Dear Brewers,
Over the next few weeks, we are going to be overhauling this website. Please bear with us during the construction. We hope that the finished product will be more user friendly and will have added and more useful features.
Don’t forget that we are also accessable via facebook and twitter (@DCHomebrewers)!
Cheers and good brewing,
Joshua Hubner
Our next meeting will be the combined November/December Holiday
Meeting TONIGH Tuesday, December 6th, 2011, at Meridian Pint! We’ll
get started as usual – around 7pm – but those arriving early will be
able to take advantage of MP’s happy hour food/drink specials until
then. ALSO, DC Homebrewers will receive 25% off bottled beer all
night!
Meridian Pint is located at 3400 11th St. NW Washington, D.C. and is
easily accessible from the Columbia Heights Metro and a short walk
down New Hampshire Ave. from the Georgia Ave. Metro as well on the
Green/Yellow lines.
What to bring: Any type of Homebrew you want, but don’t forget to
support Meridian Pint by purchasing some of its beer and/or food.
We’ll have the downstairs pretty much to ourselves, so bring a friend!
Cheers and Happy Holidays!
P.S. Upcoming Events Early in 2012:
-High Gravity Meeting in February (Time to start brewing if you haven’t
already!)
-Cherry Blossom Homebrew Competition in March
Dear Brewers,
Mark your calendars, this month’s meeting is just around the corner!
It will be hosted by Josh H. on Thursday, October 20th from 7pm to midnight. There isn’t a designated theme to this month’s meeting, just great home brewed beers.
If you are new to the club, here is the skinny: Bring what you can to share, either home brew, some craft brew, or even food. We’ll hang for a bit drinking craft brew until everyone shows up, then we’ll introduce everyone’s homebrew, make some announcements, then get down to sampling the best D.C. has to offer!
If you’ve been to meetings before: looking forward to seeing you again!
Josh lives in the Logan Circle neighborhood at 1301 15th St. NW Washington, D.C. 20005, when you arrive, use the call box and he’ll buzz you in. The elevators are straight ahead and the apartment is on the 4th floor. Turn left around the corner when you exit the elevator, it’s all the way down the hall on the left.
ALSO, official logo DC Homebrewer’s Club glass tasting glasses will be available for purchase at the meeting for $5! They are the perfect size for a sample pour of homebrew, and the money goes to the club for some fun things we have in the works…
ALSO, ALSO, there will be a free raffle for a pair of official Pilsner Urquell stemmed glasses, details to follow!
Cheers and hope to see you there!
Because it’s always DC Beer Week for us…
The next DC Homebrewers meeting is tomorrow, Thursday, August 25 at
7:00 PM, where we will enjoy the end of summer! Along with any
homebrew you want to share, feel free to bring a snack or some food
that reminds you of the summer time, and if the weather’s nice, we can
have the meeting on the rooftop deck. This meeting will be hosted by
Brian B. Thanks Brian!.
Directions: 13th and Kenyon, NW (sign up for list serve for more details)
Brian’s house is just around the block from the Columbia Heights metro
stop. Exit out the 14th St. Northbound exit, continue north on 14th,
pass by D’Vines (or stop in to grab a craft brew), turn right on
Kenyon, and his house is about 3/4 of the way down the block, just
before the alleyway.
Things you can bring:
Homebrew
or…
Craft beer
Artisan/homemade or other types of summer-time food
See you tomorrow!
Martin D.
Submissions due by August 13, 2011 (drop off point to released soon)
Final round judging at open-to-public competition on August 20, 2011 at Red Palace (1212 H St. NE)
Two bottles required to enter, 1 case required for final round competition.
Grand prize will be a guest brew day at a great craft brewery (totally worth the 1 case you’ll be serving!)
Our DC Homebrewers tasting glasses are still available, and we’ll have them for sale again at the meeting next week. The glasses have our custom logo, are 3 oz each, and a perfect way to be environmentally friendly while sampling homebrew during the beer meetings by reducing plastic waste. We will have them at the meeting on Thursday (details below) to purchase for $5 each and all proceeds will go to the club to fund future events, prizes, merchandise, etc.
It’s hot outside! So next week’s meeting featuring homebrewed session beers should help us all keep cool and well hydrated on Thursday, July 28, at 7:00 PM. This meeting will be hosted by Bill J. Thanks Bill! His place is located at 11th and Independence Ave SE, Washington DC, near the southwest corner of 11th Street SE and Independence Avenue.
Directions:
The nearest Metro stop is Eastern Market. From the Metro, walk to the corner of 8th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue. Turn left, cross Pennsylvania Avenue and D Street, and then turn right. Walk down D Street and South Carolina Avenue until you reach 10th Street. Turn left on 10th Street and walk two blocks until you reach Independence Avenue, then turn right. His place is the one with the carboy out front.
You can also get to Independence Avenue from 7th St. It will mean a slightly longer walk, but it is better lit, more public, and will allow you to catch the tail end of Eastern Market’s operating hours if you want (they close at 7pm). From the Metro, turn around and walk to 7th Street, then turn right. Walk two blocks, then turn right on North Carolina Avenue. North Carolina Avenue intersects Independence Avenue about half a block later. Walk down four blocks until you reach the second to last house before 11th Street on the right side.
Bill lives in the main house, not the garden-level apartment below. He’ll put an empty carboy out front so you know you’ve found the right house. In case you get lost, his cell number is Five seven one, two-fourteen, seventy-thirtyfour
If you’re driving (not recommended–street parking is scarce but may be available, and there’s a two hour limit before 8:30pm), take I-395 and exit at 6th St/Navy Yard. Drive two blocks then turn north onto 8th Street. Make a right on Independence Avenue then drive three more blocks.
Things you can bring:
Session or any other type of homebrew
Any other type of craft beer
Chips/snacks or artisan/homemade food
Hope to see you there!
Being a beer drinker in DC is an exciting thing, a statement that couldn’t honestly be uttered a few short years ago. DC Brau, Port City, 3 Stars, Chocolate City – all popped up in our collective radar over the past few years. And that’s a very good thing. We now have local options and beer to be proud of. For Steve Sorrell, this is all fuel to the fire.
I recently met up with Steve Sorrell – the proprietor of DC’s very own nascent nanobrewery – Low Brau, for some beers at Churchkey. He arrived with his wife Linda, and a brown paper bag (more on that later), and we immediately started talking beer. Steve, like all of us at DCHB, is a die hard beer lover and homebrewer. He’s a local, living in DC since graduating from Virginia Tech in 2003. And like most of us, he grew up in Germany…
…well, maybe not most of us…
In fact, it’s that background which has shaped Sorrell’s taste for beer, brewing, and is the impetus for the Low Brau nanobrewery. Low Brau’s motto is, “Embracing Simplicity.” And that is exactly what Sorrell intends to do. Sometimes, and in the summer especially, you just need a refreshing beer. When it’s 95 F in August, you may not want that 8% oak aged Imperial Stout. Sometimes, you just want a good, solid German beer. “I want to keep it simple and let the yeast and malt do the work,” says Sorrell.
With this mantra, and German brewing tradition in his bones, Sorrell started Low Brau with the mission to bring the German experience to the DC market. The LLC is filed and applications are pending with DCRA, so it’s just a matter of time and will.
Low Brau is still somewhat amorphous. Will it be a brewery or a brewpub? Bottles, cans, kegs, all three? Time will have to tell. “When it comes down to it, I just want to brew beer,” says Sorrell.
Speaking of beer, back to that brown bag. Inside were two unmarked bottles of homebrew – a weissbier. [It is crucial to note here that Steve is a homebrewer, and this was his homebrewed beer, not any product of any commercial brewing entity] They went immediately into the fridge and the waiting game started. After what I decided was a sufficient cool down (I really couldn’t wait any longer), I took one out, cracked it open and poured it into my favorite beer glass. Now I’m no beer judge, so bear with me:
It presented a light amber with a nice thick head. The aroma was spot on for the style – yeast and cloves and fruit. The carbonation level was great, and the mouth feel was full without being heavy. How did it taste, you ask? It was fruity and refreshing, slightly sweet and mildly tart. Let me put it this way, I’m happy he gave me the second bottle!
If all goes as planned we’ll all get a taste at next year’s NoVa Summer BrewFest.
For now, cheers and best of luck to Steve and Low Brau!
[UPDATE: Official logo DC Homebrewers tasting glasses will be available for purchase for $5]
It’s that time of year again for Irresponsibly Hopped Beers! This
humulone-heavy meeting for lupulin-lovers will take place next
tomorrow, Thursday, June 23 at 7:00 PM. Any style of beer will do,
just crank up the hops! Feel free to attend even if you’re not much
of a hop head, or if you don’t have a highly hopped brew to offer. We
will also gladly accept other types of homebrew, or some highly-hopped
craft beer. This meeting will be hosted by Kelly and Brad. Thanks to
you both! Their address is 2 T Street NE.
Directions:
It’s on the corner of North Capitol Street and T Street. The closest
Metro station is New York Avenue (on the red line), but Rhode Island
Avenue (also on the red line) and Shaw-Howard University (on the green
line) are also nearby.
From the New York Avenue Metro station it is 0.7 miles. Walk up
Florida Avenue to North Capitol Street. Turn right on North Capitol
Street and walk to T Street.
See Google Maps for the best way to walk there from either the Shaw-
Howard University Metro station (0.9 miles) or from the Rhode Island
Avenue Metro station (1 mile):
Things you can bring:
Hopped or any other type of homebrew
or…
Hopped or any other type of craft beer
Chips/snacks or artisan/homemade food
“Hop” to see you there!
-Martin D.
By Brian Barrows.
In January of this year, Meridian Pint started hosting a semi-monthly homebrewing competition in their basement bar, also known as Joint Chiefs. DC-area homebrewers are given a chance to serve their beer to the public and vie for a $100 gift card from Meridian Pint. In the first competition, 24 homebrews were offered up to packed house of thirsty beer drinkers. I entered this competition and greatly enjoyed sharing one of my favorite beers.
My offering was an attempt to clone one of my favorite commercial beers, the Green Peppercorn Tripel brewed by The Brewer’s Art in Baltimore. My Belgian-style tripel with peppercorns turned out to be a spicier version of the original, but I was very proud of the resulting beer and was eager to share. This was the first time I served my homebrew to people other than my friends and family and I was equally excited and nervous.
Since many tasters were well versed in the characteristics that make up a good beer – quite a few were homebrewers themselves – I appreciated the complements and critiques on my tripel. Patrons selected the winner by ranking each brew on a scale of 1-10. The organization and execution of the competition went smoothly, which made for a very pleasant experience. It took nearly two days for the staff at Meridian Pint to compile all the scores to determine the winner. I was anxious to find out how well I fared; as it turned out, my beer finished fourth. When the tallies were finally in, the top ten were:
Top 10 scores:
Michael Goggin’s IHOP-PA: 7.69
Steve Mendoza’s Black Pelican IPA: 7.66
Steve Mendoza’s Gulf Coast Stout: 7.64
Brian Barrows’ Green Peppercorn Tripel: 7.38
Joshua Sorchick’s Imperial Stout: 7.21
Mike Reinitz’s Full Nelson IPA: 7.18
James Wisnieski’s Bourbon-Barrel Imperial Stout: 7.16
Erich Streckfuss’ Big Lakes Gitche Gumee Porter: 7.14
Dan Mulcahy’s Sirocco Stout: 6.86
Mike Horkan’s Christmas: 6.83
Due to how long it took to tally votes for the January competition, official judging for the March competition was conducted by small panel of well-educated craft beer drinkers, certified beer judges, and homebrewers. Included among the judges were members from Brewers United for Real Potables (BURP) and Meridian Pint’s beer director Sam Fitz. The March competition included an additional prize, a 1-year membership for BURP, as well as a $100 gift card for Meridian Pint.
This time 20 brewers poured their finest offerings, and each brewer was required to provide a case of beer due to the high demand during the first competition. In fact, for much of the competition, a line of patrons waited upstairs as Joint Chiefs was at full capacity. For this event, I brewed a patersbier, a low-alcohol Belgian-style beer not commonly found commercially. The Belgian yeast strain provided much of spice and floral character, along with a light malt presence and high carbonation, it made for a refreshing and tasty beer. It was well received by judges and patrons, with many noting the extraordinary amount of flavor in such a light beer. The judges awarded me first prize for my effort.
I was very pleased to see that a low-alcohol beer made with malt extract could win over judges in a best of show competition. I have provided the recipe below.
I am looking forward to round three later this month, May 31st. I have not entered this time, but I will definitely be there to sample all the fine offerings from area home brewers.
Brian’s Patersbier
OG: 1.040
SRM: 2.9
IBU: 18
5-gallon batch:
4.5 lbs pilsner dry malt extract
1 oz German Hallertauer (60 min)
0.5 oz Styrian golding (10 min)
Wyeast 1214: Belgian abbey ale yeast (Chimay yeast strain)
DC Homebrewers,
This month’s meeting will be on Thursday, May 26, at
7:00 PM…but we will be doing things a bit differently…
Though we have always had meetings at a member’s place, The Black Squirrel has been generous enough to be our hosts!!
The theme for this month is Belgian beers.
The Black Squirrel is located at…
2427 18th St., NW
Washington, DC 20009
(202) 232-1011
www.blacksquirreldc.com
Metro: Red Line, Woodley Park-Zoo/Adams Morgan station
Things you can bring:
Any Type of Homebrew, but preferrably Belgian varieties.
Though we generally encourage attendees to bring craft brew or food if you don’t have any homebrew handy, The Squirrel has the craft beer and food angle pretty well covered, so be sure to show your appreciation!
We’ll have the third-floor lounge to ourselves (for anyone who hasn’t
been to The Black Squirrel, it’s easy to navigate and there will be
signs). Thursday nights are half-priced burger night, so anyone who
wants to show up early and eat can do so cheap. Amy Bowman, the owner
who is hosting us, will have a few special beers available for us,
including Decadence DIPA and Ten Pin Porter from Ska Brewing, and a
selection of beers from North Carolina. Amy was thinking she could
put together tastings/flights for anyone interested.
See you next week!
Martin
DC Homebrewers