The Army Needs Brewers!

While I'm sure the SEALs who took down Osama Bin Laden will never have to buy themselves another beer as long as they're on a Navy base, I had no idea the military actually made its own.

If you've ever wanted to be a professional brewer, here's your chance:  Fort Sill is hiring a new brewmaster. 

Here's the job description:

Plans and manages the day-to-day operation of a brewery. Prepares and/or oversees the preparation of beer following and creating recipes. Develops operating budget, identifying labor, equipment and supply cost elements. Controls pricing, beer production methods and techniques. Supervises assigned staff. DEPARTMENT OF THE ARMY NONAPPROPRIATED FUND INSTRUMENTALITIES ARE EQUAL OPPORTUNITY EMPLOYERS.

Sure they pay's not great ($22,020 a year) and you'd have to move to Lawton. But you get to put "Brew Master" on your resume.  And, as the guy (or girl) making the beer, I'm guessing you'd be pretty popular on an Army base.

 

So good luck!  Click here for a link to the application.

April Meeting Notes

A big thanks to everyone who came out to our meeting last night at Convergence Collective.  I know several people were out of town and, let’s face it, it’s hard to compete with a Thunder playoff game, so our attendance was down a bit.  But a good time was still had by all.  Some highlights and news from the night:

1.       This month’s tasting was SMaSH (single malt and single hop) beers.  One type of grain, one type of hop, one type of yeast, water . . . and nothing else.  Definitely makes you appreciate specialty grains.  Congratulations once again go to Tony Tielli, whose light but spicy Czech pilsner (recipe below) took first place in the tasting completion. 

First Place: Tony Tielli, Czech Pilsner

Second Place: Wes Glinsmann, Centennial IPA

Third Place: Stephen Law, Amarillo IPA

And, although not entries for the tasting, thanks to Richard Magann (jalepeno ale) and Blaine Stansel (black licorice doppelbock) for bringing some extra beer to the party.

2.       The American Homebrewer’s Association annual “Big Brew Day” is May 7^th.  Big Brew Day is designed to be a good day to help introduce new people to the hobby of homebrewing. So here is what we decided to do: every Red Earth Brewer who will be around on the 7^th should invite a friend or friends who are interested to come brew with you.  Just do something simple that they can help with—an extract only or extract/specialty grain beer.  Go through the whole process with them. Then, invite them to come with you to our July meeting, where they can get to know us as a club and we’ll have a big tasting event of everybody’s extract homebrews.  This will be a great way to introduce people to the hobby of homebrewing as well as welcome them into our group.

3.       Our future tasting schedule is as follows, so brew accordingly:

June: Belgian Style (BJCP Styles #16, 17 and 18)

August: Specialty Ale (BJCP Style #23).  Here is where the fun starts.  The American Homebrewers’ Association Club-Only competition is a “specialty/experimental/historical” beer. In other words, anything the far reaches of your imagination can come up with.  So this will be your chance to finally brew that one really crazy idea that you’d always wanted to try.

October: Hefeweizen (BJCP Style #15)

December: Those who have a lagering fridge should do a dark lager (BJCP Style #4) to be ready for the AHA’s January club-only competition.  Everybody else should brew some kind of Winter Warmer (i.e. imperial stout, barleywine or other malty, high-alcohol type of beer). 

4.       Our next meeting will be Thursday, May 19^th.  We should have a location finalized shortly and will let everybody know where the meeting will be.

Just a reminder: Gail sends out the meeting notices via email, but we post a lot of other information on our Facebook and Twitter pages. Sometimes informative, sometimes humorous, always entertaining.  So be sure you follow Red Earth Brewers on Twitter and Facebook. 

Happy brewing!

Tony’s SMaSH Czech Pilsner

6 gallon batch

Target OG 1.052

Target FG 1.010

Color 4 SRM

IBU - 43

ABV - 5.1

5.36kg (100%) German Pilsner Malt (Wyermann)

68g Czech Saaz - 60 minutes

47g Czech Saaz - 30 minutes

25g Czech Saaz - 15 minutes

30g Czech Saaz - 1 minute

White Labs WLP800 Pilsner Yeast

Mash using the modified double decoction method.  90 Minute boil. Pitch a massive quantity of yeast at 45F and let ramp up to 50F (I repitched slurry from a previous batch). Ferment at 50F for 3 weeks, cold crash and lager for 6 weeks.  Keg, Filter, Carb, Drink!

Celtic Brew-Off Invitation

Slainte Mhath! (Good Health)

       On behalf of the Knights of the Brown Bottle Homebrew Club of Arlington, Texas, We invite you to participate in the annual Celtic Brew-Off Homebrew Competition.  This year will mark the “CRYSTAL ANNIVERSARY” of the Celtic Brew-Off and the Knight’s goal is to make 2011 the best to date.  The Celtic Brew-Off is the largest homebrewing competition in the country devoted exclusively to beers, meads, and ciders with origins in Celtic nations of the world.  In 2010 the Celtic received over 300 entries and 2011 looks to be even larger.  

      Entries will be accepted from Friday May 6^th through Thursday May 12^th.  First and second round judging will be held May 21^st and 22^nd at the Coor’s Distribution Center in north Fort Worth.   Judges and stewards of all levels and experience are welcome.    A light lunch will be provided and there will be door prizes for those participating in the judging.  As in years past, the 2011 Celtic Brew-Off will conclude at the Texas Scottish Festival and Highland Games in Arlington held the first weekend in June.

       New for 2011 will be 15^th Anniversary Commemorative Trophies given to the first place and BOS winning entrants.  Second and third place winners will receive custom ribbons made with Celtic tartan.  Style guidelines, contest rules and on-line registration may be found on the Celtic Brew-Off link at www.kobb.org.   

Cheers,

Richard Graham and Dave Girard, Co-directors

2011 Celtic Brew-Off

Red Earth Brewer Takes Best of Show at Bluebonnet

Ladies and gentleman, we have a celebrity in our midst!

As you may know, last weekend was the Bluebonnet Brew-Off, one of the nation's largest and most competitive homebrew competitions. Congratulations to our own Tony Tielli, whose American Stout not only won 1st place in the Strong Stout category, but beat out almost 1600 other entries for 1st Place Best of Show!

For those of you who were at our February meeting in Guthrie, you'll remember that Tony's stout took 1st Place in our club stout tasting (proving we have good taste!).

So congrats Tony! This is a huge honor for you, and a great start for our new club.

Here is the recipe for Tony's award-winning stout:

Tony's American Stout
BJCP Category 13E
Target OG : 1.080
Target FG : 1.022
ABV 7.69%
Batch Size: 6 Gallons (at the end of the boil)
Calculated at 70% efficiency.
75% (6.44kg) Pale Ale Malt
9% (800g) Chocolate Malt
5% (480g) Roasted Barley
5% (400g) Crystal 40L
2% (160g) Crystal 80L
4% (350g) White Table Sugar
33g Magnum (13.6%aa) - 60 minutes
20g Centennial (10.0%aa) - 10 minutes
20g Cascade (5.5%aa) - 10 minutes
30g Centennial (10.0%aa) - 1 minute
30g Cascade (5.5%aa) - 1 minute
30g Centennial (10.0%aa) - Dry Hop
20g Cascade (5.5%aa) - Dry Hop
White Labs WLP007 Dry English Ale (repitched slurry from previous batch)
Ferment at 65F until complete, dry hop for 7 days following fermentation.

March Meeting Recap

A big thanks to all who attended our March club meeting last weekend.  And a special thank you to REB member Scott Cragg for hosting us at his home in Piedmont.  While the dry conditions nixed our plans for a bonfire, it certainly didn't stop the good times.  Some of the highlights included:

• Jeremiah's Rye IPA
• Jessica's Irish Carbomb cupcakes
• Brandon's melt-in-your-mouth smoked brisket
• Tony's dunkelweizen
• Scott's smoked venison
• Julie's half-and-half cupcakes
• The Chocolate Trio (Boulevard Chocolate Ale, Southern Tier Imperial Choklat Stout and Great Divide Chocolate Oak Aged Yeti Imperial Stout)

A good time was had by all, particularly once the trampoline got involved.  But that's another story.  ;)

Don't forget--the tasting for our April meeting will be a SMaSH (single malt and single hop) beer. If you haven't already brewed one, be sure to hit up The Brew Shop this week.  We'll have more information with time, location, etc. for the April meeting coming shortly.

February Meeting Recap

Thanks to everyone who made the trip up to Guthrie for last week's Red Earth Brewers monthly meeting. And a big thanks to Rick's Fine Chocolates and Coffees for hosting our motley crew.  We had some great discussions, learned a few things (the tasting lineup will be much more organized in the future) and got to taste a lot of great stouts.  Here's a brief recap:

1.  From Tony's super dry-hopped American stout to Wes' crazy sour cranberry stout to Scott's insanely imperial oil slick stout, there was an amzingly wide variety of beers brought to the meeting.  Congratulations to Tony Tielli, who took first place in the stout tasting competition.  His winning recipe (in all its fancy metric measurement glory) is below.  Also, congratulations to Ross Harper and Daniel ??? (sorry I didn't catch your last name--please email me at redearthbrewers (at) gmail.com so I can update it with your correct name) who took 2nd and 3rd place respectively.

Come to the Dark Side.

2.  On another voting matter, we finalized the official club logo.  As you may recall, we sent out our 13 original entries to an electronic vote.  We then took the top 5 and voted at last week's meeting for our favorite.  When all the votes were tallied using a 3-2-1 voting system (3 points for a first place vote, 2 for second and 1 point for third), the top three were:


1st place with 27.6% of the vote



2nd with 24.2%

 

3rd with 19.5%

As we've said before, we'll probably still keep using different logos for different purposes from time to time.  But the bottlecap logo above will be our "official" club logo.  Big thanks and congratulations to Red Earth Brewer and graphic designer extrordinaire John Mitchell for the winning entry.

3.  Our next meeting, pending the weather and burn ban status, will be an outdoor social activity and bonfire at the Piedmont home of Scott Cragg.  No specific beer to brew, but please bring some of your favorite homebrews or craft beers to share.  More info and directions will be sent out shortly.

4.  Our April meeting (April 21st, location TBA) will be a SMASH beer.  For those who don't know (like myself until a few weeks ago), SMASH is short for Single MAlt, Single Hop.  In other words, you're only allowed to use one type of grain or extract (that means no mini-mashes) and one hop variety.  Beyond that, the only limit is your own imagination.  It'll be a great way for everyone to really get to learn what flavor qualities a specific grain, hop or yeast brings to the table.  And to make things more interesting, we may have a little competition where everybody can play "name that ingredient" and see who can identify the different things that went into everybody's beers.

5.  If you're not already doing so, please be sure that you're following us on Facebook and Twitter.  That's where we post most of our updates along with some other fun or interesting things we find. 

Thanks again to everybody who made it out to last week's meeting.  I can't wait for the next one.  Happy brewing!

Tony's American Stout

BJCP Category 13E

Target OG : 1.080

Target FG : 1.022

ABV 7.69%

Batch Size: 6 Gallons (at the end of the boil)

Calculated at 70% efficiency.

75% (6.44kg) Pale Ale Malt

9%   (800g)   Chocolate Malt

5%   (480g)   Roasted Barley

5%   (400g)   Crystal 40L

2%   (160g)   Crystal 80L

4%   (350g)   White Table Sugar

33g  Magnum    (13.6%aa)  - 60 minutes

20g  Centennial (10.0%aa)  - 10 minutes

20g  Cascade    (5.5%aa)   - 10 minutes

30g  Centennial (10.0%aa)  -  1 minute

30g  Cascade    (5.5%aa)   -  1 minute

30g  Centennial  (10.0%aa)  - Dry Hop

20g  Cascade     (5.5%aa)   - Dry Hop

White Labs WLP007 Dry English Ale (repitched slurry from previous batch)

Ferment at 65F until complete, dry hop for 7 days following fermentation.

Red Earth Brewers logos

Thanks to everyone who voted in our recent poll about club logos and, more importantly, to the great graphic designers in our midst.

Every design submitted got some votes, but there were two that got far and away the most support

Big thanks toRed Earth Brewers Jeremiah Ivey and John Mitchell for coming up with the two logos above.

As mentioned before, we're not limited to these two and there may be times that we need to use other logos (or new ones, so keep 'em coming!).  But these two will be our predominant branding for the time being.

Thanks again to everyone who entered and voted.  I look forward to seeing everyone at the meeting at McNellie's on the 27th!