CAMRA (Charlottesville Area Masters of Real Ale)

CAMRA Club Meeting – June 3, 2008
 
CAMRA had its fifth group meeting on 6/3/08 at the Court Square Tavern. It was another great turnout as we had around 15 members and guests attend. Some of the topics we covered during the meeting were:

1)              Next month’s meeting will be on July 8^th – Typically we have our club meetings on the 1^st Tuesday of each month, but there was a short discussion about whether or not we wanted to have a meeting on the first of July.   A few  members  have vacations and other commitments on that date, so we have pushed the next meeting back to July 8^th.  Mark your calendars.

2)              Thank you Evan – Thanks again to Evan for hosting our first official homebrew tasting at his house.  On May 31^st, we tried many good homebrews and enjoyed some of Evan’s smoked chicken.  Thank you to Evan and his wife for being such great hosts and telling us the story behind his neighbor’s tower/two-story unabomber shed.

 3)              A discussion of styles and why they are (or aren’t) important – For this meeting, we decided to forgo our usual discussion of a particular beer style, and address why we care about styles.  Beer style guidelines are set down by the BJCP, or the Beer Judge Certification Program.  There are other groups that have style guidelines, as well, but most brewers follow the BJCP.  These guidelines change infrequently every few years, and new styles are added, but the actual changes are usually relatively minor. The BJCP guidelines group the beers into categories and then each style is described by aroma, appearance, flavor, mouthfeel, overall impression, and additional comments.  The parameters for original and final gravities, IBUs, SRMs and ABVs are listed, as well some commercial examples.After some discussion, some interesting points came up.  In no particular order, and acknowledging the fact that these could completely contradict each other:

a)              Many beers styles have existed for hundreds of years for a reason.  They are unique, interesting and part of history.  There are still around because they deserve to be, and that is worthy of respect.

b)             Beer styles give us the basic vocabulary to describe and judge beers.  We have to agree on something before we can agree on anything.

c)               The ability for a homebrewer to nail a style is an important stage a brewer’s evolution.  Honing the scientific and artistic methods used to tweak recipes until you can create something that would be universally viewed as fitting into a particular style are essential.   Brewing without an end product in mind can certainly be done, but we rarely become better brewers by accident. 

d)             If you want to enter your beers into a competition, you need to have some guideline goals, or all of your beers are going into the “other” category.

e)             What is most important is making something that you like.  That may not fit any guideline.

f)                Beer style guidelines can be used as springboards.  Use them, but don’t let them stifle your creativity.  Why can’t you make an amber wit or a coffee lager?

4)              Brewing as the seasons change – The second topic was a discussion about how the change in seasons affects our brewing.  In the summer it is more difficult to maintain lower fermentation temperatures and the water coming out of the tap and into our wort chillers is not as cold.  The winter time poses opposite but similar issues, but we generally focused on warmer temperatures since summer is upon us in Central Virginia.  We discussed the purchase of refrigerators and chest freezers to cool our brews (and the difficult maintenance of them from growing mold), the use of evaporative cooling (keeping the carboys or buckets in tubs of water with t-shirts of towels around them), choosing to brew styles that are more forgiving of temperature fluctuations or require higher temperature fermentations (Belgians, for example), and simply taking the summers off from brewing. (Blaspheme!)

Was that it?  - No, not by at long shot.  There was discussion of culturing yeast, the joys of having access to -80° freezers and many other topics. .  If you missed it, you’ll have to make next month’s meeting on Tuesday, July 8th and take part in the sharing.  Next’s month style will be Saisons.

Jamey

CAMRA Club Meeting – May 6, 2008
 
CAMRA had its fifth group meeting on 5/6/08 at the Court Square Tavern. It was another great turnout as we had around 20 members and guests attend. Some of the topics we covered during the meeting were:

1)     Two Homebrew Shops in town – We took a moment to welcome the two homebrew shops we have in town.  After having to mail order or drive to Richmond for many years, we are lucky enough to have two homebrew shops in our community.  CAMRA does not formally endorse one store over the other, but we are very, very happy to have Appalachian Brewing Supply and Fermentation Trap in Central Virginia.  We hope they both are very successful.

2)     Wit Beers – Evan gave the night’s beer style presentation and he covered witbiers very thoroughly.  He gave us many great suggestions including using some flour to encourage a cloudy appearance and adding lactic acid or acidulated malt to give the beer a slight tang.  It was very educational and there is far too much to mention here.

3)     Tasting Event – We are working out the details of a tasting event for the end of the month.  Evan has graciously offered his house as a location to try to each other’s homebrews.  Keep an eye on the forums for a poll and the event date.  Was that it? – No, it never is.  We talked about how our homegrown hops were doing, meeting locations, and the profound sadness we will feel until some genius discovers a way to blend beer and bacon.  Or maybe not. 

If you missed it, you’ll have to make next month’s meeting on Tuesday, June 6th and take part in the sharing.  Next’s month style is TBD.  Jamey

CAMRA Club Meeting – April 1, 2008
 
CAMRA had its third group meeting on 4/1/08 at the Court Square Tavern. It was another great turnout as we had around 20 members and guests attend. Some of the topics we covered during the meeting were:

1) Meeting place discussion – We discussed that finding a more permanent home for the club is still being actively pursued.  We are looking at a few restaurants around town, but the two biggest obstacles are beer selection and affordability.  The great thing about Court Square is that they have a fantastic selection of beers and styles.  Some of the places we are looking at, well, have terrible macro beers and, therefore, are immediately out of the running.  Other places have better a selection, but might require a room rental fee which might be a deal-breaker.  We would hope that a large group coming in on a normally dead Tuesday night would be reason enough to waive a fee. 

Since the meeting, Wahoo has found some very interesting possibilities on grounds at UVa.  For the latest on these things, you can check out the forum thread here. 

2) Discussion of American India Pale Ale style – The style for this meeting was the American IPA.  It is a very popular style in U.S. and with homebrewers.  They can really be a showcase for high alpha, citrusy American hops, and they are much bolder and more bitter than the English IPAs.  

We wanted to cover this style because it can be relatively easy for a novice brewer to make with extract, and the strong character of the hops can cover up a lot of errors and mistakes than would certainly be more apparent in more subtle styles.

In addition we discussed, since the hop character is crucial aspect of the style,  possible hop substitutions while we are experiencing a hop shortage.  Glacier hops seem to do well in place of the expensive, or non-existent, “C” hops,but mention was made that Argentinean cascade hops are nothing at all like American cascade hops and are not a good substitute.

3)   Growing Hops – There was discussion about growing your own hops and how to do so successfully.  This is the time of year where you need to have already  ordered your rhizomes and many had already received them.  Several members talked about how to treat the soil (lots of aerated dirt, compost or manure with the ability to drain away excess water) and the importance of placement (lots of sun) and a trellis system (the hops will climb and they need somewhere to go). 

Further information can be found on sites like Freshops.com and RateBeer.

Was that it?  - No, not by at long shot.  There were discussions about possible activities for the club outside on the monthly meetings, tweaking all grain bills, why farmers are planting higher alpha acid hop crops over the milder, European  ones, and a tangent about first wort hopping (FWH).  One member even brought in his homemade stir plate (thanks Greg) for show and tell, too.  (Thank you to Tom for bringing his in the previous month.)There was hearty discussion of lots of brewing things, and if you missed you’ll have to make next month’s meeting on Tuesday, May 6th and take part in the sharing.Jamey

CAMRA Club Meeting – March 4^th, 2008

CAMRA had its second group meeting on 3/4/08 at the Court Square Tavern. There was a great turnout as we had more than 25 members and guests attend. Some of the topics we covered during the meeting were:

1) The official naming of the club to CAMRA.

We had been using Cville Brewing as our working club name for a little more than 4 months, and that is still our club URL. We decided upon CAMRA which stands for the Charlottesville Area Masters of Real Ale.

CAMRA, in the UK, is an organization that is focused upon promoting small brewing and pub businesses, reforming licensing laws, reducing tax on beer and stopping the continued consolidation among local British brewers. Whereas their concept of ‘real ale’ refers more narrowly to beer brewed from natural ingredients and carbonated by secondary fermentation rather than carbon dioxide, we are focused on making beer (damn good beer, in fact) that is handcrafted and full of flavor and ingenuity. America is a country full of fizzy, yellow macro-produced beers, and we are committed to making exceptional ales and lagers, and improving our skills through the teaching of and learning from other club members.

2) Discussion of the website www.cvillebrewing.com and the forum

The website has been in operation for quite sometime, and we encourage members to visit it often and participate. Please feel free to ask any questions you might have, answer any questions you can, and to share any beer and brewing news to come across. It is a great place to meet and connect, as well as, keep current with CAMRA events and business.

Please stop by the forum and sign up if you haven’t already. Also, please give us feedback that you have about ways to improve the site. During the meeting Greg/Spider mentioned expanding the topics on the forum to be more specific, and we have made that change. Please send any comments to info@cvillebrewing.com

3) Discussion of the Brown Ales

Christopher led a discussion of Brown ales. He gave us lots of great information about Mild Ales, Southern English Brown Ales, Northern English Brown Ales, and American Brown Ales. These are beers of amazing subtly and complexity, and there are much more difficult to brew well than they may first appear.

We also sampled Newcastle’s Brown Ale, Bell’s Best Brown and Samuel Smith’s Nut Brown Ale as commercial examples of these styles. We will continue to discuss a particular style each month, and we will try commercial examples. Hopefully, we hope to have homebrewed examples of these styles in the future, too.

4) Meeting Space

Our first few minutes have been at the Court Square Tavern. They have been exceedingly kind to us, and they have a great selection of beers to choose from. Despite our great relationship with them, we are quickly outgrowing CST as our club continues to bring in more and more brewers. We are tentatively planning to keep next month’s meeting at CST, but we need to find a bigger and more appropriate solution for our meetings soon.

We are reaching out to all club members to brainstorm some ideas for this. A restaurant or bar of some sort has many advantages, but they will not let us bring homebrews in to sample; which is the focus of the club. Please help us think of a better solution. VFW halls and Elk’s lodges are being considered. We will find the right solution with your help.

Thank you for coming out and we look forward to seeing you next month on April 1^st.

Jamey