September 2017 – General Meeting: Mead with Colleen Bos of Bos Meadery

This month’s general meeting we welcome Colleen Bos from Bos Meadery. Colleen was a former Secretary of the American Mead Makers Association, a former medievalist and long-time homebrewer She has also attended Siebel Institute’s concise course on brewing technology and has over 12 years of experience as a project manager in research and technology fields. Bos Meadery was founded in Madison in 2012 by Colleen Bos and Peter DeVault.  The Bos Meadery Tasting Room opened in 2015.

Bos Meadery seeks to bring mead into the 21st century and introduce it to the thriving community of local foodies and craft beverage lovers in Wisconsin. Please join us as she tells us about her craft.

In addition to the Bos Mead, we will have several home brewed ciders on tap for your enjoyment.

Last we will also be continuing our pre-meeting beer evaluation. Starting at 7pm, if you have a beer you want to get real-time feedback, bring in a bottle or two and have several BJCP judges provide constructive criticism to help make you a better brewer.

For those of you who are new, our general meeting begins at 7:30pm and will be in its usual location at Cliffords Supper Club located at 10418 W Forest Home Ave, Hales Corners, WI 53130.

August 2017 – General Meeting: Malt with Abby Kanyer of Proximity Malt

This month we welcome Abby Kanyer, the Quality and R&D Coordinator of Proximity Malt located in Walkers Point. Abby will be discussing her history in the Malting industry, the malting process, and showing their progress in the commissioning of their 2 full scale production facilities located in Colorado and Delaware.

Along with Abby’s talk we have several beers brewed by fellow Barons made only out of Proximity Malt.

The Barons Officers recently held an officers meeting at the Proximity Malt location in walkers point, where VP of Operations Dave Kuske showed us around and walked us through the process on their “Mini-Works” system that is a working scale system of their full scale facilities.

We will also continue our successful pre-meeting evaluation panel of BJCP judges. Please bring a bottle for real time evaluation and feedback from some of our most experienced members.

The 2017 Summer Picnic Cometh

Our annual picnic will be on Saturday September 9th at Picnic Area 3 on the Root River Parkway (see map below) rain or shine. We kick off about noon with a food provided (burgers, brats, chicken breast, salads) along with all our drafts lines pouring homemade beers, meads and ciders. We encourage you to bring a dish to share, chairs, pop-up tents, towels, yard games or any other summer-outdoor-type-of-thing.

Bring your best beer, mead, or cider for a chance to win our ‘best beverage’ get your name etched on the Jerry Hetzel Memorial Mash Paddle. There is also a ‘food-made-with-beer’ competition for any edible you bring that includes beer/mead/cider as a recipe component. Both competitions are popular-vote style, voted on by our guests.

We will be holding our annual picnic pay-to-play giveaway again this year. We will have a lot of great things in the pay-to-play giveaway and will update this post with more details as they become available!

Get your tickets now!

Timeline: We’ll be there at 11am. Food starts around 12:30pm. Giveaway starts at 5pm.

Image: https://www.steakhouseprices.com

Great Taste of the Midwest

It’s that time of year again and if you’ve bought tickets through the Barons, the times listed below are for the pick-up locations.  The tickets will be handed out once we get to Madison so please don’t ask.  The beer lists are posted on the Great Taste website (https://greattaste.org/) and the apps are live.  Remember to drink plenty of water and make sure to eat.  This is truly one of the best in the country and we are all looking forward to another year!

The first pick up will be at the Red Zone Bar located 6247 S Howell Ave, Milwaukee, WI 53207
The bus will arrive at 9:45 and will depart at 10:00.

The second pick will be Water Town Plank Road Park and Ride Main Lot
The bus arrive at 10:15 and will depart at 10:30.

The third Stop will be I- 94 & Hwy G Park N Ride
The bus will arrive at 10:45– and depart at 11:00.

The last stop will be a quick pick and go at Hwy 26 the Pine Cone truck stop at 11:30

July 2017 – General Meeting: Hop Parallel with Farmhouse Brewing Supply

This month we welcome John Rocco of Farmhouse Brewing Supply out of Janesville, Wisconsin to talk about all thing Hops!

John recently donated 6 varieties (24 ounces) of newer hops to the Barons. A few of our members volunteered to brew a batch of beer with these hops. We used a modified Zombie Dust clone and scaled the quantity of hops required to get all of the IBUs within +/- 2pts. The base recipe will be available in this month’s Baron’s Mind.

The hop parallel includes the following hop varieties:

Polaris: 18.5% Alpha. Huge alpha acid content. Has a fruity, fresh, glacier candy flavor (mint).
Eureka!: 10% Alpha. Black currant, dark fruits, strong herbal notes, pine tree, Mint, pungent, light grapefruit rind, citrus, Tangerine. Good oil content drives flavor.  Simcoe on Steroids!
EXP 9326: 6.3% Alpha. Cascade-like with grapefruit, tropical and strong berry aromas.
EXP 6297: 13.3% Alpha. Notes of candied grape, orange and vanilla cream.
Denali: 14.2% Alpha. Juicy Fruit, Pineapple, tropical, citrus. Very clean bitterness and full flavor driven by exceptional oil content.
Ariana: 10.2% Alpha. Depending upon the style of beer brewed and timing of the addition of the hops, brewers have noticed grapefruit, gooseberry, citrus and vanilla flavors. Ariana is said to be ideal for dry hopping, when it imparts its most intense fruity flavors.

June 2017 – General Meeting: Solemn Oath Brewery is back in Wisconsin!

Chris Geick, @almostoffthemap

This months general meeting we welcome Solemn Oath Brewery’s president, John Barley and Production Manager, Paul Schneider to discuss their beer and their SOB Story. Solemn Oath Brewery (SOB) is located in Naperville, Illinois and after a several year hiatus, has just recently began distributing in Wisconsin again!

SOB first opened in May of 2012, quickly became one of Chicagoland’s greatest startup breweries and through a half-decade of operation they have seen tremendous demand and a significant amount of growth that goes with it. SOB focuses on West Coast, barrel aged, and Belgian beers. Please remember to bring your own tasting glass for the meeting.

As a reminder – if you plan to bring homebrew to the meeting you must notify the officers of the club to ensure we have ample space on the Jockey Boxes. Last month (May’s General meeting) we had such a great turnout of homebrew we had to turn some of your delicious beer away.

As usual the meeting will begin at 7:30pm, with our BJCP Judges Beer Evaluation panel available at 7pm so bring a bottle or two of your homebrew if you want to get some realtime feedback from the judges.

May 2017 – General Meeting: Eagle Park Brewing Co.

This month we welcome Jackson Borgardt of Eagle Park Brewing Company. Eagle Park is one of the new breweries to open their doors to the public in Milwaukee. Those of you who went on the bus trip might remember their brewery as the unplanned stop to the brewery above Enlightened. Following the bus trip I heard many positive stories from the Barons about their experience, we decided to reach out and have EPBC join us.

Eagle Park Brewing was founded by two brothers who live to write music and drink beer. Like their band, the brewing started in the garage, and like their songs, the beer tells a story. It’s a story of dedication and commitment to the craft beer community that comes through in every pour, every toast, and every taste.
 
Jackson says he “would love to talk about [his] experiences of converting from a home brewer to going pro and all the challenges and rewards with starting a brewery.” He also wants to talk about his plans for growing his brewery from one of the smallest in Wisconsin and diving into contract brewing with Octopi.

As usual, the meeting will start at 7:30 at Clifford’s and please remember to bring a tasting class (or two).

Photo Credit Eagle Park Brewing Co.

March 2017 – General Meeting: Yeast Parallel with Good City

March’s general meeting will be a hybrid Homebrew/Commercial night featuring a yeast parallel collaboration with Good City Brewing Company.

About 1 month ago, several Barons collected about 60 gallons of Irish Red wort from Good City and brought it home to ferment it with different yeasts or different conditions. Using the same wort, we can eliminate all of the variables associated with the brewing process itself and focus on fermentation characteristics.

Join us while we get an opportunity to sample all 12 of the examples side by side and discuss the differences from the yeast and comparing it to the commercial example. The meeting will start at 7:30 at Clifford’s.

We will also be welcoming Andy Jones, Owner and Brewmaster of Good City, to discuss his beer and sample what he has to offer. Andy is a graduate of UC Davis, has worked at Goose Island and most recently spent about 8 years working for Lakefront.


Heads Up!

  • Will not have room for member beers on the Jockey Box this month. Please bring some bottles to share instead!
  • The March Swap Meet will be happening before the meeting. It starts at 6:30. If you want to bring stuff to trade, please get there by 6:00. See the Swap Meet post for details.
  • Starting at about 7p we will have about a half-dozen BJCP judges available to give you immediate feedback on your homebrew. This is a great way to get feedback on your brews, without waiting for the next competition. The judges will give you constructive criticism, suggest ways to make improvements, and if any flaws are detected, they will help diagnose the source.

Photo: Good City