Next Meetings:

Greg Bolt will host the next meeting at his place at 4024 Alder on August 17th at 6:00 pm. Bring home brewed or commercial pilsner and a potluck dish.

The annual hop ride is August 31st (note that the Hop ride has been moved from August 18th, so that we can join the Hop Madness festival).  The ride starts at Willamette Mission State Park just north of Salem (see Hop Madness on Page 2 for additional information).

And Now a Word from President Robin Chitwood:

Beer camp at Clark Creek left us all rested and relaxed, but it went by too fast.  Lets do it again next year. The foods and beverages were outstanding.  Thanks to those who donated goods to be raffled and special thanks to Chuck Link who solicited numerous donations from brewing distributors.  Gains from the raffle will help to cover costs incurred for the campground.  Thanks to Chip and Kristina for making the arrangements.

The club would like to thank West Bros.  Brewery for inviting us all to the farewell party for Steve VanRossen. Steve left West Bros. at the end of June.

Kolsch style night was a showcase of home brewers craft. I counted nine different home brewed Kolschs and two or three commercial varieties. Rod Surcamp brought four different versions with recipes attached. Well-done Rod!  Charlie Hawks donated a big pile of brewing supplies to the club including grain, hops and candi sugar.  Thanks Charlie.

The Portland International Brewfest at Holladay Park July 12-14 featured 144 beers from around the world. Fifty-six of those were on draft.  Some of my favorites were:  Gouden Carolus Brown (Belgium), Lindemans Cassis (Belgium), Schlenkerla Rauchbier Maerzen (Germany), Chouffe Biere De Soliel (Belgium) just to mention a few.  Bottled versions included some from the small Belgian breweries De Dolle and De Bie.  It was a little spendy (ten bucks to get in plus a lot of tickets) but the beers were outstanding and well served.
 
 

President  Robin continued:
Greg Bolt will host the next meeting at his place at 4024 Alder on August 17th at 6:00 pm. Bring home brewed or commercial pilsner and a potluck dish.

The annual hop ride is August 31st. Its an easy twenty mile roll and starts at Willamette Mission State Park just north of Salem. Dust off that bike and do your cardiovascular system a favor. Coach Studach distributed info sheets at last Saturdays meeting and Ill bring some copies to the next meeting. See you there.

CBS Annual Hop Ride - 2002 Edition
Guided by Chris Studach

WHAT? IT'S, LIKE, THIS THING WHERE WE RIDE OR, LIKE LOAF THRU THE HOPS ON BIKES.

WHEN? SATURDAY, AUGUST 31ST, 9:30 AM MEET, 10:00 AM SHARP! RIDE! LATE-COMERS WILL BE SOUNDLY TAUNTED - LATER.

WHERE? WILLAMETTE MISSION ST. PARK - FILBERT GROVE NOTE: $3.00 PER CAR

GO TO: I-5 N: EXIT 263 (BROOKS), WEST ON BROOKLANE RD., RIGHT (NORTH) ON WHEATLAND RD. ~2MI

NEW THIS YEAR! A BIGASS HOP FESTIVAL!  HOMEBREWERS (SEE BELOW), BREWERS & BEER GEEKS FROM ALL OVER ARE GATHERING TO CELEBRATE THE HOP! AND, PARTY DOWN! TOUR OF WORKING HOP FARM AT 3:00 PM.  RAM PUB AFTER FOR THE HARDEST OF CORE.

BRING: BIKE, HELMET, H2O, PATCH KIT & SPARE TUBE, GREAZY FRIED CHICKEN, LOTS OF MAYO, AND HOPPY, HOPPY HOMEBREW! (NO MGD).

LAST WORD: DON'T LET YOUR MEAT LOAF!
 
 
 
 
 

Hop Madness

Attention: All hopheads, in conjunction with the Annual Hop Ride, Dave Wills of Freshops has kindly invited the Cascade Brewers Society to join in the Hop Madness festivities.  Below is his invite.

In celebration of the hop, you are hereby cordially invited to Hopmadness!! August 31-September 1, 2002 2pm on, with harvest tours at 3pm, 6pm, & midnight Willamette Mission State Park, Filbert Grove 8 miles north of Salem, Oregon.  With 2 hop farms within a mile of the celebration and hop harvest in full swing, Freshops has arranged to tour the hop yards, picking, drying and baling facilities at Weather's Hop Farm. The harvest is a very busy time with hops being picked 22 hours a day during the peak of ripeness.  If you have never experienced a commercial hop harvest, it is hop lovers heaven.  Homebrewers are encouraged to bring their portable brew kettles, malt and yeast and plan to brew harvest ales with fresh picked hops.  Bring your hoppiest homebrews to share with fellow hop enthusiast. The Oregon Brew Crew will hopefully be bringing some of the remains of the Great Hop Experiment where individual beers were brewed with single hop varieties using the same wort and yeast.  If you can do it with a hop, we plan on doing it. Hop picking contests, hop wreath making, hop photos, hop king and queen pageant, BBQ, potluck, BYOHomebrew, camp, hike, bike, fish, horseshoes, horse rentals, music, nations largest Black Cottonwood tree.  $3.00 per car, includes tent camping if you desire.  I-5 exit 263, west on Brooklane Rd. past hop yards then right on Wheatland Rd about 2 miles to the park and find Filbert Grove.  For further info about the park visit- www.oregonstateparks.org/park_139.php or call Freshops- (541) 929-2736

Dave Wills (Freshops, purveyor of fine hops)

Oktoberfest Style Night

By Russ Kazmiercak

Since the Kolsch style night turned out to be such a great success, lets do it again with the Oktoberfest /Marzen style.  I know this style will be difficult for some brewers to arrange, since most do not have the ability to cold ferment, but lets try it anyway.

If you do not have a refrigerator there are alternatives such as using a clean fermenting ale yeast at cooler ale temperatures (60-65F).  Yeast types good for this are America Ale and California Lager.  For lowering fermentation temperatures, use a water bath with ice blocks or wet towels wrapped around a carboy in front of a fan or some other creative method.  If you are a
Oktoberfest continued:
purist and do not want to brew a lager at ale temperatures, then create a northwest fest beer based on a Oktoberfest recipe using copious amounts of freshly harvested hops (see Hop Madness article).

If you do plan to cold ferment, one good yeast that works well with a shorter lagering period is Wyeast 2308 (a personal favorite).  For the best results when fermenting a lager  is to increase the yeast up to a quart starter, oxygenate well, and ferment cold, cold, cold (45-48F)!!!  When starting and fermenting at temperatures less than 50-54F (typically recommended (by scared and worried authors and brewers) expect a fermentation lag period up to 2 or even 3 days (ooh scary!, but don't worry and have several homebrews and then you won't give a shit!).  If you do decide to go this route and ferment cold (45-48F) then make sure you have a good starter and have oxygenated your beer well (come on and be brave, its only beer).  If fermentation does not start or is slow you can always turn up the heat.

If you chicken out and decide not to risk your precious brew, you can and take the easy way out (like most microbreweries do) and ferment at the 50-54F range.  A good yeast that works well at this temperature and for this style is Wyeast Bohemian Lager (2124).  I believe Wild River  of Grants Pass uses this strain and ferments in the 54+ range and they have produced some nice lagers (brewery only, bottle versions can be erratic).

If you want to speed up the aging process (shorten lagering time), employ a diacetyl rest after fermentation is complete or close to completion.  If you want to speed up clarification after fermentation is complete (fully attenuated); slowly (over 2-3 days) drop the beer temperature down to 32 degrees for about 2-3 weeks.  When crashing the beer for clarification, I have had the best result by leaving the beer on the yeast.  This is especially helpful when cold fermenting without a diacetyl rest.  The yeast aids in reducing any diacetyl that may have been produced.
Note:  There are some new lager strains out that might be worth a try.  Wyeast (available at the Home Fermentor Center) and White Labs (available at Valley Vintner and Brewing Supplies (name ?); a.k.a. Willamette Street  Homebrew) have some new limited edition/series yeast strains.  Some of them sound pretty good.  One more bit of advice is to stay away from sulfur producing strains that are directed more towards the Pilsner style.  The sulfur can sometimes detract from the malt flavor you want to accentuate in a Oktoberfest.

Look forward to tasting your brews and if you want any  lager advice give Chris Studach or Russ Kazmierczak a call.
 

Upcoming Club Meetings and Other Events:

August 17, 2002 Home brewed and commercial Pilsner  tasting at Greg Bolts house.

August 31, 2002 Annual Hop Ride and Hop Madness Festival  Contact Chris Studach for more information at 687- 7871.

September 14, 2002 Chili Contest

October 2002 Oktoberfest and style night.

Editors Note:

The newsletter is no longer being emailed to club members.  An electronic copy of the newsletter is available for viewing or printing at the club website located at www.hbd.org/cascade/.  If you haven't checked it out you should.  Denny has done a great job of posting photos (Club Beer Dinner and Big Brew Day), past newsletters, upcoming events, short notice updates to the newsletter, and technical information

Please submit any beer related information or articles to the newsletter editor at russkaz@eudoramail.com.

Shirts for Sale:

If you are interested in a club T-shirt ($10 each), please contact Steve McCornack at 689-1181.

Expired Memberships

Lupe Gardner
Molly Widmer
Jim Stockton
Harvey Rodgers

Please pay your dues if you would like to continue to be a member and receive a paper copy of the newsletter.

Club Information:
For over 20 years, Cascade Brewers Society is a sometimes formal, but mostly informal club devoted to the appreciation and art of creating fine alcoholic beverages (you know; beer, mead, cider, and wine).
 

Club continued:
For more information regarding the Cascade Brewers Society, please contact Kent MacDonald at 935-5711 or Robin Chitwood at 342-2397.

The Last Drop

In the fashion of Jeff Foxworthy's "You know you're a redneck if", here is "You know you're a homebrewer if", as presented by Ron Hulka:

  You know you're a homebrewer if

you have so much brewing equipment and kegs in your garage that there is no longer enough room for your automobile;

you have substantially more yeast starters and hops in your refrigerator than you do food;

you have brewed more distinct styles of beer than there are available for sale than at even the most discerning bottle markets;

you forego birthdays, anniversaries, and other significant celebrations in order to keg that special ale right on schedule;

you obsess so intently on your homebrew's presentation that you turn and toss in your sleep;

your friends wonder if you've been going to a tanning bed because of all of the steam burns on your face and arms;

the newest strain of unique organic hops send you into the same kind of tizzy as when you first met your beloved;

you go through more sanitizers and bicarbonates than you do soap and toothpaste;

you hit batch #200 and wonder why it's only batch #200, and just where the heck did the other 199 go?

you budget CO2 to purge and carbonate beer in with other utility bills;

you wake up one day and realize that Corny cans and carboys seem to multiply when left unattended.