Upcoming JRHB Events

Saturday December 6th

Club Holiday Party at the Lang’s

Wednesday December 10^th

Regular Club Meeting at Legends

AHA Club Only - Belgian & French Ales Judging

Club Elections

Big Holiday Raffle !

Wednesday January 14th

Regular Club Meeting at Legends

How to Bottle from a Keg

For updated information and the club forum visit

http://www.jrhb.org/

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Cask Beer Blitz

At 6:00 a.m. November 15^th a small band of dedicated JRHB beer judges met in the dark and rainy parking lot of Legends Brewery and departed for Portsmouth Virginia to participate in the CASK 2008 Beer Blitz. This years competition was again held at the Virginia Sports Hall of Fame on High Street in scenic downtown Portsmouth. Beer entries from JRHB brewers did well in the competition, however Lyle Brown from the Fredericksburg Area Brewing and Tasting Society took Best-of-Show honors with his Baconator smoked doppelbock.

JRHB brewers earning awards in various flights included:

Graham Cecil and Joe Moore – 1^st– 27A Cider

Nick Walthall – 1^st– 10A APA

William Spiesberger – 2^nd– 8C ESB

Tony Todd – 3^rd– 13A Dry Stout

Tony Todd – HM – 12A Brown Porter

John Van Itallie – 1^st – 2A German Pilsner

William Spiesberger – 3^rd – 6D American Wheat

Rolf Holhbauch – HM – 7B California Common

Graham Cecil and Joe Moore – 2^nd – 22A Rauchbier

Sterling Stokes and Brian Goodyear – 3^rd– 15A Weizen

Congratulations to the all CASK folks who pulled off and extremely well organized and executed competition. We’ll be back.

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Upcoming Club Officer Elections

Club officer elections will be held during the December regular club meeting. Additional nominations for offices will be open prior to the elections at the meeting. If you are interested in holding any of these offices please let one of the current board members know ASAP. The offices to be filled this year are as follows:

Vice President - Two year term beginning January 1, 2009 – The Vice President Assists the President as needed and performs the duties of the President in his/her absence. The Vice President solicits items for and conducts the monthly raffle at club meetings.

Secretary – Two year term beginning January 1, 2009 – The Secretary records the minutes of regular club and Board of Directors meetings, composes and publishes the monthly club newsletter, maintains a list of active club members and their contact information, and periodically notifies the general membership of special upcoming activities and events.

Member at Large - Two year term beginning January 1, 2009 – The Member at Large maintains the club history and memorabilia, and coordinates special club projects and activities that are approved by the Board of Directors.

Assistant Competition Coordinator - One year term beginning January 1, 2009 – The Assistant Competition Coordinator assists the Competition Coordinator with all beer competitions held by the club including the Dominion Cup. At the completion of his/her term, the Assistant Competition Coordinator assumes the office of Competition Coordinator for the following year.

Director – three to six positions as determined by the Board of Directors - One year term beginning January 1, 2009 – Directors are voting members of the Board, and serve to guide the selection of club activities and provide direction over other club business.

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November Meeting Recap

President Mike Lang opened the meeting with another standing room only crowd of approximately 45 in attendance. The first order of business as usual was to figure out how to turn the music in the room off. Mike again conveyed our thanks to the Legends folks and Tom Martin for their hospitality.

John Van Itallie led a lively presentation by the membership of various brewing gadgets.

An IPA brewed by Joe Moore and Graham Cecil was selected to be sent on to the AHA Club Only Competition - Celebration of the Hop (IPA) sponsored by the Scioto Olentangy and Darby Zymurgists (SODZ) club of Delaware, OH

Another great raffle was held by VP Robert Doucet to finish off the evening. Brian Kinzie made off with the big prizes, an electronic scale and a brewing ingredient kit from the WeekeEnd Brewer.

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'Twas The Homebrewers Night

Before Christmas

'Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the house

Every creature was thirsty, including the mouse

The steins & wine glasses were empty, and the bottles were too

It all had been drunk with no time to brew.

My family was nestled all snug in their beds

While visions of Christmas Ale foamed in their heads.

Mama in her kerchief lamented the drought,

She craved a Chardonnay and I, a stout.

When out on the lawn, there arose such a clatter,

I sprang from my chair to see what was the matter.

Away to the kitchen, I flew like a flash,

Opening the door with a loud bang and crash!

I threw on the switch and the lights, all aglow,

Gave a luster of mid-day to the brew-pot below.

When, what to my wondering eyes should appear

But Gambrinus himself, the patron of beer.

With a look in his eye, so lively and quick,

He said, "You want beer & wine? Well, here, take your pick."

More rapid than eagles, his recipes came

As he whistled and shouted and called them by name.

"Now, Pilsener! Now, Porter! Now, Stout and Bordeaux!

On, Mead! On, Chablis! On, Rose' and Merlot!"

"To the top of the bottles, the short and the tall,

Now brew away, ferment away, and fill them all!"

As dried hops before a wild hurricane fly,

And then, without warning, settle down with a sigh,

So towards the brew-pot, the ingredients flew,

Malt extract, roasted barley and crystal malt, too.

And then in a twinkling, I heard it quite plain,

The cracking open of each barley grain.

As I drew in my head and was turning around,

Into the kitchen, he came with a bound.

He was dressed like a knight, from his head to his toes,

With an old family crest adorning his clothes.

The Grapes and the hops, he had flung on his back,

And the brewing began when he opened his pack.

His grapes were so fragrant! His barley, how sweet!

The adjuncts included Munich malt and some wheat.

The grapes all pressed the barley mashed in the tun,

The beer was boiled with hops in the brew-pot 'till done.

Excitement had me gnashing my teeth,

As the sweet smell encircled my head like a wreath.

Both yeast were pitched, both wine and ale,

It all quickly fermented, not once did it fail.

The beer was then krausened, it was time for the wine,

And just being bottled when midnight had chimed.

A wink of his eye and a twist of his head

Soon gave me to know, I'd be shortly in bed.

He spoke not a word but kept on with his work,

And capped and corked all the bottles, then turned with a jerk.

And laying a finger alongside his nose,

He belched (quite a burp!) before he arose.

Clean-up was easy, with only a whistle,

And away the mess flew, like the down on a thistle.

And I heard him exclaim, 'ere he left me the beer,

"Merry Christmas to all and a HOPPY New Year!"

40-person Beer Bong

By Kimberly Miller | The Palm Beach Post; Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Leave it to the erudite scholars at Florida’s premier academic university, University of Florida, to devise a beer bong that can accommodate 40 people The beer bong, or beer funnel, was featured in The New York Times Education Life magazine, which came out Nov. 2.

Now, while UF’s 40-person funnel is impressive, it’s not the largest in the nation. That accolade likely goes to students at the University of Wisconsin, Oshkosh, who constructed a 100-person beer bong that is attached to an actual keg. In a test of the system, the keg was emptied in 5 seconds, with each person drinking the equivalent of 1.65 beers. [Yeah … the math is right…assuming a 12 oz beer and no losses in the beer lines]

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New Brewpub Opens in Nelson County

By Erin McGrath, Nelson County Times Published: November 19, 2008

A week before the opening of Devil’s Backbone Brewery in Glen Mary, fireplaces were getting the finishing touches, brown paper still covered the copper-topped bar and the brewing kettles were getting a fresh polish. Nelson County’s second brewery will have a “soft” opening on Friday, with five beers on tap ranging from pale ales to stouts, and the brewery’s operators are planning a grand opening for a later date.

“It’s been a very long process,” said Steve Crandall, owner of the brewery and Roseland resident. “We’re trying to be a win-win thing and support local people and have local people support us and make that work.”

An employee polishes the brew kettles at Devil’s Backbone Brewery, a week before the opening. The brewery has eight tanks and will have four year-round beers and three seasonal, and also ‘guest taps’ for beers from other microbreweries.

The brew pub and restaurant, which have been in the making for more than four years, have the feel of a hunting lodge that was picked up out of the Rocky Mountains in Colorado and set down in the Blue Ridge range. It’s a feeling Crandall said he had been looking for while planning the establishment. “All the good things about western mountain lodges that work for the west also work out here in the east,” he said. “And it’s also very similar to, in a lot of respects, European beer halls. “We wanted something that would showcase the natural environment and some of the neat different elements of this area,” he said. The building has rusty tin walls, floor-to-ceiling windows to showcase the brewing equipment, exposed beams, two fireplaces and will showcase four regular brews along with a few seasonal beers, said Jason Oliver, Devil’s Backbone Brewery’s master brewer.

“Right now we have eight different types in the tanks,” Oliver said. “Generally speaking, we’re going to have four year-round beers and three seasonal, so a total of seven different types of beer on tap when everything gets going.” Oliver said the pub will also have guest taps and showcase other beers from Virginia microbreweries. “We’ll just share the love a little bit,” Oliver said.

Crandall came up with the idea for a brew pub more than 20 years ago, while on a ski trip to Italy. There, he said, he was changed from a gin and tonic man to a beer man after one sip of a Weihenstephan brew. “The first sip I had blew me away,” Crandall said. “I was like Oh. My. God. I fell in love with beer then and the idea sort of was in the back of my head.” The restaurant and brewery was eventually used as an anchor to the village at Glen Mary that Crandall has been a part of. The area, which is at the intersection of Va. 151 and Va. 664, is on the road that leads to Wintergreen and is also home to Sparrow’s Café, which opened earlier this year.

The name Devil’s Backbone Brewery came from an old story about Thomas Jefferson’s father, Crandall said, who was one of a group of 40 men given the task of conducting the first survey of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Crandall said that one of the men wrote a journal entry about the journey, about an incident in which the group almost lost horses off a cliff and had to go over the “devil’s backbone.” “We sort of liked the name,” Crandall said. “It has a little bit of irreverence with it and it is a historical term and the name for sort of the front range of the Blue Ridge, so it stuck.”

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AHA – Club Only Competition

From time to time, the American Homebrewers Association (AHA) sponsors competitions based on a particular style. These competitions are open only to AHA-affiliated homebrew clubs. Each club holds a competition on the particular style. The winner’s brew is then sent off to be judged with the winners from other homebrew clubs from around the country. Bring in five bottles – two for the local competition and three to send off if you win. Note that all competitions will use the 2008 BJCP Guidelines.

As the entry dates are set for national events, we will include the date that our local competition will be held in the Upcoming JRHB Events listing. Beers winning national competitions help earn Homebrew Club of the Year points for the JRHB.

http://www.beertown.org/homebrewing/schedule.html

2008 -2009 Competition Schedule:

January/February 2009

Belgian & French Ales

Silverado Homebrew Club of St. Charles, IL

This competition covers BJCP Category 16 styles.

Entries are due January 9, 2009. Judging will be held Sunday, January18, 2009.

March/April 2009

Beers with OG > 1.080

Prairie Homebrewing Companions of Fargo, ND

This competition covers the following beer styles 5C, 5D, 9E, 12C, 13F, 14C, 15C, 16C, 16D, 16E, 18C, 18D, 18E , 20 Fruit Beer over 1.080 OG,

21 Spice/Herb/Vegetable Beer over 1.080 OG,

22B Other Smoked Beer over 1.080 OG, 22C Wood-Aged Beer over 1.080 OG, 23 Specialty Beer over 1.080 OG

Entries are due TBD

May 2009

Extract Beers

Knights of the Brown Bottle club of Arlington, TX

Competition covers all BJCP beer categories (1-23) extract must make up more than 50% of the fermentables. Entries are due May 2, 2009

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BJCP – Beer Style of the Month

Note: The 2008 BJCP Guidelines are available for download at http://www.bjcp.org/stylecenter.html

19B. English Barleywine

Aroma: Very rich and strongly malty, often with a caramel-like aroma. May have moderate to strong fruitiness, often with a dried-fruit character. English hop aroma may range from mild to assertive. Alcohol aromatics may be low to moderate, but never harsh, hot or solventy. The intensity of these aromatics often subsides with age. The aroma may have a rich character including bready, toasty, toffee, molasses, and/or treacle notes. Aged versions may have a sherry-like quality, possibly vinous or port-like aromatics, and generally more muted malt aromas. Low to no diacetyl.

Appearance: Color may range from rich gold to very dark amber or even dark brown. Often has ruby highlights, but should not be opaque. Low to moderate off-white head; may have low head retention. May be cloudy with chill haze at cooler temperatures, but generally clears to good to brilliant clarity as it warms. The color may appear to have great depth, as if viewed through a thick glass lens. High alcohol and viscosity may be visible in “legs” when beer is swirled in a glass.

Flavor: Strong, intense, complex, multi-layered malt flavors ranging from bready and biscuity through nutty, deep toast, dark caramel, toffee, and/or molasses. Moderate to high malty sweetness on the palate, although the finish may be moderately sweet to moderately dry (depending on aging). Some oxidative or vinous flavors may be present, and often complex alcohol flavors should be evident. Alcohol flavors shouldn’t be harsh, hot or solventy. Moderate to fairly high fruitiness, often with a dried-fruit character. Hop bitterness may range from just enough for balance to a firm presence; balance therefore ranges from malty to somewhat bitter. Low to moderately high hop flavor (usually UK varieties). Low to no diacetyl.

Mouthfeel: Full-bodied and chewy, with a velvety, luscious texture (although the body may decline with long conditioning). A smooth warmth from aged alcohol should be present, and should not be hot or harsh. Carbonation may be low to moderate, depending on age and conditioning.

Overall Impression: The richest and strongest of the English Ales. A showcase of malty richness and complex, intense flavors. The character of these ales can change significantly over time; both young and old versions should be appreciated for what they are. The malt profile can vary widely; not all examples will have all possible flavors or aromas.

History: Usually the strongest ale offered by a brewery, and in recent years many commercial examples are now vintage-dated. Normally aged significantly prior to release. Often associated with the winter or holiday season.

Comments: Although often a hoppy beer, the English Barleywine places less emphasis on hop character than the American Barleywine and features English hops. English versions can be darker, maltier, fruitier, and feature richer specialty malt flavors than American Barleywines.

Ingredients: Well-modified pale malt should form the backbone of the grist, with judicious amounts of caramel malts. Dark malts should be used with great restraint, if at all, as most of the color arises from a lengthy boil. English hops such as Northdown, Target, East Kent Goldings and Fuggles. Characterful English yeast.

Vital Statistics: OG: 1.080 – 1.120

IBUs: 35 – 70 FG: 1.018 – 1.030

SRM: 8 – 22 ABV: 8 – 12%

Commercial Examples: Thomas Hardy’s Ale, Burton Bridge Thomas Sykes Old Ale, J.W. Lee’s Vintage Harvest Ale, Robinson’s Old Tom, Fuller’s Golden Pride, AleSmith Old Numbskull, Young’s Old Nick (unusual in its 7.2% ABV), Whitbread Gold Label, Old Dominion Millenium, North Coast Old Stock Ale (when aged), Weyerbacher Blithering Idiot

English Barleywine – The Ugly Details

Barley Wine is a style of strong ale distinctly of English origin, that matures and changes with age, offering a rich complexity and subtly shifting flavor profile over time. Commercial examples are often vintage dated. The style has been brewed for centuries, however the late Michael Jackson sites 1903 as the year Bass first marketed a strong ale as “Barley Wine”. Recipes can be found in brewer’s logs from Burton and London as far back as the 1860s. Some sources also note the name “Stingo” as used to classify the style.

A Barley Wine typically reaches an ABV of 8 to 12% by volume and is brewed from original gravities as high as 1.120. Large quantities of pale ale malt are used almost exclusively for the grist, and the natural sweetness is usually balanced with a high degree bitterness, though traditional English barley wines often have far less bitterness than their American counterparts. English styles are traditionally well attenuated at 70-75%. To achieve this level of fermentation, brewers typically employed extra long fermentation periods, multiple yeast pitching, and periodic rousing of the yeast. One method used to rouse the yeast was to “walk the beer” - casks were taken down and rolled around the brewery courtyard.

Barley Wine color ranges from a translucent deep amber, to cloudy mahogany (left), to an almost opaque black (right).

Most barley wines range in color from amber to deep reddish-browns. Though until the introduction of Whitbread Gold Label in the 1950s, British barley wines were typically fairly dark in color.

The Burton ales were made exclusively with pale malt and generally with East Kent hops. They were dry hopped at a rate of about 1 lb per barrel. Bittering hops were used at the rate of 4 to 6.5 lbs per barrel (1.4 to 2.3 oz per US gallon).

London in the 1860s had quite a range of strong ales which were labeled based on original gravity with a series of Xs and Ks. These beers were typically lower in OG than the Burton cousins. London XXX weighed in at an O.G. of 1.086, and the strongest London ales weighed in at 1.111 O.G. and were labeled K/XXXX.

Ray Daniels in his book Designing Great Beers presents an excellent comparison of the brewing styles between these two great brewing centers.

The hallmark of Barley Wine is the simplicity in the formulation, with pale two row malt used for the majority of the grist and specialty malts limited to no more than 14% of the grain bill. Brewing a barley wine however can be a challenge due to the size of the grain bill, the quantity of runoff and associated boil times, and hop additions required.

Ray Daniels offers these tips for brewing this style:

- Use English pale ale or a North American two row pale ale malt for 86% or more of the total grist. A small amount of caramel malt can be used to add complexity and color.

- Limit specialty malts to no more than 14% of the total grist.

- You can consider using malt extract instead of grain and help reduce total mash volume. Alternatively, reduce the batch size to match mashing capability. If extract accounts for more than 50% of the total gravity add yeast nutrients.

- Mash at slightly reduced saccharification temps of 149 – 151F to ensure adequate fermentability. A single step infusion mash works fine for this style.

- English hops are most appropriate for this style; generally East Kent Goldings is most often used particularly for dry hopping. Flavor hop additions are optional and are more typical in US examples than of traditional English Barley wines. Fuggles and Styrian Goldings are other hop options. Chinook has been used extensively in the US for bittering hops in this style. Shoot for about 75 total IBUs.

- Consider using a high alpha pellet hop for bittering to help reduce hop mass in the kettle.

- Aerate the wort aggressively before pitching yeast. Select a hardy ale yeast with high attenuation properties. Pitch at least twice the amount of yeast as you would for a ‘normal” gravity beer. Shoot for 65 to 70% attenuation level.

- Repitch an ale yeast during secondary fermentation.

- Dry hop in the secondary fermenter using 1.5 to 2 oz of selected hops per 5 gallons of beer.

“The breadth of opportunity offered in this style makes it one that could truly be explored for many years.”

Recipe of the Month

19-B Strong Ale, English Barleywine

Min OG: 1.080 Max OG: 1.144

Min IBU: 35 Max IBU: 70

Min Clr: 8 Max Clr: 22 Color in SRM, Lovibond

Recipe Specifics

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Batch Size (Gal): 5.00 Wort Size (Gal): 5.00

Total Grain (Lbs): 30.00

Anticipated OG: 1.143 Plato: 32.90

Anticipated SRM: 20.4

Anticipated IBU: 84.9

Brewhouse Efficiency: 65 %

Wort Boil Time: 90 Minutes

Pre-Boil Amounts

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Evaporation Rate: 15.00 Percent Per Hour

Pre-Boil Wort Size: 6.45 Gal

Pre-Boil Gravity: 1.111 SG 26.14 Plato

Grain/Extract/Sugar

% Amount Name Origin Potential SRM

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86.7 26.00 lbs. Pale Ale Briess 5301 USA 1.037 4

13.3 4.00 lbs. Cara-Malt Simpson's GB 1.035 34

Potential represented as SG per pound per gallon.

Hops

Amount Name Form Alpha IBU Boil Time

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1.00 oz. Boadicea Pellet 6.99 25.8 90 min.

1.00 oz. Boadicea Pellet 7.30 24.5 60 min.

1.00 oz. Boadicea Pellet 7.30 22.0 45 min.

1.00 oz. Boadicea Pellet 7.30 12.5 30 min.

2.00 oz. Goldings - E.K. Whole 4.75 0.0 Dry Hop

Yeast

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Fermentis Safale S-04 Whitbread

Mash Schedule

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Mash Type: Single Step

Grain Lbs: 30.00

Water Qts: 34.50 - Before Additional Infusions

Water Gal: 8.63 - Before Additional Infusions

Qts Water Per Lbs Grain: 1.15 - Before Additional Infusions

Saccharification Rest Temp : 149 Time: 90

Mash-out Rest Temp : 149 Time: 0

Sparge Temp : 168 Time: 15

Total Mash Volume Gal: 11.03 - Dough-In Infusion Only

All temperature measurements are degrees Fahrenheit.

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Our Compliments to….

The WeekEnd Brewer

Homebrew & Wine Supplies

4205 West Hundred Road

Chester, VA 23831

(804) 796-9760

http://www.weekendbrewer.com/

River City Cellars

Beer, Wine and Gourmet Foods

2931 West Cary Street

Richmond, VA 23221

(804) 355-1375

www.rivercitycellars.com

(10% Discount for JRHB Members with JRHB Membership Card Only)

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