Competition and Beer Sharing Update

Hey All,

Unfortunately, Ein Prosit will not be happening this year. We couldn’t coordinate and get the competition organized in enough time to register with BJCP, give enough time to get Judges, and brew.

We’d like to help keep in the spirit though and put some Oktoberfest grub and Mixed packs again! We are looking for volunteers to help make food and take the opportunity to share some homebrew! Maybe some Fresh Hop?

We will be organizing drop off locations, one in the south (Cassie & Frank's place) and one in the north (Logan's place). Ideally, we’d like to have all the food and beer collected by October 3rd to distribute/set up a pickup location. If you'd like to contribute, please sign up in the spreadsheet below and someone will reach out to coordinate a dropoff.

Oktoberfest Sign up: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1lxCoqUplMASc5E1VWA1ZUm4_X6l5ake5YWcGXzOuRK4/edit?usp=sharing

Also, the OB Belgian’s should have had sufficient time to bottle condition now. While we are in the process of collecting Oktoberfest items this would also be a great opportunity to drop off a few bottles. Please add your name and beer to the “Belgian” tab of the Oktoberfest sign-in sheet. We’ll organize an in-club tasting/volunteer Judging so we can get some notes and submit some recipes to Bootleg.

In other club news, we are looking for a new permanent home for the Beer Cooler™ so that we can make a consistent drop off point to share homebrew. Please reach out on the HBCC Slack channel or message @Hamwater if you are willing to host (if you’re not already in Slack, join us here). Otherwise, stay tuned!

New Leadership Structure

Hello all,

We’ve been slowly working towards adding some leadership structure to the club and we’re excited to announce our interim leadership crew:

  • Co-chair: Cassie

  • Co-chair: Hamwater (David)

  • Treasurer: Logan

Cassie, Hamwater and Logan will get things started in these roles and in January 2022 we will open it up for any other volunteers for the roles.

We will also be starting up a couple workgroups to help organize different aspects of the club and are looking for volunteers. The initial workgroups will be:

  • Meetings: a small group to plan and moderate club meetings and speakers

  • Events: initially will be focused on planning and moderating our Brewers Happy Hours, but will eventually help create and plan future events like big brewday, learn to homebrew day, brewing projects like YANA and BIB

  • Competitions: this group will mainly focus on running our yearly Ein Prosit homebrew competition but will also work on any in-club or inter-club competitions as well as advertising other competitions members may want to take part in

  • Web Presence: a small group to work on upkeep and new ideas for our website, Instagram, slack and Facebook

If you are interested in joining any of these groups, please join the corresponding channel in our Slack. Our monthly meetings are a great way to keep up to date on these things too, so be sure to check out the Upcoming Events page.

Pursuing a 501(c)(7)

We are finally picking up where we left off before Covid started and will be moving forward on becoming a 501c7 and adding some more organization to the club. Over the past year we have been talking about this change and tinkering with a charter. The hope is that making these changes will allow us to keep doing the awesome stuff we are doing, but also have a better and more transparent way of managing money and more officially supporting charities with our projects and parties.

I have attached the charter as a google doc, please look over it, but I’ll give you the basics. There will be three volunteer positions, two co-chairs and one treasurer. Member led workgroups will then form to organize and plan things such as competitions, beer projects and speakers. We will start asking for dues starting at $20 per year. No one has to pay dues to attend meetings or be a club member, but those that pay dues will have first shot at different fun stuff we do (such as barrel projects, group buys, beer projects, etc). Dues paying members will also be able to take part in our Homebrew Club Club meetings (HBCC) and have a voice in club decision making. The money collected from dues will go towards paying for basics each year (website, insurance), but also help front different projects or fun stuff such as competitions, club merch, parties, speakers and more.

We’re really excited about some of these changes and we think they will help sustain and improve our awesome club. What we would like from all of you is to look this over and respond in Facebook or Slack about any thoughts or concerns you have by October 14th. We will go over these comments and concerns at our HBCC meeting on that date.

If you’re not already a member of our Facebook group and/or Slack chat, you can find the information to join them both on the contact page.

Black is Beautiful Stout Project

Weathered Souls brewing has created a project called Black is Beautiful.

From their website:

“The Black is Beautiful Initiative is to bring a collaborative effort amongst the brewing community and its customers, in an attempt to bring awareness to the injustices that many people of color face daily. Our mission is to bridge the gap around for ages and provide a platform to show that the brewing community is an inclusive place for everyone of any color.In the collaboration efforts, we would like a portion of the proceeds to go to your local foundations that support police brutality reform and legal defenses for those who have been wronged.”

The North Seattle Homebrewers strive to be an inclusive group that supports racial equality and justice and are excited to take part in this project. With the kind support from Skagit Valley Malting, Imperial Yeast and Micro Homebrew, those interested will all brew this beer and donate as able (and encourage others to donate) to local foundations. There are many great organizations out there. A few that we will be focusing on are:

You can also join in by signing petitions and contacting your lawmakers.

You Are Not Alone

“You Are Not Alone” is an IPA project being made by many breweries around the northwest. All proceeds are being donated to Big Table Seattle, a non-profit organization helping support the food-service and hospitality industry in Seattle, something that is needed now more than ever.

When Adam from Reuben’s Brews reached out to our club with a homebrew scales recipe of “You Are Not Alone” we had to join in!

With the kind donations from Hop Head Farms, Reubens Brews, Yakima Valley Hops, and Sound Homebrew, we assembled all the ingredients for over 20-30 of our members to get brewing. 

Along with making the beer, North Seattle Homebrewers members are donating to Big Table Seattle and spreading the word about their terrific organization.

Check out the recipe from Reubens Brews below:

This is a scaled version of the recipe we brewed in April 2020 to help support bar and restaurant hospitality workers who have lost their jobs in the coronavirus pandemic.  Please consider donating to big-table.com if you enjoy this recipe, to help support a great organization. You can read this blog post for more information about this beer and this project!

ALL GRAIN RECIPE

Batch size: 5 gallons

Brewhouse efficiency: 75%

OG: 1.079

FG: 1.015

IBUs: 50 ish

ABV: 8.5%

 

MALT/GRAIN BILL

  • 7 lb (47.1%) 2-Row

  • 4 lb (26.9%) German Pilsner Malt

  • 2.0 oz (0.8%) Honey Malt

  • 1 lb (6.7%) White Wheat Malt

  • 0.5 lb (3.4%) Spelt Malt

  • 1.0 lb (6.7%) Oat Flakes

  • 0.75 lb (5.0%) Wheat Flakes

  • 0.5 lb (3.4%) Corn Sugar – added during boil (see below)

 

HOPS AND ADDITIONS SCHEDULE

3.0 oz Mosaic™ (12.5% AA) – added as soon as whirlpool starts, steep 10 minutes (adjust for AA differences)

 

Dry hop schedule:

2.0 oz Mosaic™ (12.5% AA) – added dry to primary fermenter

4.0 oz Grungeist (5.5% AA) – added dry to primary fermenter

4.0 oz Chinook (13.0% AA) – added dry to primary fermenter

YEAST

London 3

DIRECTIONS

Mash the grains at 150°F for 60 minutes. Adjust your water profile to ensure a mash pH of 5.3, and a chloride to sulfate ratio of 2:1. Vorlauf until your runnings are clear, then run off into the kettle. Sparge the grains and top up as necessary to obtain 6 gallons of wort—or more, depending on your evaporation rate. Boil for 60 minutes, add the corn sugar with 10 minutes of the boil remaining, and add the whirpool hops at flameout.

After the boil, chill the wort to about 67°F. Aerate the wort and pitch the yeast.

Ferment at 69°F. After primary fermentation is complete, add the dry hops for 3 days. Ensure full a diacetyl rest in case of refermentation, and when VDK levels are low crash and keg.