Tag Archives: American Porter

We've got some events coming up on the horizon, and it's going to be a busy Spring. Hope you're all ready for it.

• Max's Belgian Beer Fest: Starts tomorrow at 11 a.m. and runs through Sunday. Might want to get there early as a line is usually formed by 10 a.m. There are various ancillary events happening throughout. Check out the current "final" draft list.
• March 3rd — Monthly Meeting/Dues Collection: Our usual monthly meeting falls on 3/3 and will happen as always at Muggsy's Mughouse in Federal Hill. Greg Slack will be collecting dues at this event. At this point it looks like the amount to bring will be $20, but there will be a formal announcement of the official dues cost on 2/24. Additionally, we will be tasting the results of the February brew in preparation for submission to the Clone Wars competition. We will taste all four versions (all-grain open ferment, all-grain closed ferment, extract open, and extract closed) that we brewed, as well as a genuine Steve Jones version for comparison. Other items to discuss may include a workday/demonstration related to building mash tuns, and fitting keggles to expand our brewing capacity.
• March 11th — Pratt Street Ale House Clone Wars submission: The club will be submitting its 3 Lions Ale clone.
• April 7th — Monthly Meeting: Our usual monthly meeting falls on 4/7 and will happen as always at Muggsy's Mughouse in Federal Hill. Items to discuss might include the aforementioned workday/demo, Summer events, and any other pressing club business.
• April something? — Club Brew with Stillwater Artisanal Ales brewer, Brian Strumke: Not 100% sure when in April, but we hope to brew a saison with Brian Strumke of Stillwater Artisanal Ales. Gotta' get dates squared with Brian. Hopefully by then we'll have an expanded brew capacity allowing us to send beer home with some lucky folks who show up.
• April 17th-ish? — ChilbrewIII: Ian is working on the upcoming spring Chilibrew event. Details to come.
• May 7th— AHA Big Brew Day: Annual homebrew day.
• June 4th — Guild Picnic & Wheat Beer Comp: The Free State Homebrewer's Guild holds an annual picnic at Patapsco State Park. Every year I've been to it, there's been a wheat beer competition, unsanctioned, but judged in the BJCP style. There's a big BBQ and it's a great opportunity to meet other brewers in the state as well as to show off our skills as great brewers despite being a "beginner's" club.
• June 16^th– 18^th — AHA Conference in San Diego: It's the biggest homebrew event of the year, and this year it's in San Diego. Hotels are pretty solidly booked already, but that doesn't mean you can't commute.

And that's pretty much it for Springtime events to my mind. If you have other events you'd like to see posted to the club's public Google calendar, suggest them in the comments.

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.