It’s that time of the month: meeting time. Thursday, July 29th at 7:30pm.  On the agenda: taste one of the Saisons we brewed in June, talk shop, plan August brew, “sample” various other beers.  This will more than likely devolve into getting tipsy and talking really loud, but we gotta have goals…right?

Anyway, the cool thing about this meeting is that Muggsy’s in Federal Hill has been nice enough to allow us to have our meetings in the upstairs of their fine bar.  They have a great beer selection and some pretty impressive food for how small of a place it is.  There is also a rumor we might get our very own specials that night.  Should be a great time.  hope to see everyone.

What: Baltibrew July Meeting/Drink fest
When: July 29th (next thurs)
Where: Muggsy’s

Note:  Muggsy’s has told us that we are more than welcome to bring our own homebrew to drink/taste while we’re there, so bring anything you want to share!

Agenda after the jump…

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Baltibrew will be brewing this sunday, June 27th at club member John’s house (address below).  we will be doing 3 batches of Belgian Saison using 3 methods: extract, patial-mash, and all-grain.

April’s IPA brew has been bottled and it will be available to drink/bring home during the brew.

Everyone’s encouraged to bring their own personal homebrew and/or various Saison’s to share/taste with the group.  Along with beer, food is always welcome, and recommended.  John also wanted me to remind everyone he has a pool so be sure to bring your swim trunks, sunscreen, and towel.

We will start mashing at 9AM and will probably wrap up by 4/5PM.  A lot of us will be there for the whole time, but if you can only stop by for a bit that’s perfectly fine too.  If you could email me with your plans so we have a headcount that would be great.  See you sunday!

Location:
8804 Richmond Ave, Parkville, MD 21234

Greetings! We will be meeting this Sunday, April 25th to brew an American IPA at the home of member Matt McCann (2606 E. Baltimore Street Baltimore, MD 21224). This is right across from Patterson Park, with Luzerne being the nearest cross street.

The brew is all-grain so we’ll be starting early — Say 9 a.m. Gotta’ get water up to heat early so we can mash in early. But show up when you want to thereafter. We’ll probably mash in around 10.

Bring food to share, beer or other libations to share, and something to keep you entertained over a goodly bit of the day. Bring coffee or some breakfast item if you’re coming early. All-grain brewing is a much more laborious, and time consuming process than extract, so be prepared to learn a ton, and have a great time as well.

In other news, the American Homebrew Assn’s National Homebrew Day (5/1) — lovingly referred to as Big Brew — is swiftly approaching, and Baltibrew has been cordially invited to attend a number of different events to celebrate. You can join member Kevin Berry down at Maryland Homebrew for the festivities put on by that establishment AND a number of different clubs in the South, or you can join some of us — possibly Ryan B, if the wife lets him play hooky from moving duties — at the Thirsty Brewer for Wootown’s collective Big Brew up North.
UPDATE:

Wootown’s Big Brew is on 5/8 — NOT 5/1.

With business out of the way… time to talk aesthetics.

Feast your eyes on the awesome label member Brent Hoffman designed to accompany our recently named Pagoda Porter. It’s doubly appropriate that we’ll be enjoying the better part of a Corny keg of this beer AT Patterson Park, NEAR the pagoda on brew day. Come out and have a taste.

We had a productive meeting, which involved tasting our Porter that we brewed in February, and everyone enjoyed it quite a bit.  We also enjoyed some home brew from Kevin (American Pale Ale, Amber Ale, Weizen Bock), as well as our newest member John (Recession Proof American Pale Ale).

Ryan B. gave a half hour primer on the basics of brewing and we had some great discussion/questions throughout the presentation.

We decided our April brew would be an IPA and would also be an all-grain so members could see how that’s done.  We will do the brew on Sunday, April 25th at Matt’s house (address, and start time will be emailed out.

Last but certainly not least, we named the Porter from last month as: Baltibrew’s Pagoda Porter, as an homage to the vicinity to Patterson Park the beer was brewed.  Hope to see everyone in April, and enjoy the first weeks of spring.

We will be bottling tomorrow, 2/19 at the same location listed in the last post.

Bring bottles if you have them. They need to be clean, must be brown and can’t be twist offs. Doing so will reduce final costs and is good for the environment and stuff.

We will go over priming for “bottle conditioning,” cleaning and sanitation (there is a difference), and discuss proper storage, and the effects of time on bottled beer. And then we’ll move on to kegging and force carbonation.

We’ll collect money for production costs, so bring a little cash. Bring beer if you want as well.

We expect to spend about 3 or 4 hours bottling.

We are brewing an American Porter Sunday at 2 p.m. at the following address:

14 N east Ave.

Baltimore, MD 21224

Bring some food, bring some beers to share, and I’ll post after we buy ingredients how much money you should bring to chip in.

We will be brewing 10 gallons. Five will be bottled, and the remainder will be kegged, so if you show up and pay in, you’ll get a proportionate amount of bottled beer to take away once the process is complete. The keg we’ll drink on at our next meeting/brew.

This is an extract brew, so it’s a great opportunity to learn how to do one the right way if you’ve never done one before.

We’re meeting tonight at 7 pm at Mahaffey’s in Canton. Should be a good time. Detter has reminded us that tonight is slider night there, so if you’re so inclined you can get your grub on.

Should be a good time.

Things on the agenda:

• When to schedule the upcoming January Brew
• When to schedule the Feb/March meetings and/or brews.
• plans for max’s Belgian beer fest weekend.
• possible trip to tour flying dog
• Planning a tasting
• 2010 BJCP class details
• Website upgrades (calendar, recipe DB, messageboard, etc.)

Join us.

Well folks, the effort we put into making that Ginger Snap Cookie ale a couple months ago has paid off. We got together as a club after the Baltimore Washington Monument Holiday Lighting at co-founder Paul Capestany’s excellent home this past Thursday to taste the versions of the beer, and decided upon the slightly less attenuated version fermented at co-founder Kevin Berry’s house.

At last night’s Free State Homebrewer’s Guild Holiday Party, we took first place in the annual hedonistic homebrew competition!!!

For a very young club, in its first year as a guild member this is a big deal, and some of you helped make it possible. We’d LOVE to have more of you involved next year.

The guild represents the collective interests of all of the associated homebrew clubs all over the state of Maryland. As members of the guild our members receive a 10% discount at the two better homebrew shops in the state — Thirsty Brewer, and MDHB — and the club is eligible to take part in a number of guild events. There’s an annual picnic at Patapsco State Park in the summer, the Zymurnauts Crab Feast in September, Mashout — a camping trip to Western Maryland with campsite brewing — in August, and most spectacularly, the annual holiday party held within the Clipper City Brewery.

The holiday party involves support of a variety of charities through donations and fund raising events held during the festivities — a raffle, silent auction, and the hedonistic homebrew competition. This competition involves a different style of judging from most homebrew contests. Instead of judging to style, those attending the event submit a single vote for their favorite beer served at the party. BaltiBrew’s Ginger Snap Cookie won by a margin of three votes over about 25 other beers. No small feat for a club that barely boasts 10 members.

Kevin, Ryan D, Paul, and I collectively believed that our beer was a winner, and we know that our triumph makes a big splash in the eyes of the guild. Remember, this competition lets the rest of the clubs — and more importantly US — know that OUR beer was the favorite at a party full of beer afficionados.

For our efforts, we won a box of holiday themed beers hand-selected by Guild President, Les White — some from his personal collection. So here’s where you come in:

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As we near the holiday season, the club’s collective ability to meet and get things done is pretty much crippled. People are out of town, other parties are going on, etc.

Since the needs of our November meeting require that we collectively taste and decide which version of the beer we produced for the Guild Holiday Party to enter into competition, we will not meet officially in November. This does not mean we can’t get together more informally.

Our pre-party meeting date will be December 3rd and will coincide with the annual Mount Vernon Monument Holiday Lighting.

• We will meet up prior to the lighting at  George’s — the bar in the Peabody Court Hotel — for some drinks.
• The lighting starts at 7:20 p.m. on Mount Vernon Square.
• Following the lighting, we will retire to Paul’s house to taste our versions of the Ginger Snap Ale and decide which one to enter.
  • Bring some Winter/Holiday beers to taste, and we’ll decide which we collectively like the best using Paul’s system.
  • Bring some holiday themed goodies

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Vote by Nov. 30. Leave a comment to let us know what you’d bring or what kind of takeout you’d like.

Agenda items:

• Which beer to enter
• When to meet after the holidays
• What to brew after the holidays
• Recruitment events

Let me know if you have any others you’d like to add, or if you can think of anyone else we should add to this list.

I look forward to seeing you on the 3rd. It’s always a great time.

Hey folks,

Details on the 2009 Free State Homebrewers’ Guild  Holiday Party are below.

Get on this now, as tickets tend to go quick.

Holiday party is always great, and this year’s will be a great opportunity for our club to make a big splash, hopefully with a win in the annual Hedonistic Homebrew Competition with our Ginger Snap Ale entry. The Indian/Middle Eastern theme should be pretty impressive. The party is a chance for our club to mingle with the other clubs in the state, so please consider checking it out.

Ticket costs help pay for the food, and other incidentals.

Hope to see you there. The following is reprint of an email by Les White, the guild president:

Hi Fellow Homebrewers and Friends,

We’re just over a month away from the Guild Holiday Party. The date is Saturday, December 5th. Once again, Hugh Sisson and crew have opened up Clipper City Brewing to host our party. We thank them and all homebrew shops, breweries, pubs, restaurants and private donors who graciously give to this, our largest charity fundraising event of the year.

Details, details, details….

• Date: Dec. 5th, 2009
• Time: 6-10pm
• Place: Clipper City Brewing
• Menu: Indian/Middle Eastern
• Tickets: $25 in advance

This event is limited and will sell out. Tickets are Only available ONLINE at:

http://www.MDHomebrewers.org/holiday

We’re still working out some details on this year’s charities so check on the above page closer to the party for more information.