July 2018 – General Meeting: BJCP Night with Bruce: 25B Saisons

Image credit: https://beerinhawaii.com/

Love ’em or hate ’em, a saison is a complex beer that are relatively simple in recipe formulation and are tolerant to much higher fermentation temperatures (great option for summer time brewing for those without fermentation control).

This month we welcome a well know member and BJCP judge, Bruce Buerger, to breakdown category 25B; Saisons! Please join us to learn more from Bruce’s vast knowledge of beer evaluation and styles. Make sure you bring a question or two as well, just don’t forget to ‘use your words’.

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.

This general meeting will be held at Cliffords Supper Club in Hales Corners, WI on Wednesday, July 25th. The meeting will start at 7:30pm, however you are welcome to stop in earlier and enjoy food that Cliffords has to offer. Please remember to bring your own tasting glass (or two).

Celebrating the Life of Bob Wilson – Aug 2nd from 6pm – 8pm @ Wehr Nature Center

As many of you know, we lost one of our beloved founding members, Bob Wilson, earlier this year. Bob was active in our club and brought his smile and encouragement wherever he went.

On ThursdayAugust 2nd from 6 pm to 8 pm at the Wehr Nature Center, we are joining up with several other organizations that Bob was passionate about to celebrate his life.  We encourage you to join us and to bring any friends and family as you see fit. Wehr Nature Center kindly asks that we give them a rough count of attendees from the Barons. If you plan to come, please let us know via the form below.

We will be setting up a club Jockey Box and providing beers for the crowd. If you would like to provide a keg (or bottles) for the celebration, please email Jon ([email protected]).

The Wehr Nature Center has made a PDF that you are free to distribute as you see fit.

The other participating organizations are:

Here is a map to the nature center:


Planning to join us?

June 2018 – General Meeting: Water with Jason Otto from Milwaukee Water Works

Photo Credit: http://pluspng.com/png-118497.html

Beer is mostly water and yet a small percentage of homebrewers seriously consider how important of a role water plays in their brew and certainly, not all water is alike.

This general meeting we welcome fellow Beer Baron Jason Otto, a water enthusiast, who also happens to work for the Milwaukee Water Works. Please welcome him while he talks about the water filtration process that our water undergoes and also begins to compare how our local water supplies stack up against each other.

Whether you just use tap water, use a carbon filter, or build you water from scratch using Reverse Osmosis (RO) water, this meeting will help you learn how to interpret your water report and how to put that to work for you. We will also explore a few relatively easy ways to experiment with the most common water additions and what effect they will have on your beer.

As a quick reminder, if you plan to bring a homebrew, you must bring ~2 gallons of your water to sample side by side with your beer.

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.

This general meeting will be held at Cliffords Supper Club in Hales Corners, WI on Wednesday, June 27th. The meeting will start at 7:30pm, however you are welcome to stop in earlier and enjoy food that Cliffords has to offer. Please remember to bring your own tasting glass (or two).

May 2018 – General Meeting: Mini-Sessions 1) Brewing Equipment & 2) TBA

This months general meeting we will pull a few meeting ideas that were too short on their own to make a full meeting from. Our primary mini-session will be on brewing equipment. This session is intended to help the brewer who is new to the hobby all the way to the advanced brewer looking for their next system expansion.

Over the last 2 years, we have had several new members join us for each meeting. It is not uncommon to hear that they have never brewed before, this session will help them understand what is available, what the acronyms mean and the pros and cons. Specifically focusing on All-Grain brewing equipment and the options available and why you would want or need them. For the advanced brewer this meeting may help fill out your understand of the systems available and could help you see through the gimicky marketing that is around us to see what will really help your brewing improve.

Our second Mini-Session will be announced at the meeting. I don’t want to give this one completely away before the meeting…

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.

This general meeting will be held at Cliffords Supper Club in Hales Corners, WI on Wednesday, May 23rd. The meeting will start at 7:30pm, however you are welcome to stop in earlier and enjoy food that Cliffords has to offer. Please remember to bring your own tasting glass (or two).

April 2018 – General Meeting: Raised Grain Brewing Company

This month we welcome Raised Grain to join the Barons. Raised Grain began when two full time doctors and avid homebrewers were discussing who made better beer, Belgium or Scotland. The beer they brewed as a compromise to their argument became their flagship brew and subsequently the 2016 GABF gold winner, Paradocs Red. Raised Grain recently expanded their production into a 20,000 Sq Ft space with a state of the art brewing system and canning line.  You can find them online at http://www.raisedgrainbrewing.com or you can visit their taproom at the address below.

2244 W. Bluemound Rd. Suite E. Waukesha, WI 53186

Click Here For Directions: (a little tough to find, but we promise it’s worth the effort)

Big Brew Day with Spike Brewing – May 5th, 2018

Our buddies at Spike Brewing have invited us to an Open House on AHA Big Brew Day (Sat. May 5th from 2-6PM) at their new production facility in Milwaukee (3866 N Fratney St, Milwaukee, WI 53212).

The plan is to

  • Brew a batch on their one-barrel pilot system (for those of us interested in brewing),
  • Check out their new facility
  • Share beers amongst club members and friends

Spike will provide food, homebrew, and prizes throughout the day. It also happens to be Derby Day, go they’ll have the race on their 70″ TV.

This event is open to our members, friends, and families – so bring your crew!  As with all Barons related events, everyone is responsible for their consumption and transportation to and from Spike.

We’re thinking of brewing a Saison (it’s seasonal and a quick ferment) and dividing up the batch to ferment with different yeast strains.  Spike will make several fermenters available for us so we can play around with fermentation temps/additions. In June, Spike Brewing will join us on the Homebrew Patio at our World of Beer Festival to serve the different homebrews to attendees.

Wanna join? Please fill out this form to let us know you are interested, and how many guests you are coming with. This helps us with planning food and prizes!


March 2018 – General Meeting: Enlightened Brewing Company

This month we welcome founder & co-owner, Tommy Vandervort and head brewer,  James Larson of Enlightened brewing company to join us for our general meeting.

Tommy worked many years in the service industry, during this time he fell in love with craft beer. It wasn’t until his parents gifted him a home brewing kit for Christmas, that he found his passion for brewing.

James earned his Master’s Degree in Brewing and Distilling from Heriot Watt University in Edinburgh, Scotland and spent an internship at Bells Brewing.

Enlightened first opened its doors in January 2013, brewing only a half barrel at a time in the Lincoln Warehouse. They have since moved to their larger space, and upgraded to a 3.5 BBL brew house in 2016.

This general meeting will be held at Cliffords Supper Club in Hales Corners, WI on Wednesday, March 28th. The meeting will start at 7:30pm, however you are welcome to stop in earlier and enjoy food that Cliffords has to offer. Please remember to bring your own tasting glass (or two).

February 2018 – General Meeting: The Explorium Brewpub

Photo Credit: https://onmilwaukee.com/dining/articles/first-look-explorium-brewpub.html

This month we welcome Mike Doble (founder) and Kyle Ciske (head brewer) of The Explorium Brewpub, they are the first and only brewery located in Greendale. Mike and Joan Doble founded The Explorium Brewpub in 2016.  Mike grew up traveling the world as a child of the military; Joan is a Wisconsin girl with strong roots in Milwaukee. They settled in Milwaukee in 2008, but a few years ago, they ventured to Florida to lend a hand in the family brewpub business. Armed with new-found knowledge and experience, Mike and Joan came back home to Wisconsin to develop a brewpub of their own bringing together the best of their experiences. 

This months meeting will take place at Cliffords Supper Club in Hales Corners. As usual the event will start at 7:30pm.