Flanny's Tempe
1805 E. Elliott Rd #104, Tempe, AZ
Brew CampSat. Sept 17, 10am-3pm Gangplank HQ 260 S. Arizona Ave Chandler, AZ
Saturday, Oct. 15 Check here for Locations Accepting Entries 16th Annual ASH OktoberfestSaturday, Oct 22, 12pm-6pm Ruben Romero ramada complex at Tempe Kiwanis Park 6111 S. All American Way Tempe, AZ Beer for Brains RAREAffairSaturday, Nov. 5, 6:30pm-10:30pm Talking Stick Resort 9800 E. Indian Bend Rd. Scottsdale, AZ |
Member Benefit Corner
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Did you know ASH Members get:
10% off your bill at SunUp Brewing?
Click Here to See More ASH Membership Benefits
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Contest Standings
| 2011 Homebrewer of the Year
1 - Dennis Tsonis - 5 pts.
1 - Ken Saxe - 5 pts.
3 - Chris Sprague - 4 pt.
4 - Mik Heerbrandt - 3 pts.
5 - Jon Badalamenti - 2 pts.
6 - Mike Tinker - 1 pt.
6 - Kevin Masaryk - 1 pt.
2011 Club Only Competition Standings
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Greetings!
Holy Fest Season Brewman (and Brewoman)! It feels like the weather may be breaking and so is the festival dry spell. Scroll down this email for Stevo Partridge's list of events happening in Arizona this month.
As the temps are cooling down, the ASH Homebrewer of the Year competition is heating up. Check out the current standings and summary by Barry Weeg.
We're setting up a booth at the Downtown Chandler Oktboberfest Saturday, Sept. 24 and need volunteers to sit with us. Give me a shout editor@azhomebrewers.org or Rob president@azhomebrewers.org.
If you have a year of pro-brewery experience and you're looking for a brewery job in AZ, check out this want ad listed by Mudshark Brewing Co. in Lake Havasu City. Ignite 11 presentation submissions are being accepted through Sept. 23. We've had three ASHers, Rob Fullmer, Mo Basenberg, and Johnathan Macnamera give presentations. Who's going to be next? What is Ignite (besides awesome)? Get the info here.
The New Times Best of Phoenix poll is open for voting until Sunday, Sept 18. Lets use our numbers to make a difference and help our sponsors (and ourselves). Here are a few suggestions. It would be cool if we could write ASH in for Best Oktoberfest.
81. Best Culinary Festival: Epicuriad 92. Best Happy Hour, Tempe: Four Peaks 114. Best Sports Bar, Tempe: Four Peaks 132. Best Brewery: Your Choice 138. Write-in Option: Format as (Business Name) for Best ( __________ ) ASH for Best Oktoberfest Cast your vote here. Be sure to hit up the September General Membership meeting on Tuesday, Sept. 20. Meet Robert Berkner of North Mountain Brewing Co. and get all the info you'll need for our Oktoberfest Competition (entries due Oct. 15) and the festival happening October 22.
If you'd like to contribute some info, story, photos, recipe or anything, shoot me an email:editor@azhomebrewers.org. |
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From the President By Rob Fullmer Living in the low desert, the weather doesn't get us the seasonal signals that most folks get across the country. You have to look at other things to know that Fall will soon be upon us. Fall is a time to return. We return to our jobs from summer vacations. Kids go back to school. The high schools and colleges you went to have their Homecomings. In Fall, we start paying attention to playoff Baseball and Football comes back! As the nights get cooler, it signals the beginning of the best time to be an Arizonan and a return to the outdoors. What do homebrewers return to? Brewers return to brewing! It seems reasonable in Wisconsin, Massachusetts and Michigan to be thinking about Pumpkin beers, bock beer and M�rzen, but not here where we just finished a spat of 110 degree days. Being a brewer that follows the traditional brewing seasons is tough. Everyone in the rest of the brewing world is already finishing up their first batches of Fall classics. Heck. I even got to sample the Deschutes Winter beer, Jubelale AT THE END OF AUGUST at the Beer Bloggers Conference in Portland. ASHers have to follow the brewing calendar and not the weather report. September is upon us. For new brewers and those that haven't picked up the paddle in awhile, we have our first ever Brew Camp on September 17! Brew Camp is a series of presentations done by ASHers at Chandler's tech incubator, Gangplank. It's a great way to learn and teach each other the art of brewing. It's time to look into our cellars for those big beers we intend to enter into the ASH Oktoberfest competition on October 15. This year's OFest Comp features one of our biggest prizes: The best of show winner will get an expenses paid trip to Ft Collins to brew a batch with Brewmaster Doug Odell. It's time to carve out some time to squeeze 3 or 4 more batches together for some of the lower gravity categories. It's time to brew up those beers to share during the Oktoberfest on October 22nd. Return of the Grey Beards The new "old" faces you'll see at the Fall and Winter meetings are the grizzled veterans (Old ASH Brewers) returning to the monthly meetings. They know that it's time to settle up with David the Treasurer (or PayPal) to make sure that they can get their Oktoberfest invite squared away. They know that the ASH Oktoberfest is among the best homebrewing fests in the country and one of the best beer events in the state. Old ASH Brewers come to brag about summer vacation beers that they had in their old hometowns or their trips to Europe. Old ASH Brewers know that they need to buy up some raffle tickets to increase their odds at the end-of-the-year Holiday party raffle. Pay attention to the Old ASH Brewers. They have a a wealth of information about brewing in the desert. They might tell you how they managed to lager over the hottest part of the year so they can take a run at the Oktoberfest Best of Show, the Ninkasi and Homebrewer of the Year. There are a couple of things I want you all to think about in September. The ASH board and I have put together a discount program that is unrivaled in homebrewing. We recently added Sleepy Dog and we intend on expanding to other things. Fall will be the time that we start asking these businesses whether they will extend their benefits into 2012. It's vitally important that you whip out your card. Treat our sponsors well and thank them for their support. Go find the plaque we have in Four Peaks and run your finger down the spine of the barley leaf until it wears off! Finally, we are 51 away from our ASH100 goal for the RareAffair. Please help me send a powerful message to the craft beer world and Beer For Brains that ASH supports their efforts. Salud! Rob |
Membership Card Issues
It's that time of year when everyone scrambles to get their membership squared away for Oktoberfest. If you signed up before Sept 10th, your card is printed and our secretary Mo has them. She will be at Brew Camp at Gangplank around noon on Saturday, Sept 17. Later she will be at Papago Hopageddon between 4-7PM. If you signed up after Sept 10th, your card will be printed a the club during the General Meeting on Sept 20. You must be a member in standing (paid) by Oct 15th to attend and drink beer at Oktoberfest. Non-drinking family members can attend. There will be no same day sales. Your credentials will be checked at the door by VSS Security. The President and the board cannot help you.
This is our membership policy: Once your payment is processed, your membership will have to be approved by the Secretary to become a member in standing. Because we are a membership organization has events where there may be alcoholic beverages, we do not mail ID cards, we do not do single event sales and we do not pro-rate memberships. There are legal and insurance implications regarding this and your understanding and patience is appreciated.
Dues are $30 per year and are good for the calendar year. Members can renew their membership for the following year at the December holiday party for $20. ALL MEMBERSHIPS BEGIN JAN 1 AND END ON DEC 31. WE DO NOT PRO-RATE. We are planning on buying a different printer that will more easily enable us to print one card at a time. The printer is very expensive, but will produce a high quality card. Please be patient. |
ASH CACHE
The ASH Cache is going to be the most coveted drinkable raffle item(s) ever assembled in Valley history. Want to know more?
Follow this link.
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From the Judges Table by Barry Weeg
Homebrewer of the Year
The August Homebrewer of the Year Competition has been judged. We had a record number of entries this month for the Belgian and French category with 19! So we had to take the unusual (for ASH) step of splitting the judging into two flights. I want to especially thank the judges who came out to help us for this one, since multiple flights meant we had to double the usual number judges. Thanks to Kevin Masaryk, Barry Tingleff, Dan Teff, Matt Martin, Chris Staten, and Zach Fowle for stepping up. And a special thank you to Ken Saxe for organizing/stewarding this one. Ken went far beyond expectations with his organizational skills this time.
Belgian & French Results:
Gold (3 pts.) - Chris Sprague with a Saison
Silver (2 pts.) - Mik Heerbrandt with a Witbier
Bronze (1 pt.) - Mik Heerbrandt with a Saison
This was unusual again in that since category 16 has 5 very distinct sub-categories, a lot of brewers had multiple entries which allowed the same person to win both silver and bronze (way to go Mik!). It was also interesting to note that all three medal winning entries had exactly the same score! This was a tough one to judge and required a lot of discussion to sort out the top three. As always, you can pick up your scoresheets at the next general meeting.
Standings:
1 - Dennis Tsonis - 5 pts.
1 - Ken Saxe - 5 pts.
3 - Chris Sprague - 4 pt.
4 - Mik Heerbrandt - 3 pts.
5 - Jon Badalamenti - 2 pts.
6 - Mike Tinker - 1 pt.
6 - Kevin Masaryk - 1 pt.
Dennis and Ken were running away with it, but a late surge by Chris and Mik have made this very close this year. It looks like it is going to come down to Oktoberfest. Good luck to everybody!
AHA Club Only
The mini-rounds for Homebrewer of the year may be over, but we have another Club Only Competition round coming up. This month is Specialty/Experimental/Historical beers, or Category 23. Entries must specify the experimental nature of the beer (e.g. type of special ingredients used, process utilized or historical style being brewed), or why the beer doesn't fit an established style. Additionally, the entrant may specify an underlying beer style. For historical styles or unusual ingredients/techniques that may not be known to beer judges, the brewer should provide descriptions of the styles, ingredients and/or techniques used. This is very important, otherwise the judges won't know how to judge your entry and you will definitely not do well in the competition. One final note. In the past I have said we only need one bottle for these competitions. But we have never had a situation like we did with the Belgian and French beers. Since competitions with multiple rounds may judge the same beer multiple times, one bottle in this case is not enough. So please include at least two bottles from now on in case we have a large number of entries again and have to split it into multiple rounds. And for the Club Only events, make sure you have three more in reserve in case we send your beer off to the AHA.
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Party like it's Parti-gyle
by Jon Badalamenti
Back in August Dennis Tsonis and I decided we needed to maximize our entries into the ASH Oktoberfest competition with limited opportunities to brew. Parti-gyle to the rescue!
Dennis and I did a collaboration Belgian Pale Ale in April at his place so we decided next up would be a batch brewed at my place in Tempe. We settled on the weekend but couldn't quite figure out what to brew. Would it be another attempt at the double red? An ESB, perhaps? Or what about a California common? None of the above. We wanted to get two beers out of our brew day that could be entered into two different BJCP categories. All it took was the increased brainpower afforded by a few (rather strong) beers at Papago and a copy of Jamil's Brewing Classic Styles. After looking at similarities in a few recipes, we made an invigorating discovery: we could brew a 10 gallon batch parti-gyle and get both a sweet stout and an English Mild from the same mash. Winning!
What is parti-gyle, you ask? It's an age old brewing technique used to get two (or more) beers of different strengths from the same mash. When the time comes to collect wort, the first runnings are pulled and used to make a "big" beer, and the second, more dilute runnings are used to make a smaller, lower alcohol beer. We weren't going for really high gravity beers, though, so we had to plan a bit to make it work.
Things went smoothly on brew day, but not surprisingly, things didn't quite go the way we planned. When it came time to sparge, the preboil gravity on both the stout and the mild was way too high. Fortunately we had some extra water on hand and blended the two batches by trial and error and diluted them until we dialed in our desired gravities.
60 minutes and a hose splitter later,we had 10 gallons of pitchable wort!
We found that parti-gyle is a great way to maximize a collaboration beer. Dennis showed up with all the equipment we needed to do everything beyond the mash in parallel. In a 6 hour brew day-which would have taken twice that if I did it by myself-we got two different 5-gallon batches with enough time to spare to light up a couple cigars and drink some homebrew. If you're curious to learn best practices for securing, protecting, and transporting a carboy full of mild in the front seat of a Ford Explorer in 110 degree heat, Dennis is our club expert!
These beers turned out fantastic and it's hard to believe we got two very different beers from the same mash. So when it's hot outside and the last thing you want to be doing is firing up another batch of homebrew, try parti-gyle and get twice the bang for the buck. Even better: find another ASHer on your brewing skill level and schedule a collaboration brew. It's great way to exchange brewing experiences (both good and injury-causing), best practices and, of course, your homebrew. |
Parti-gyle on! |
Homebrew and Craftbrew Events
by StevO Partridge
Arizona -
Support Pints For Prostates! Prescott, AZ -
During the entire month of September, you can buy a Pints For Prostates glass for $4.99 at Prescott Brewing. Pints for Prostates has events nationwide until late October, if you can't make it to this one. Info: www.prescottbrewingcompany.com and www.pintsforprostates.org
Old World Brewery Open? Phoenix, AZ -
Just saw a facebook posting that has a picture of a large banner hanging on the building sayin NOW OPEN. There is also mention of a live music show on the 23rd. Info: www.facebook.com/oldworldaz
Looking for a German Pint? Glendale, AZ -
If you are yearning for an authentic German bier, and can't wait for an Oktoberfest...try Haus Murphy's! German food and bier, all year 'round. Their 14th annual Oktoberfest is next month! Info: www.hausmurphys.com
DISCOUNT TICKETS, RAREaffair, Scottsdale, AZ -
The Beer For Brains RAREaffair is coming in November. Over 75 rare beers will be available. General admission tickets are $75, and support brain cancer research. If you "like" BFB on Facebook, you can get a discount code! Info: www.facebook.com/beerforbrains
Thursdays, Craft Beer Thursdays, Phoenix, AZ -
Thunderbird Roadhouse continues its deals on craft beers every Thursday night. Info: www.thunderbirdroadhouse.com
September 16-18, GumptionFest VI, Sedona, AZ -
A community run festival of artists, musicians, performers and businesses. Kickoff party happens Friday at Oak Creek Brewing, the party continues throughout the area for the rest of the weekend. Admission is free Info: www.gumptionfest.com or www.oakcreekbrew.com
September 17, Meet The Brewers, Tempe, AZ -
The SanTan Brewing brewers will be at Flanny's at 7p. Chat and drink. They will be tapping a mystery beer. Info: www.flannys.com
September 17, Brew Camp, Chandler, AZ -
AZ Homebrewers will give presentations about brewing. Info: http://club.azhomebrewers.org
HOPAGEDDON Saturday September 17 noon-close 25 IPA's on tap! - Papago
September 17, Oktoberfest, Flagstaff, AZ -
Lumberyard Brewing is celebrating! You can get a 25oz stein and ten voucher tickets good for food and beer for $25. Prizes for best Oktoberfest costume and Best Beer Tee. 11:30a-4p. Info: www.lumberyardbrewingcompany.com
September 19, Pumpkin Porter Release, Tempe, AZ -
Even if it is still 109 degrees, doesn't mean summer's not over. Time for fall seasonals. Four Peaks is officially releasing the pumpkin. Info: www.fourpeaks.com
September 24, Oktoberfest, Chandler, AZ -
This year's 4th Annual Downtown Chandler Oktoberfest will highlight Beer X Games, Fascination's beer maid contest, Von Hanson's brat eating contest and family kid zone. 2-10p. $10. Info: www.santanbrewing.com
September 25, Wine Dinner, Mesa, AZ -
Il Vinaio is giving you a choice of 3 wines with 3 courses for $45. Seating limited. Info: www.ilvinaio.com
September 29, Oktoberfest Brewer's Dinner, Tempe, AZ -
On Wednesday September 29th to commemorate the bicentennial of Oktoberfest, Gordon Biersch will be hosting an Oktoberfest inspired brewer's dinner. The cost for this event is $45, and it includes 4 unique courses paired with 4 fine hand-crafted lagers. You can RSVP with brewer Dieter at dfoerstner@gbrestaurants.com RSVP ASAP Info: www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=140161179362221
September 29-30, Hoptoberfest Party, Chandler, AZ -
The Hungry Monk is raising money for the Susan G. Komen Foundation. They are featuring over 20 IPAs in case you need one last blast of hops before the fall season is in full effect. Info: www.hungrymonkaz.com
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ASHer Spotlight
Well, there's no ASHer Spotlight this month. Not that there wasn't anyone worth spotlighting, we have a lot of members kicking ass. I just wanted to feature someone who was recommended by you, the ASH members. And I didn't receive ANY nominations since the last Hot Break.
So I'll make it clear: The ASHer Spotlight is your chance to point out someone in the club you feel deserves some recognition. Send your nomination, even if it's yourself, to editor@azhomebrewers.org. The person who is selected for the ASHer Spotlight will get an email from me with some questions and be asked to provide some photos. The answers and photos will be featured in the ASHer Spotlight in the next Hot Break.
Want to help shine the spotlight on someone? Send your nomination to editor@azhomebrewers.org.
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August General Meeting Recap
We had another highly attended meeting in the brutal heat of an Arizona Summer. JR Wheeler of Odells announced that the Oktoberfest Homebrew Competition Best of Show would have an expenses paid trip to Fort Collins to brew with the legendary Doug Odell! Jon Badalamente led a discussion featuring ASH BJCP judges and past medal winners on a panel on Brewing for Competition. Mark Haugan discussed the upcoming Brew Camp on Sept 17 at Gangplank! See the meeting photos here. |
September General Meeting Tuesday, September 20, 7pm-9pm
The ASH General meeting will be at the ASH Clubhouse, 2515 N. Scottsdale Rd. Scottsdale, AZ 85257. We're in the storefront under the Rose Market sign. Guest speaker is Robert Berkner of North Mountain Brewing Co. Your Specialty/Experimental/Historical style beer is due for the 2011 Club Only Competition. Be sure to include the base style if there is one.
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Always keep in mind, if you visit a new brewery, find a cool beer spot, had a life-changing brewing epiphany, have a great project you're working on, or anything else you'd like to mention on Hot Break, email me; editor@azhomebrewers.org. We want to see stories and photos from our members.
We'll see you at the General Meeting. Till then brew on and RDWHAHB
Sl�inte!
Tom
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Your Club Board Members
President - Rob Fullmer
Vice President - Ben Conner
Secretary - Maureen Basenberg
Treasurer - David Schollmeyer
Communications - Tom Boggan
Operations Officer - Dennis Tsonis
Projects Officer - Mark Haugan
Arizona Society of Homebrewers
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