President...........Jon Northrup danorthrupseh@netscape.net

Vice President......Jim McMillan brewyourself@earthlink.net

Secretary...................Rick Gray grayrph@earthlink.net

Treasurer................Franz Albright albrighter@juno.com

Webmaster/Editor.......Mike Bardallis dbgrowler@provide.net

- A word from the Librarian

- AHA Conference Report

- Winners Circle

- Brewing in Africa

- Poetry!

- Win valuable prizes! Editor's choice award

- Plus other miscellaneous drivel from the Editor

Yes, your oracle has indeed taken over the position of Guild Librarian, since apparently the Librarian of Congress position is still filled.  The Guild Library is truly Downriver’s finest repository of books on beer and brewing and with the addition of the new red hand truck it is indeed truly mobile too.  The Library will hopefully be available at each meeting and check-out for all materials will be until the next meeting.  The Library is particularly useful if you need to “brush-up” on a beer style, brewing history, or need more technical brewing information, and with summer upon us it’s also an excellent place to find good summer reading material.

New to the Library

The World Guide to Beer,  Michael Jackson  (Donated by Alex Kennedy)
Classic tome with some excellent histories and photographs.  Probably a little dated.

Beer, Gregg Smith  (Donated by Alex Kennedy)
A history of beer from the dawn of time to about four years ago.  Probably much more than you wanted to know about the importance of beer to the Revolutionary/Continental cause and who drank what and when.  Some of the recent history is interesting on the rise of microbrewing and legalization of homebrewing, in case you were not paying attention at the time.

The Beer Wars, Philip Van Munching  (Donated by Franz Albright)
A hilarious journey through the beer industry of mostly the ‘70s and ‘80s, and the story of who was trying to do what to whom.  After seeing how beer drinkers strings were being jerked, tugged and yanked you will be more convinced then ever of the righteousness of brewing your own.  The book is well written, easy to read and is difficult to put down once you start--an excellent summer read.

The theme for this year’s American Homebrewer’s Association (AHA) National conference was “2001 - A Beer Odyssey,” so I thought a timetable breakdown of my trip would be appropriate

July 2000 - I attended the AHA National held in Livonia.  What a blast! Hundreds of folks from all over the country (and a few internationals as well) gathered together in one place for one purpose.  Beer.  To talk about beer.  To learn about beer.  To see the latest in homebrew technology.  To converse with some of the movers and shakers in the world of beer.  To sing praises to beer.  And, of course, to drink that delightful beverage.  “Never,” I thought to myself, “NEVER have I had such an unending supply of superior beer.”  I was hooked, and darned skippy I was determined to do it again, the next year.

August 2000 - It was confirmed, the site for 2001 had been awarded to L.A.  The decision to have the con at a hotel essentially at the airport raised a few eyebrows, but only a few.  The logic was that they knew conventions, and conventioneers, and would not be put out by people wandering around in a hop-headed haze all day.  Also, the hotel bar regularly stocked a truly impressive selection of domestic and international brews.

December 2000 - June 2001 After many months of hemming and hawing, attending the conference was discussed with Skip and Mike; we decided that sharing a room could be arranged.  It’s a deal, and I’m on board.  L.A. here I come…

Wed, June 20 - first “official” day of the con, kicking things off with the traditional Pub-Crawl.  It didn’t make a whole lot of sense (to me) to fly out early just for that, so I spent wed eve packing, trying to get a few hours of sleep.  I manage to hit the sack about midnight, or 9 p.m. L.A. time.

Thursday, June 21
12:30 a.m. (all times given in L.A. Local)  - Alarm goes off to get me to the 3 a.m. flight to Chicago.  What an ungodly hour of the “morning.”
2:58 a.m. - Flight to Chicago leaves on time, and all appears to be going smoothly.  I have almost an hour to change planes at O’Hare, which should be PLENTY of time, yes?
4 a.m. - Arrive Chicago.  Somehow, through a gross miscarriage of justice, my next plane is leaving from the gate next to the one I just arrived at.  Statisticians (though not necessarily good ones) calculate the odds against that as being approximately 275,378,419.6 to 1.  Frequent travelers know it’s MUCH higher than that.  I shoulda bought a Lotto ticket.

9 a.m. - I arrive in L.A., and find that there is a brewpub at the airport, right across from the gate - it MUST be a sign!  The sign says ‘Closed’ however.  No matter, I’m here!  The hotel is close, beer is near!

9:30 a.m. - at hotel, talk to concierge who looks up Mike on the guest list, and phones right up to his room, none of the usual runaround that one gets from the front desk.  As he HAD been out on the Pub-Crawl the night before, (and sampled a taste or two from the hotel bar afterwards) he was sleeping like a rock, but agreed it was time to be up and breakfast sounded good.  By the time I got to our (ok, HIS) room, he had already harassed some of his cronies from Chicago into joining us, all we had to do was find them.  It was here that we discovered that the hotel was apparently not all built at once - to get from ‘here’ to ‘there’ we had to go out on the balcony / hall, then back in, down a cave-like stair, THEN take the elevator to the appropriate floor, then find the wing with the room.  It was almost Tolkein-esque.   And we were not getting any food yet.  However, joined by these goodly (if rough looking) companions, we quested out the restaurant and feasted well.

10:30 a.m. - while I’m getting signed in and picking up my packet o’ stuff, Mike is getting me a 2nd key to the room, unknowingly instigating the ‘Riddle of the Keys’ as the desk clerk apparently re-keyed the door, instead of making a duplicate.  We head upstairs and my key works fine to get us in as I unpack and grab a (very) few zzz's before the Welcome Address at 1:00.  Having been up since midnight, it’s been a long day already, even though it’s not yet noon.

1:00 p.m. - Welcome address and toast.  Everybody is happy to be here, glad to see everybody else, wonderful time, etc, etc.  We have a toast, yay!  A good sign of things to come.

1:30 p.m. - National Homebrew Competition, 2nd round.  Imagine sitting in a room with 50 other people, drinking some of the best beer in the country (if not in the world) trying to decide which is THE best.  Ah, a difficult job, but SOMEone’s gotta do it.  Fortunately, yours truly is one of these privileged folks.  (See Rex Halfpenny for information on taking the BJCP exam if YOU wish to join the party).  I was assigned to judge “First Time Entrants,” a category that could include ANY style.  With a full flight of 18 entries, three from each of six regions, it was going to be a pleasantly long afternoon.

7:00 - 10:00 p.m. - Club Night.  Traditionally, Thursday evening is given up to the clubs, local or not, that wish to bring beers to share.  In Livonia, there had been more clubs, beer, and attendees than the room could comfortably hold; and all the clubs had food out as well.  What a party!!!  In L.A., there were fewer clubs in a bigger room, but the hotel had some kind of attitude about food.  Apparently, if it wasn’t cooked in their kitchen, they would not let it be served.  The reasoning for this remains a mystery, but some of us had to revert to a near primal state of awareness towards hunting dinner, as every time the staff brought out appetizers, they evaporated in seconds.  Those that snooze, lose.  Having a nose the size of mine proved most useful, and I managed to get a bite or three.  Kind of a spotty dinner, but hey, my stomach thought it was pretty much midnight so I wasn’t really that hungry anyway.
After the hotel closed Club Night down at 10, the party moved across the hall to the Hospitality Suite - or at least some of the beer did. Too many people for the small room, the party spilled out into the hall, and was going strong when I looked at my watch and noticed that I had been basically up for 24 hours on 3 hr sleep.  So I headed off to bed, leaving Mike at the party.  When HE decided he’d had enough, he headed up to the room only to find that his key didn’t work. Going through the process of “is this the right room?  Is this the right floor?  Is this the right PLANET?” he eventually headed off to the front desk for a new key, instigating round two of the ‘Riddle of the Key’ as they re-keyed the lock AGAIN!
Friday morning, June 22 - I don’t know WHO had the idea to start the Friday session of judging at the ungodly hour of 8:30, but we had been given coupons for free breakfast so most of us were in the restaurant by 8, some looking pretty rough.  I was assigned to judge Porters, normally one of my favorite categories, bonus to me!  Standard procedure is to divide the beers in half, and two teams of two (or more) judges each evaluate one half of the beers, then put the top three of each half together and determine the best three selected.  A long process, but hey, somebody’s gotta do it, right?  In any event, we selected our finalists, and got out of the way of the hotel staff who were setting up for lunch.

12:00 - Lunch was quite tasty, even if beer was in short supply (though we were encouraged to purchase some from the hotel bar).  Charlie Papazian, founder of the AHA, gave a humorous address.  Then he led us all in a pledge to drink only American beer during July, American Beer Month.  Classes were scheduled for the afternoon, but the combination of jet lag, a morning full of beer and a belly full of lunch proved to be too much - I grabbed a short nap before the evening’s activities.  Just as soon as I changed my key for one that would let me into the room, thereby locking out “Spike.”

4:00 - I was getting ready for the evening’s festivities, when I heard the all too familiar sounds of someone repeatedly trying a key in the door, Figuring out what was happening, I let Mike in, and we BOTH got new keys after that, finally ending the game the hotel staff had inadvertently been playing with us.  It may not sound like much, but having to go to the front desk every time we wanted to get into the room got old in a hurry.

5:00 - Kickoff of the 1st Annual L.A. Brewer’s Open.  Typically, Friday evening is when the local professional brewers trot out their wares, show their stuff, and this was no exception.  Using the convention to provide a base of attendees, the good folks of southern California are instigating a beer festival, not unlike our own Michigan Brewers Guild Festival in July.  The program lists 40 breweries, and 112 beers - quite a selection!  Included in this were 25 or so entries in the Real Ale competition.  Real Ale is often served from a wooden cask, is not pressurized, and is pulled with a special hand pump called a beer engine.  Often served at (or near) room temperature, it tends to be warm, and flat.  Some people are fanatics for this method of serving beer, claiming it tastes better, and fresher.  They certainly had a treat that night!  I sampled a ½ dozen of the Hand-pulled ales, and perhaps a dozen more of the more usual chilled, carbonated offerings.  I won’t claim that I loved everything I tried, but I didn’t pour anything out either, and heard few complaints from ANYone.  The event seemed to draw a reasonable crowd of ‘locals’ (face it, conventioneers are EASY to pick out of a crowd) and a good time was had by all.  Skip showed part way through, and was his usual jovial self, much beer only enhancing his gaiety.   Once again, as midnight rolled around, I was preparing to turn into a pumpkin.  Skip expressed surprise at my early retirement, only just stopping short of calling me a ‘party wimp’.  I explained to the ‘youngster’, that one of the advantages of being in the over 35 set, was that I no longer felt a need to prove my self and push my body past all reasonable limits. We on the editorial staff, also members of the "over 35 set", are not so much out to prove anything as trying not to miss anything. We figure we can sleep when we get home.....Ed.

Saturday, July 21, approx. 2:30 a.m. - Skip and Mike arrive loudly at the room, Skip intentionally waking me.  “Are you sorry you’re rooming with us?” he asked teasingly.  My response was one that came naturally to someone who had spent the better part of the past two days drinking copious quantities of yeast enriched brew - I rolled over and let fly with a whopper that pinned his ears back.  Perhaps he was going to be sorry..

7:00 a.m. - Wide awake, I get showered and out without waking them, hanging a ‘do not disturb’ sign on the door - unfortunately there was not one that requested immediate service, but I figured that the one available would at least keep them out of everyone’s hair for a few hours.  We never did quite determine what Skip was thinking when he was fondling Mike’s liver - Concerns for his own, and looking for a spare?  Checking on the health of a buddy?  Just being cuddly first thing in the morning?  We may never know…

9:00 a.m. - After breakfast, the daily lecture series started.  At the talk presented by Briess Malting I learned that cold steeping specialty grains yields most of the color and flavor, but none of the harshness of a traditional hot mash and sparge.  The next two sessions I attended were presentations by brewers from Craftsman Brewing and Rogue Ales. The topics of the lectures were specialty beers and Stouts, respectively.  The latter was especially well attended, and many samples of Rogue’s fine products were available.  Mike and Skip wandered by about this time, looking a bit bleary, and rather thirsty… a few potent potables soon cured both conditions.  In the afternoon, I learned about Mead making from Byron Birch, a 3-time winner of Mead Maker of the year; and attended a panel discussion about getting local craft and homebrew events into the media.

6:30 p.m. - After the annual AHA members meeting comes the Grand Banquet and Awards ceremony.  Beer and an impressive Agave mead (think margarita, with out the salt or lime) were flowing freely, which was nearly an issue as there was some holdup with the food service.  Foolishly, rolls were brought out in an attempt to appease the masses, but Skip seemed to feel a kinship with his African arboreal cousins and flung them like dung all around.   However, eventually all was fed and done, despite an unofficial ‘garish dress’ competition that Mike failed to win, much to his chagrin.  It seems his ‘vest of ugly ties and hideous shorts’ outfit was simply not up to the competition.  A hand embroidered ‘lounge lizard’ smoking jacket over gold lamé boxers was just too much.

Sunday, June 24, 4:00 a.m. Skip and Mike get back from a late night carouse, reporting that a “mission” to an all night booby-bar had been a bust, though Skip apparently did run into a stripper who spoke Swahili - go figure!  I decide to just stay up, as we all need to be at the airport for 6:30 flights home.  After a few hours of sleep, and a nice shower I feel almost human, as opposed to Skip who is a decided shade of green as we pour him off the shuttle.  But at least the woman to whom he was speaking (in Swahili) elected not to kill him for what were apparently rather rude suggestions.  As the plane points its nose at the sky I again find myself thinking “Rarely have so many brewed so much for so few, and had it enjoyed so well” (apologies to Winston Churchill).  Next year, in Dallas.  I’ll be there, you betchya!

The GROWLER editorial staff wishes to point out that the above account may include some or all of the following:  fantasy, daydreams, delusions, hallucinations, suppositions, misinterpretations, outright fabrications, and possibly some shreds of truth. Come with us next year and find out for yourself....

---

Over the summer, several DBG members distinguished themselves in various homebrew competitions. Herewith a (hopefully) complete list. You know who to get after if you have been overlooked. Contact the editor with corrections or omissions.
 
 

Over the Mill, May 2001
Jon "Puba" Northrup	3rd place	Over the Mill, Smoked Strong Scotch
Jon "Puba" Northrup	1st place	European Pale Lager, Bohemian Pilsner
Jon "Puba" Northrup	2nd place	European Pale Lager, Dortmunder/Export
Jon "Puba" Northrup	2nd place	Smoked Beer, Smoked Strong Scotch
Richard Scott	2nd place	Spice, Herb, Vegetable, Scottish Export with maple syrup, rye, pumpkin pie spice
Richard Scott	3rd place	Scottish Ales, Scottish Export
Pete Bussa	2nd place	European Dark Lager, Schwarzbier
Complete results of Over The Mill

 

AHA National Homebrew Competition 2001
First Round, Great Lakes Region
Richard Scott	3rd place	American Lager
Ed Muryani	3rd place	Bitter & English Pale Ale, Bitter
Richard Scott	2nd place	Scottish Ale
Richard Scott	3rd place	Scottish Ale
Richard Scott	2nd place	American Pale Ale
Richard Scott	2nd place	Strong Scottish
Ken Celski	3rd place	Brown Ale, Mild
Second (Final) Round
Richard Scott	2nd place	American Lager
Ken Celski	2nd place	Brown Ale, Mild
Complete NHC 2001 results

 

Michigan State Fair, August 2001
Richard Scott	2nd place	Scottish Ales, Scottish Export
Complete Michigan State Fair results

---

Many DBG members may recall the award-winning series “The Beers of East Africa”, published in the GROWLER over the last couple of years, and some may recall the samples of Safari Lager that Skip brought to a meeting a ways back. Those who do remember some or all of this will not question why Skip has been seeking the ways and means to brew some ale at home in Arusha. Over the last year, our foreign correspondent has managed to find, through a friend in the restaurant trade, a source of pale malt. Pellet hops and dried yeast brought from stateside completed the minimum ingredient list; plastic food-grade buckets are readily available there. A couple of drum-type spigots, tubing, thermometer, hydrometer, and sundries were also brought from the States, and it was looking feasible. A new roller mill seemed to be too extravagant an expense, and a bitch to transport, as well. By the time of Skip’s return to Detroit in March 2001, most everything was in place. He and his friend Sixbert, proprietor of Pizzarusha (Best Damn Pizza in Africa) had, in fact, secured a small outbuilding for brewing in, and made plans to produce pale ale for sale locally. This was especially welcome news to the GROWLER editorial staff, as we could expect homebrewed beer to drink during our visit that following July. By June, when Skip returned to the dark continent, things were looking pretty good. Of course, nobody was worrying too much about the lack of a malt mill, hmm.

Subject: Brewed! or The Beers of East Africa No. 4
Date: Fri, 29 Jun 2001 11:17:15 -0400
From: Dennis G Elmer <skipafrica@juno.com>
To: dbgrowler@provide.net

Hey,

        Arusha is about to experience a new revolution.  The first ever
ale brewery is about to officially open its doors here, and yours truly,
the ever vigilant DBG foreign correspondent is not only going to be there
to record events firsthand, but also to create the entertainment as we
go. . .

        We brewed the first batch on Thursday, June 28th and boy did it
remind me of the time when I did my first batch of beer.  No, it was
worse than that.  It reminds me of the time I was a Faulknerian mongoloid
idiot man-child and tried to brew my first batch.  No, it was worse than
that. . .

There followed in this message 7 pages of a stream-of-consciousness narrative that was clearly the product of an exhausted, overstimulated brewer, containing all manner of typos, subject-verb disagreements, rambling tangents, obscure jokes, and surreal imagery. Several other friends of the correspondent attempted, but were unable to read the whole of it. We therefore will be intercutting some of the more lucid passages with an account of the editor’s participation in the brewing of Arusha Special Ale batch #4. Skip’s entire original dispatch, unedited, is availablehere for those who think they can take it.

First, while I quite properly brought up the point that we would need some kind
of grain mill two days before brewing, we of course did nothing to acquire one...
...imagine my surprise when [the mash water] came up to temperature and I reached
for the bag to find [the malt] in
the original condition in which I had left it! ....meandering to the nearest grain mill
...up the...road. Said grain mill had only two settings- 1. Crack the white kernels of what
they call corn here (imagine hominy on steroids) into exactly two pieces
or 2. Fine ground flour that remarkably resembles fine ground flour.
Guess which one I chose?  Wrong, I chose the entertaining path of having
[dry goods shopkeeper] dump it through the large setting so the grain would have the fun of
a thrill ride from hopper to bag with hardly a scratch or two on every
100th grain or so. Wheeee! And only 100 shillings...we borrowed a kinu
 (mortar that is anywhere from 1-4 feet tall and
has a correspondingly large pestle for bashing things in it with) and
bashed away. Ours was of the 1 foot variety and a larger one was not to
found in all of the village around. So when we realized that the pointed
twig that was apparently our pestle was crushing the grains singly
against the bottom of the mortar, we went to plan B. We put the grain on
a piece of canvas and passed the aforementioned twig that served as our
pestle over the grain in the vain hope that it would work like a rolling
pin...we folded the piece of
canvas over and bashed it repeatedly and collected the 10 or twelve
grains that were actually hit and repeated the process all over again.
Eventually someone took pity on us and realized that we were not playing
with our food, but were actually trying to crush it. So they brought a
fancy hand grinder from France that had something about legumes in French
on it. And smelled like coffee. You simply dumped the beans, er malt,
into the hopper and turn the crank and this ingenious little device then
stirs the grain so that you get to see the ones that were previously on
the bottom come whirling up to the top and the ones on top slowly
disappear under their advancing friends. And occasionally one grain would
accidently get caught against the side and would accidently crack.
Actually, I exaggerate. It was worse than that....

The account of how they (sort of) crushed the malt was painful to read, and I determined to take my trusty old Corona mill with me when I visited the following month. From my journal account:

10:00- Made it to the brewhouse, a small outbuilding on a side road Sixbert has rented from the homeowners whose house it is adjacent.

On arriving with my old Corona mill, we couldn’t find anywhere to clamp it; a rail or the like is needed to allow the crank clearance on one side and the output chute on the other. Finally I cut a 2x2 chunk from a horizontal brace on the bench legs and we were on. Using my cheap Swiss Army Knife knockoff, that took a while. (Not as cool as killing a gazelle, but it’s my best Africa-knife-story at this point. Maybe I’ll have to fend off a wild animal or something....) Then of course the bench top prevented us from putting on the hopper, so a 1.5L water bottle met the knife and off we went, All worth the trouble, I guess, as now they had a proper grist.

By this time the water has been up to temp for about 2 hours. I
then decide it is time to look at the mash/lauter tun before dumping in
the water. The typical two bucket setup one would expect to find in a
third world brewing situation that has no equipment or expertise. Boy, I
didn't know you could make holes that little in a bucket. Small enough
that the surface tension of water is too great to actually allow water to
enter the lower chamber and air to exit when the buckets are pushed
together. Opening the valve helped, it allowed the air to be pushed out
by the 1-2 drops a second that were actually getting through the holes
that were accidently made large enough to allow liquid to pass....

For batch #4 we used a ~5 gallon food grade bucket fitted with a slotted copper drain and plastic spigot which Skip had assembled following less than salubrious results with the “2 bucket” arrangement. Also, a decoction mash was used for batches 2, 3, and 4 to maximize wort color and flavor.

Tasting notes from the previous two batches: Unfortunately, #2 was moto (warm) while #3 was baridi (cold). I tried to take this into account as I noted my perceptions.
 

	Batch #2	Batch #3
Nose	citrus, pine, faint soapy note	citrus, pear
Appearance	clarity 7/10, no head, slight bead	clarity 6/10, foam stand much better, touch more color
Flavor	Some malt; soapy, rosy; bitterness is clean and not too intense	Crisp, fruity, malty sweet, dry finish

 

All of the Arusha ales have been clean. I believe any fruity flavors are the product of hops and the water. The absence of DMS, a ubiquitous component of the standard local lagers, is notable. Once home I will research fluoride issues, Arusha water analysis, and sources of hop extracts.

Notes on Batch #4, now known as Arusha Special Ale:

4kg Pale Malt, domestic
8L water 140F doughed in to 130F, added 1L cold to hit 126F strike.
Pulled 3 ½ L for decoction; to 158 for 10 minutes, to boil for 10 minutes.
Return to main mash and rest at 140 for 20 minutes.
Pull 4L, to 158 for 10, boil 10.
Return to main mash, temp not recorded est 150, rest 20 minutes.
Pull 4L thinnest mash, boil 5, return for 160F, good enough.

Vorlauf 4L, cloudy, milky, slow. Mash has ‘soapy’ character I had attributed to the hops. We now wonder if the excessive fluoride in the water supply plays a role. The plastic the buckets are made of is another question, although they appear to be food grade. Runoff is hideously slow; re-roused once without reheating, so grain bed temp falls to less than 140F by the end. Collected 26-27L, suspended runoff at 1.008-1.010.
 

Did you know that if you cut a strand of barbed wire off of a
fence and twist it about so that you have 4 prongs facing in the same
direction and then hold this device over a flame you will burn your
hand? And you can also then press the prongs into the bottom of a bucket
that will create the most perfectly sized holes for getting hot plastic
onto the remaining unburned surfaces of your hand. And if you are still
too stupid or insane to give up, you can then brew....

Even in Africa when all around you
is chaos and your eyebrows are gone, 176 degree Fahrenheit water when
added to 3.5 kilograms (notice the excellent mixing of measurement
systems) will fall to precisely the temperature you want if you are
willing to accept the exact temperature to which it has fallen as the
temperature that you want. In this case, only 2-3 liters of
alternatingly hot and cold infusions were necessary to make the
temperature a pleasant 150 degrees Celsius. Sorry, wrong system.
Fahrenheit....

...when I added the 3/4 once of Galena pellets I apparently
overwhelmed the flame because the boil never came back.  We watched this,
mystified, for about a half hour. Then we tried closing the window and
the door...I extinguished the flame and grabbed the burner. Boy, it sure
was a good thing that my burnt hands were already covered in melted
plastic. Grabbing a hot burner is a great way to remove melted plastic
from one's flesh. Post yelping, I grabbed the burner with a cloth and
unscrewed the fixture holding the jets in place. To my surprise, I did
not find a spider's ass blocking the dual jets...It was worse than that.
Apparently the chap that had put the water impervious holes in the lauter
tun had also bored the gas impervious holes that served as jets for my
new cooker...I pulled out my
trusty Swiss Army Knife...unfolded the awl instead...carefully bored a 1/4
inch hole into each jet to
really get a flame going. Besides, no one had eyebrows left anyway...
Worked like a charm. Big flames. Lots of boiling....

Boil was uneventful; hot break OK, ½ oz. of Galena 12.7% at 60 minutes from strike, 3/4 oz. Hersbrucker at strike. Chilled to 76-78F; while wort was cooling Sixbert made caramel from 400g sukari (cane sugar) and that was stirred in. Poured wort, hot break, hops, and all into the buckets and pitched rehydrated Nottingham.

1/16" inch copper tubing is not the best choice for a wort
chiller, just so you know...And boy does the pressure in a hose rise when water goes from 1
inch to 1/16th of an inch...Did I mention the spray?...But the beer got cool. I think it was tired of waiting.

Beer cooling and only one more thing to do. I have no specialty
grains. So caramel syrup would have to do to add a little color and
flavor to the finished product. I don't have caramel syrup either but
they do have sugar here. Wonderful raw sugar that would make a lovely
syrup. Now I was told all I have to do is boil the sugar and you have
caramel. In my head I pictured dumping sugar in a pot, putting it to the
flame and ending up with blackened and charred grains of sugar. Fred
comes to the rescue when I ask about it, and says take sugar, moisten it,
and then boil. Lovely sugar syrup. So we do that. Never let Fred come
to your rescue...Sugar and water does indeed boil and it does make a lovely amber
syrup that gets thicker and thicker as you boil it. And then an amazing
thing happens. Just as you pull it off the heat to use, the last of the
water sizzles out of the hot pot and the whole thing recrystallizes in
about 1/10th of a second and you have slightly browner sugar than you
started with. Lovely. Sixbert is a trained chef. And also a very patient man. After
watching us do this, he calmly says that to boil sugar you take sugar and
put it in a pot and then apply a flame to said pot and it boils. We
don't believe him as the experience of youth has taught us to doubt
everyone who knows more than us on any subject. We go out and buy more
sugar and then Sixbert dumps it in a pot, turns on the heat and calmly
makes a lovely caramel by melting and boiling the sugar...Adding boiling
caramel to cool wort makes a lovely sizzle and
then you have to stir like hell to get it to dissolve again. Should not
have messed around so much when the wort was 212 degrees now, should we?
But dissolve it did, and 27 tea strainers hopelessly plugged with pelleted
hops, hot and cold break, and little bits of blue plastic from burned
holes that apparently flake off and hide themselves in cloudy wort as it
passes through a hose into your kettle later, we had [wort] in the
fermenter. Add the yeast, scurry out of there before anyone can accuse
you of the mess, and go home. Then go back and take a sample for the gravity reading because
after all, this is a learning exercise and you need to know how you did
with the new equipment and ingredients. 1.040 actually, which is
surprising as hell if you didn't know that I added 10% sugar to get the
gravity up there....

During the boil, we bottled batch #3 with a cup of cane sukari, final yield was about 40 1/2L bottles.

Those who were present at the DBG September meeting had the opportunity to sample Arusha Special Ale #3, and the consensus seemed to be, "If I had to, I could drink this." Clearly, some work remains before they have a saleable ale. Having sampled each of the first three batches, I can state that incremental progress is being made; the malt mill should make quite a difference. A new sufria (kettle) fitted with a drain should make another increase in quality, allowing the consistent separation of hot break material from the cast-out wort. Stay tuned for future dispatches from overseas....

---

The  Parting  Glass
Summer 2001 in retrospect

Apologies to all for this much-delayed GROWLER. We promise to have a Fall issue out before Christmas (har!) This means that there is still time to send in submissions for an upcoming edition before the end of the year, which means being included in the consideration for the Editor's Choice award and the attendant $25 bounty. Don't delay and get lost in the torrent of last-minute submissions....

Lots of exciting things have happened over the past few months, most of which are documented herein and elsewhere in this website: Big Brew at Tom's, Over the Mill, your editor's Batch 200 party, the AHA conference and National Competition in LA, the DBG Beerbecue, Heritage Days, and for the GROWLER editorial staff, a brewing experience on another continent. Note that we said exciting, as opposed to cool, nice, neat. This would be in deference to the Wyandotte Heritage Days experiences of Jim, Tom K, Alex, Jon, and a scant few others who braved low attendance, high winds, torrential rain, and Mrs. Lincoln to carry the word of homebrewing to, well, to anybody that might have shown up, if anyone had. The experience so moved Tom that he committed this heroic(?) act of poetry:

Microsoft Word format: The Rime of the Rain-Soaked Brewers

HTML format: The Rime of the Rain-Soaked Brewers

As to upcoming cool things, we are hoping to get together for some sort of Saturday brewery outing on October 20; Pete is working on the details as I write this. Local Color in Novi is one spot everyone seems to want to visit. Ideas? Post 'em to the DBG list at dbg@hbd.org....

Eccentric Day at Kalamazoo Brewing will be on 7 December, but we are told that due to problems with over-occupancy last year, if you don't get there early, you likely won't get in. We are also told that Eccentric attire is mandatory this year. We will try to keep everyone posted about any developments. Check the Photo Gallery for pictures from Eccentric Days past.
 

Thanks to The Oracle, Pete, Tom, and the Faulknerian mongoloid idiot man-child for providing material for this issue.