December 2003
The Official Newsletter of the Cloudy Town Brewers
March 2003
http://www.cloudytownbrewers.org
Next Meeting
Wednesday December 3, 2003
7:00 P.M. at
Granite City Food & Brewery
November Meeting
Minutes
The Community Education Class was
postponed until the winter session in
February because there were only four
enrollments. Community Education felt we
would get better enrollment with the
rescheduling.
Baker’s did a wine making class at the
end of October. We need to ask them about
doing a beer class.
March Mashness dates are still
tentative. The entries dates are from March
3rd to March 17th and the Best of Show would
be on March 27th. Al is still checking on the
dates. We setup a separate meeting to
discuss what needs to be done for the
competition.
Thanks goes to Jerry and Deb Dusich
for bringing up entries from our club to the
Hoppy Halloween competition in Fargo.
Congratulations to Jeff Saranpaa who got a
first place with an ordinary bitter, Jerry Dusich
who got two third places with a brown porter
and his Peter Peter Pumpkin Beater in the
Halloween Theme Beer category, and Larry
Nusbaum who got a second place with a
bavarian weizen.
Granite City will begin selling growlers
in mid November. They are also planning to
start offering a late night happy hour that
begins at 9 pm.
Competitions
For a complete list of competitions
visit the Events & Calendar on the AHA’s web
site at
http://www.beertown.org/homebrewing/events
.html.
Club Only
Competitions
April 2004 – Mead
Hosted by Pete Devaris and the Great
Northern Brewers of Anchorage, AK.
Category 25 Mead
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December 2003
May 2004 – Extract Brews
Entries Due May 13, 2004
Judging will be held May 20, 2004
Shipping Address:
MidSouth Malts
C/o Bluff City COC
741 N Whitestation Rd
Memphis, TN 38122
1 Point
1 Point
1 Point
1 Point
1 Point
2004 Competition
Planning
Hosted by Terrence Garland, Kent Brown
and the Bluff City Brewers of Memphis,
TN.
This competition is open to any of the
BJCP beer categories. All entries must
include malt extract in the recipe.
AUGUST 2004 – Wheat Beer
Hosted by Drew Beechum and the
Maltose Falcons of Woodland Hills, CA.
Category 17 Wheat Beer
SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2004 Smoked Beer
Hosted by Jay Adams and the Mountain
Ale & Lager Tasters of Ashville, NC.
Category 23 Smoke-Flavored Beer
Tommy Z Generosity
Award
Congratulations to Jeff Saranpaa for
the winning the nightly people’s choice with
his Fruit Beer. Here are the point totals
through November.
Larry Nusbaum
Cody Winter
Jeff Saranpaa
Jerry & Deb Dusich
Tom Zupanc
Bruce LeBlanc
Darin Dorholt
Mike Esplan
Tim Fuerstenberg
Chris Lusena
Erik Nelson
Barry Rathbun
Phil Thomas
Rick Vinje
9 Points
6 Points
6 Points
5 Points
3 Points
2 Points
1 Point
1 Point
1 Point
Submitted by Bruce LeBlanc
On Tuesday the 25th was the first
meeting of the March Mashness committee.
All were invited and Bruce, James, Larry and
Jeff were there to get things going over a few
beers at Granite City Brewery.
We want to make a list of all the
things that need to be done for the
competition and start going on it. First on the
list was to get the competition sanctioned by
the American Homebrewers Association.
Bruce is heading that up. I downloaded the
forms and they will be submitted by the time
you read this. The cost to sanction a
competition is $40 this year.
Much more will need to be done and it
will be more successful and fun for everyone
if we get more people involved so this event
is truly an event of the whole club and not just
one or two people. More meetings will be
coming for March Mashness. We will decide
at the next Cloudy Town meeting when the
next one will be.
Ice Cream Brew
Submitted by Bruce LeBlanc
Great Lakes Brewery (Toronto) has
launched Ice Cream Brew, a premium ice
cream and beer combination, in Canada. The
product debuted at the 2003 Toronto
International Beer Festival in August. Ice
Cream Brew is available in single serving
cups, ice cream bars, and 750-ml glass jars
and contains less than 1 percent alcohol per
serving.
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December 2003
Beer for Hogs
CTB Embroidery
Submitted by Bruce LeBlanc
Submitted By Tim Fuerstenberg
At the annual Harley-Davidson
motorcyclist' get-together in Sturgis, SD, in
August, attendees were treated to beers from
six craft breweries at an exhibit of classic
Harleys. Participating were James Page
Brewing, Big Sky Brewing, Boulevard
Brewing, Odell Brewing and Summit Brewing.
For anyone interest in getting our new
Cloudy Town Brewer's logo embroidered onto
their favorite garment, shirt, sweater or jacket
(sorry they can't do hats), please bring your
item(s) to our next meeting. The cost of the
logo is $10 per item. If you need more
information, please contact Tim
Fuerstenberg.
Hops Cut Fat
Submitted by Bruce LeBlanc
Researchers at Japan's Kirin Brewery
have released the results of a study in which
they found that an element in hops may curb
fat development. In their study, the
researchers fed one group or mice a high-fat
feed containing isohumulones, a component
of hops, and another group, plain high-fat
feed. After six weeks, the mice that
consumed plain feed were 22 percent fatter
than those that ate feed laced with the hop
additive. The mice whose feed contained
isohumulones developed twice the amount of
enzymes that trans-form fat compared to the
other group. Can you say Alpha King!
Cloudy Town Brewers
Mugs & Shirts
The Cloudy Town Brewer mugs are
now available. The mug has wider base in a
gray color with the club logo stamped in
brown and green hop ring decal. They are
available to club members for $10 and nonmembers for $12. Please contact Tom
Zupanc if interested.
We have cream-colored T-shirts that
are screen printed with the club logo. They
are $12 for a club member and $15 for a nonmember.
Huber won't take 'em
back
From Realbeer.com
Wisconsin brewery discontinues
returnable bottles, cases
Nov 24, 2003 - One more link to
beer's past has been cut as Huber Brewing
Co. in Monroe, Wis., has discontinued its line
of returnable beer bottles in cardboard cases.
"I've always taken pride in how things
were done a little differently in Wisconsin,"
said Tim Deneen, a disappointed customer.
"It's hard to believe we're just turning into
another place."
"We feel bad about it but the cost had
become so outrageous," said Phil Reynolds
of General Beverage of Madison, whose
owners purchased Huber in 1995. Reynolds
said the washing equipment was continually
breaking down and new parts were hard to
find.
Not only was it expensive to wash and
refill the brown glass bottles, Reynolds said,
but fewer and fewer of the cases were being
returned for the deposit. He said the brewery
needed to turn each case of bottles over
three or four times to break even.
"What's happened is that college kids
were keeping the cases and using them for
furniture," said Reynolds. "And you'd get
people who just toss the empty bottles in with
the rest of their recyclables."
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December 2003
City of Madison recycling coordinator
George Dreckmann said it was unfortunate
that Huber gave up on returnables. "I can
understand their decision if people weren't
returning the bottles anymore, but it's still too
bad," he said.
Returnable beer bottles aren't
altogether gone. Miller and Anheuser-Busch
still put some of their beer into returnables, as
do Wisconsin-based regional brewers
Stevens Point Brewery and Leinenkugel's of
Chippewa Falls.
"We actually still sell quite a few of the
returnable cases," said Mark Okey of
Woodman's West. "They've got a pretty loyal
following." But the use returnable beer bottles
continues to shrink. Refilling of bottles has
been on a decline in most western nations
since the 1970s and the U.S. has been one
of the leaders in the transition to one-way
containers.
Deneen said he's always enjoyed the
slogan on the side of the Huber cases: "I do
believe in the Huber Bock mantra, 'Refill,
don't landfill.'"
Huber still brews on site where it was
founded in 1843. It was known as Blumer
Brewing Co. before Prohibition, when it
became Blumer Products Corp. In 1927, the
Blumer brothers hired Joseph Huber, a young
immigrant from Germany who took over
operation of the brewery in 1939. Huber
acquired partial ownership in 1947 and
changed the name to the Joseph Huber
Brewing Co. It also brews the Berghoff brand
beers.
Better than the Internet
David Warren of Wilkinson Sword
commented: "We know Britain is a nation of
beer lovers but nothing prepared us for this
finding," said David Waren of Wilsinson
Swoard, the razor blade maker that
commissioned the survey. "It just goes to
show Britons let nothing get in the way of a
good pint."
The widget grabbed 48% of nearly
9,000 votes cast at the technical innovation
website T3.co.uk. Guinness won a Queen's
Award for Technological Achievement in
1991 after spending five years and £5 million
developing the device.
Email and the Internet placed a
distant second with 13% of the vote.
The widget — now used by many
other brewers as well as Guinness — is a
small piece of plastic with a minute hole
punched into it. It is placed inside the can
during the first stage of the packaging
process. Guinness spent several years, and
tried dozens of prototype widgets before
coming up with the right shape, weight and
density of plastic.
Once a can is filled with Guinness
from the holding vats, it is sealed. Once
sealed and chilled, the Guinness inside the
can becomes naturally pressurized, and this
pressure forces about 1% of the Guinness
inside the widget.
When the can is opened, the contents
reach normal atmospheric pressure. The 1%
of Guinness which is held inside the chamber
of the widget is forced out through the small
opening in the widget as the pressure inside
and outside the can equalize. The effect is to
produce millions of tiny bubbles which rise to
the surface and form the familiar, creamy
head.
From Realbeer.com
Brits vote for beer-can widget as best
invention of the last 40 years
Nov 11, 2003 - Forget the Internet,
cloning and Napster. A recent survey in
England determined that the greatest
technological invention of the last 40 years is
the widget, the plastic device placed inside of
a beer can to help it pour a foamy head.
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