Palm Beach Draughtsmen

Volume 62

In This Issue

Meeting Information....................Page 1

NewMembers .............................Page 1

el Hefe’s Corner..........................Page 1

Pale Ale Competition..................Page 2

Oktoberfest Party and Competition................................Page2

Nov. 2nd Pub Crawl...................Page 3

Oregon Brewer’s Festival.......Pages 3-4

Brew This!.............................Pages 4-5

MEETING PLACES!!

The next regular meeting will be at the Irish Times Pub in Palm Beach Gardens. It is located at 9920 Highway A1A, Alt. in Palm Beach Gardens. Go north on I-95 to North Lake Blvd and go east to Alt A1A and go north about two miles and it will be in the shopping center on the NE corner of Lighthouse and A1A. Go to the NE corner by the

cinema. Or call 624-1504 for more complete directions!

New Members

We currently have 84 members with 2 new members signing up in August. Welcome to the club! and we hope you will take advantage of the collective

September 1996

knowledge in this group of brewers. The newest members are Rob Shawber and

Mike Griffith of Palm Beach Gardens.

Both are beginning extract brewers. If you see them at a meeting, be sure to say "Hi!" and welcome them to the club.

el Hefe’s Corner

Well, alright! Another successful pub crawl is now history! 40 Enthusiastic beer hounds loaded up at the Hilton and

headed North on August 17th, in the eternal quest for the perfect pint!

The first stop was the Treasure Coast Brewery, makers of McCoy’s Real Ale, inn Stuart. I was expecting a cramped, chaotic tour, but while the greeting/tasting room was a little crowded for a group our size, the surprisingly spacious 30bbl brewhouse easily accommodated all of us split into 3 groups efficiently rotating through the facilities. The brewery is well organized and laid out, giving all of us with thoughts of a brewing career an idea of the requirement for a successful operation.

The tasting room had 3 beers on tap; an amber ale, a raspberry wheat ale and a golden wheat ale. All these beers were clean, smooth and well brewed, with the amber, in particular, impressing me with its malty nose and flavor, with some crystal malt contributing a bit of caramel sweetness. Very Nice!

As if this weren’t enough, Treasure Coast provided 5 or 6 cases of amber ale to the crawl! Many thanks to Jerry, Kevin, Chris and Kendra for your exceptional hospitality.

Next stop was "Charlie and Jake’s" brewpub in Melbourne for luncheon and even more beer! (Oh! To have a career like Michael Jackson’s!)We were treated to some excellent BBQ and although , unfortunately, their brown and pale ales were unavailable, we were privy to their smooth and well balanced wheat, honeywheat and red ales.

Rick gave us tours of the 7 bbl brewhouse and directly from the fermenters. Sort of like a farm cat getting fed directly from a cow’s teat!

Our group was well treated and we also a 25% discount on our tabs! Thanks to "Charlie and Jake’s" for their kindness and generosity.

Our last stop was "Coasters", also in Melbourne. They also have an excellent selection of draft beers. The exact number escapes me (15 or 20, I think!), but that probably was due to the liter of Hacker-Pschorr Oktoberfest Ale that dALE kindly passed my way! Having just told Ali and DeeDee of the perils and stupidity of machismo driven consumption of beer in massive quantities, I proceeded to, hypocritically, quaff the liter, non-stop. ( I did have to allow pauses while swallowing, to obtain air!) This "stunt" effectively terminated my beer drinking for the day. I handled it better that I expected and, aside from a quick dash to the head to bleed off some excess CO2 , I enjoyed an increasingly happy buzz!

Darrel, our host, provided us with samples of his tasty pale ale and porter from his 1.5 bbl system. Mel, of course, commented on the "lack of hops", but agreed that "Coasters" is headed in

the right direction. Again, many thanks to "Coasters", and also to "Charlie and Jake’s" and Treasure Coast Brewery for a great time!

The trip home was highlighted by a T-shirt Raffle and some deft comedy, via microphone, from Dan Oliver. The PBD acknowledges and appreciates the excellent and generous response to the raffle, thus ensuring that this event closed in the black.

Remember! Enter those beers in the Oktoberfest Competition and Pale Ale Competitions!

El Hefe

Pale Ale Competition

As we all know, Paul and the HBO will present the Second Annual Pale Ale Competition on Saturday, September 21st. This year, it will take place at the Tuskeegee Pavilion in Okeeheelee Park, West Palm Beach. From I-95, go west on Forest Hill Blvd., past Jog Road and it will be on the right side. Follow the signs to Tuskeegee Pavilion. It is on top of the highest point in the park, and always has a good breeze.

Festivities will commence around noon and continue until the beer runs out ( maybe on Sunday!)

The top three pale ales will be chosen and the brewers of these wonderful elixirs will be presented with a cheesy medal or something.

This competition is AHA sanctioned and judges, here is an opportunity to get some points! The actual judging will take place on the preceding Wednesday or Thursday, in order to remove the judging from the party atmosphere, as well as ensuring complete impartiality any anonymity. Please, volunteer by calling Victor at 753-4793.

P Oktoberfest P

The Fifth Annual Oktoberfest Competition and party will be held at the Tuskeegee Pavilion in Okeeheelee Park on Saturday, September 28th. For directions to the park, see the preceding article.

Festivities will commence at sometime in the AM to sometime in the PM ( basically, DARK:30).

Tickets are available in advance only! We are not allowed to collect monies at the gate , unless we want to pay about double for the pavilion. So, please get your tickets in advance wherever you see them or at the HBO in WPB or Davie.

By buying tix in advance, it also enables us to get a grip on how many will attend, and buy food accordingly. Remember, we are spending OUR money to put this on, and we don’t want squander our precious resources (MONEY).

Please enter your best Oktoberfest brew(s), as this competition is also AHA sanctioned. Not only do the judges have an opportunity to get experience points, but we, as a club, have a better chance to win the Homebrew Club of the Year Award, which is presented annually, by the AHA, to the homebrew club with the most (points) winners.

Contact Victor regarding judging and stewarding. We expect a good turn out this year. Medals will be presented to the top three winners (at least).

Yup! It’s going to be one helluva couple of weekends!

dALE

Pub Crawl South!

The next crawl will be going to the Ft. Lauderdale area on Saturday, Nov. 2nd.

The bus will depart at 11:00 AM and will arrive at Shakespeare’s Pub. Just in time for lunch and a hand pulled Fuller’s. After a few hours there we will travel to the new Independence Brewery (formerly The Riverwalk) in beautiful downtown Fort Lauderdale! This will be the only two stops for this trip, unless you want more. Let us know. The cost will be determined soon and seats will be available at the HBO. There are only 46 seats available, so sign up soon!

FTropical Beer FestivalE

The next Great Tropical Beerfest will be held on Saturday, Nov. 9th, at the South Fla. Fairgrounds. Use the west entrance from Southern Blvd.

OREGON BREWERS FESTIVAL 1996

My seventh annual trek to the Oregon Brewers Festival! I reported in the newsletter last year that the festival has gotten better with each year. More brewers, better organization, more beer styles and great sampling. It has been, in my estimation, the best beer Fest in the country due to the number of brewers and beers, the quality of the beer (no mega brewers) and the great value due to fair cost for a reasonable sample. This year the beer was great and beyond my expectations (which were somewhere in outerspace). The sheer numbers, 88 brews all from microbrewers, were numbing. How was I to try all the beers I wanted to sample? Well, the organizers made that much easier than I anticipated which leads to my first complaint about a festival that has been sacred to me for 7 years. In the past, for $1 a 6-8 ounce sample could be had and for $2 the glass was filled to the 12 ounce mark. Not this year! The organizers, for some unknown reason (could it be greed?), decided that the $1 line on the mug should be at the 3 ounce line. What a rip! This equated to a $5-6 pint! One could still get the mug filled to the 12 ounce line for $2, but that severely limited the number of beers one could sample and still remember. Being of Scottish ancestry, I opted for the 12 Oz samples and, thus, did not get to try all the beers I wanted to try.

The second problem was no fault of the festival organizers. Due to flooding in the Spring the grass was destroyed and replaced on an interim basis with river sand. As the crowd increased the dust became unbearable. I’m sure this problem will be rectified for next year barring another natural disaster.

Problem number 3 was totally due to the organizers and they will receive a letter from me in the near future. In the past, all beers were identified by map and a placard was displayed in front of the pouring site that identified the beer, brewery and listed ingredients. This year it was by accident if one was able to find a particular beer on the first try. No placards, no map!

Now that I have that off my chest, I can concentrate on the positive. This year the beer was not only excellent, it was more varied by style than ever before. There were more lagers than I ever would have expected in the Pacific Northwest (Ale Country). There were Dopplebocks, Smoked beers, numerous German style beers and various Pilsners and wheat beers to accompany the English Pales, Old Ales, IPAs, Stouts, Porters, Browns, Scottish and Ambers. Fruit beers also were in abundance. Even the Belgian styles were represented.

Every beer that I sampled was excellent with several outstanding, IPAs of course. But the real beer experience didn’t happen until we were able to hit several of the breweries and brew pubs in Portland. It seems that cask conditioned ale is the craze and thank the good Gambrinus! I quaffed cask conditioned IPA, Pale Ale, Stout, Porter and American Pale Ale and I must say that I have never tasted better beer! McMinnimins Terminator Stout has never been one of my favorites--until I tasted it cask conditioned. It is just incredible! The best, by far however, was Bridgeport Brewery’s "Great Firkin Beer" IPA and Porter. Both are cask conditioned (a Firkin is an English cask used to condition pub cellar ale) and I can still taste the incredibly complex IPA. It is the best hopped commercial beer I have experienced. I brought home some bottled conditioned "Great Firkin" IPA and it is very good, but does not compare to the cask conditioned variety. I can’t wait to get back to sample some more and also see what new innovations will be in store from the Brewers of the Pacific Northwest when I return next summer.

A great trip, great beer and a great place to be in the summer. Its too bad that poor organization somewhat depleted the overall experience of the Oregon Brewers Festival, but I’ll be back next year and, hopefully, the problems of this year will have been resolved.

Mel

Brew ‘Dis!

By dALE

Well, it’s too late to brew anything for Oktoberfest, so let’s look forward to the upcoming holidays. Something traditional, maybe ? Something with, let’s say, pumpkin?

In this vein of thought, let’s go with a punkin’ ale! So here it is! The pumpkin ale recipe to put all others to shame! (or blame, whatever ) It’s...

CUCURBITO PEPO PUMPKIN ALE

INGREDIENTS:

14 # 6-row malt

1 # German light crystal

5 # British 2-row lager

1/2 # German dark crystal

1 # Toasted Pale Malt

15 # Fresh punkin’ or 10# Libby’s w/ no preservatives. (It’s cheap! )

1.5 tsp. ground cinnamon

1 oz. fresh ginger, grated

1 tsp. fresh ground nutmeg

1/2 tsp. fresh ground allspice

2 tsp. pure liquid vanilla extract (Publix brand has no alcohol in it )

3 tsp. Irish moss

Hops

3.5 oz Styrian Goldings hops (18 HBU)

for 70 minutes

1 oz Cascade hops ( 5 HBU )

for 70 minutes

2 oz Hallertauer hops

for 2 minutes

Water Chemistry

To 18 gallons of purified water add the following: 1 tsp. non-iodized salt

1/4 tsp. CaCl (calcium chloride)

Add 2 tsp. Chalk directly to mash and stir in while still dry.

Procedure

Get a punkin! A 12-15 pounder will do nicely. Cut in half and clean out seeds. Save the seeds! We’ll toast them for a snack later!

Place face down on cookie sheet(s) and cook at 350 ° f until soft. The skin will just peel off, now. This could take an hour or two.

Add all malt to mash tun and underlet for the best results when mashing in.

Mash in with 7.5 gallons of 130° water to achieve a 30 min. protein rest at 124°f. After the 30 minute rest, add the punkin. If you are using the canned punkin, heat it up to about 150° first. If you are using fresh, then use it while still hot from the oven, and just mash it up coarsely with a potato masher. Add punkin to mash tun and raise temperature of mash to 152 °f by adding 2.5 gallons or so of boiling water, for a 60 min. saccharification rest. Raise temperature of mash to 168 ° f to mash out.

Stir mash well, but gently, to homogenize and rest here for a 10 min. period. Sparge with 9 gallons of water at 170°f.

Boil for 30 minutes before starting the hop schedule, and don’t forget to skim the scum! The scum is the coagulated proteins from the wort and we want to remove them.

This 30 minute boil time is necessary when using 6-row malts, as they have a higher protein content. The full hour and 40 minute boil helps to reduce these extra proteins in the wort, giving you a clear beer! It also reduces some compounds that could be detrimental to the final flavor of the beer, like DMS.

Follow the hopping schedule above, but no skimming once the hops go in! Boil for 45 minutes and add Irish Moss. Add the spices at about 10 minutes to go in the 100 minute boil. Steep the last hop addition for two minutes and chill as rapidly as possible. This should give you a 13.2 gallon boil and you should end up with a good 10 gallons of delicious wort at around 1.058-62 !!

Pitch with a vigorously fermenting 2 liter starter, hook up the blowoff tubes and stand back!! I would highly recommend the Wyeast # 1056 American Ale yeast culture for this one.

Take the time to make your starter about three days in advance and build it up to about 2 liters before pitching. It WILL go!

This is not an easy mash because of the volumes and the nature of the ingredients involved, (my 13 gallon mash tun is slap full when I do this one and canned punkin’ is notorious for getting stuck during the sparge!) so you DON’T want your yeast to poop out half way through the ferment!

Ferment at 62 °f for about 10 -11 days and rack. Drop the temp to about 36° and fine with isinglass and keg for best results.

If any one does this with 10-12 of canned pumpkin, be prepared for a stuck sparge. It will happen. Fortunately, I have devised a method of dealing with a stuck runoff involving pumpkin.

The one I made with fresh punkin last year had no problems at all with the sparging, so this is probably the best bet. The only problem is that you can’t get fresh punkins in time for your ale to be ready in time for Halloween!

A Happy Halloween and Thanksgiving can be had this year while in the company of about 10 gallons of the best punkin’ ale you ever tasted!

This recipe can be found in Charlie’s "Home Brewer’s Companion" Book on Page 315. Refer there for more detail. This is a good one , folks!

Enjoy! dALE

When your body needs calcium

You never know where you might find interesting beer information these days as beer, again, takes its rightful place as a major facet of society. This from the September issue of Kiplinger's Personal Finance Magazine: "One of the newest "healthy" products, for example, is calcium enriched beer. Sophie McCall lager, billed as the "queen of beers" by the Golden Pacific Brewing Co., claims to provide ten times the amount of calcium found in regular beers." Go figure. Mel

Upcoming events

Regular Meeting..............Tuesday, Nov. 12th

at The Irish Times at 8:00 PM sharp! See Page 1 for directions!

Pub Crawl to Ft.Lauderdale.. Saturday,Nov. 2nd

Joining the Club

To become a member of the Draughtsmen’s Club, you may sign up at the Home Brewer’s Outlet, at 4734 Okeechobee,Blvd.,in West Palm

Beach. You may also write to Palm Beach Draughtsmen, Inc. at 2455 Appaloosa Trail, West Palm Beach, FL 33414-7634.

As always, all friends and relatives are most welcome to all meetings!

How to use the members mailbox

Dial 659-4146 and receive the message. After hearing when and where the meeting is going to be held, you may leave a message, or you can

Dial 2 to get info on any special events, or dial 3 to hear the Store specials. After hearing these messages , you may leave a message at any of the three mailboxes.

To retrieve messages, dial 835-0223 and dial *. When asked to enter mailbox number, enter 659-4146. The password is now BREWER (273937). Please do not change any of the administrative options. Retrieve messages and hang-up. If, while retrieving messages, you hear a obvious hang-up(i.e. no message) please press 7 to delete it and leave room for more messages.

The Palm Beach Draughtsmen Gazette

To write articles or send comments, please forward to the following address:

Editors of the

Palm Beach Draughtsmen Gazette

2455 Appaloosa Trail, Wellington, FL 33414

Fax or modem to (407)790-1856(Call First!)

or E-Mail to: [email protected]

Deadline is 23rd of each month!

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