Newsletters - May 2004

April Meeting Minutes

The April Meeting of the First State Brewers was held at the home of Marty Drinan. The highlight of the meeting, in my opinion, was watching Gary Dunham's Blue Lava (blueberry) ale as it foamed all over the sink! :) Jeff gave his annual hops talk. Jeff promised he would submit his talk in written form for the newsletter, but I guess he forgot! :(

Rather than meeting on May 1st to celebrate National Homebrew Day, we decided to get together on May 7th at Stewart's, instead. :)

Next meeting is at Hank Keller's house. Hank will be hosting a homebrew competition, as well.

Rules for May Ale competition:

Competition information Judge's scorecard


May Meeting
Friday, May 21st @ 7:30 p.m.
At the home of Hank Keller

Recent Club Communications

From: Anita Hawkins
Sent: Monday, May 17, 2004 9:33 PM
Subject half-barrels for your brews!

Friends in brewing-
Just to let you know, I came across half-barrels for aging brews at the most unlikely place, K-mart, in Newark, Delaware, tho I expect it's chain-wide. Not just your average cheapo half-barrels for flowers, but actual former Jack Daniels half-barrels! Charred insides, half a bunghole obvious at rim, and they positively reeked (in a good way) of bourbon! Carrying one in the back of my pickup cap, with the cab pass-thru open, I was half afraid of getting pulled over for running a yellow light, and then arrested for being so whiff of bourbon ;)

Under $20, and I already got the best-smelling one from the Newark store, so start looking now... the AHA email list has a recent exhange on cleaning and prepping barrels for homebrew use, which is likely on their website.

mmmmm, bourbon-barrel aged porter... stout... hefeweizen... well, maybe not that last one ;)

(Scott B - could you forward this to the FSB gang, thanks!) Glug, Anita


From: Jim Miller
Sent: Wednesday, May 12, 2004 2:51 PM
Subject Newark Food & Brew Fest

Paticipants of the Newark Food & Brew Fest:
On Saturday, July 17, the town of Newark will open its doors to more than ten area breweries in celebration of American Beer Month. The first-ever "Newark Food & Brew Fest" will take place at Newark restaurants from noon to midnight. The tastings will officially start at 3pm; dinners anytime after 5pm. Restaurants should build their night's specials based on their featured brew (some perhaps cooking with the tasty grog). In this respect, the focus of the festival is to demonstrate how beer can influence a meal's flavor, preparation and overall enjoyment. Below is the restaurant/brewery pairings that were established after our April 27th meeting at Klondike Kate's. We suggest (sooner as opposed to later) making contact with your Food & Brew partner to discuss ideas for the festival.

Deer Park Tavern: Bob Ashby and Dogfish Head Craft Brewery: Sam Calagione

Café Gelato: Ryan German and Brandywine Brewing Company: Dave Dietz

East End Café: Frank O'Brien and Stewart's Brewing Company: Beth Eggleston

Iron Hill Brewery: Kevin Finn and Victory/Yards/John Harvards: Contacts made via Justin S.

Homegrown Café: Sasha Blythe and Stoudt's: Carol Stoudt

Klondike Kate's: Leon Barnett and Fordham Brewing Company: Erin Brunst

The Trap Seafood Restaurant: Tim Thompson and McKenzie Brew House: Scott Morrison


We will keep you posted with more information soon. If you have any questions or are having difficulty getting in touch with your restaurant or brewery partner, please feel free to contact me directly at (email address removed). Also more information about American Beer Month can be found at: www.americanbeermonth.com Thanks,

Jim Miller
Director of Sales and Marketing
Out & About Magazine



From: Heavyweight Brewing Company
Sent: Sunday, May 16, 2004 12:19 PM
To: Beer Lovers
Subject Heavyweight Open House

Greetings:
We know this is rather last minute but we're having an open house on Sunday, May 23rd from 1-4 pm. We want to show off our Stickenjab Altbier. Stickenjab has now become a year-round offering from us (Baltus was made a spring seasonal). Although not a traditionally-made Alt, we think the Sticke captures the wonderful quality that makes the uber-alt beer so drinkable. It's 6.3% abv with around 48 IBUs. We're not going to share the spotlight with any other drafts that day. But if you'd like to come sample some fresh Alt, please come by on the 23rd.

If you can't make the open house but are in NJ and free this Wednesday (May 19th), Heavyweight is taking over the taps at Andy's Corner Bar in Bogota, NJ. Andy's will be pouring around 6 beers (many of them from our secret stash).

Also, we're doing a Heavyweight beer dinner with Monk's Cafe on Tuesday, June 8th. Owner Tom Peters and chef Adam Glickman are cooking up an all-vegetarian meal paired with 7-9 Heavyweight beers (many of them one-timers). We're also doing quite a lot of beer events in the next few months (including our Garden State festival on June 27th at Waterloo Village). Check our website for details.

We hope to see some of you on the 23rd or at a festival soon. Thanks for drinking craft beer.

Tom and Peggy


From: tiffany
Sent: Wednesday, May 12, 2004 2:25 AM
Subject RestaurantPage: Link Partner

Hi First State Brewers,

I am contacting you about cross linking. I have added your website to our directory because it's relevant to http://www.restaurantpage.com. You may review your website < First State Brewers >by following categories: Home > Drink > Beer > Homebrewing > Clubs

If you can return this favour, it would be highly appreciated! (If you prefer not to have a link from our site, kindly e-mail me please and I will remove our link immediately).

Please feel free to contact us for further information or any question you may have.

Sincerely,

Staff
(email address removed)
http://www.restaurantpage.com


From: Harald Ackermann
Sent: Thursday, May 06, 2004 2:56 AM
To: Scott Bieber
Subject Re: FW: Happy hour this Friday

Can't make it maybe later this month (after the 20th of May)! Harald
PS: I actually consider playing at the open mike one night!


From: Garrett
Sent: Tuesday, May 04, 2004 4:32 PM
To: Scott Bieber
Subject Re: Happy hour this friday

Basically, since we didn't have a planned event for National Homebrewer's Day this past Saturday (May 1), we decided instead to have a happy hour to just get together and celebrate "National Homebrewer's Month". I am pretty certain that it was just an excuse to meet and have a beer or few with the pretense that we would toast to homebrewing. The May 7th date fell dead in between our last meeting and the one coming up, so it seemed like appropriate timing. Send the note out... if people show up, great! If not... no worries. I intend on going, if nothing else to fill up some growlers. I have to pick up a friend at the Philadelphia airport at 6pm so I probably won't get there until around 7:30, if the traffic is as rotten as I am anticipating. See you there (hopefully)!!! -Garrett
> Oh, yes. I have been so busy, that this went right out of my brain.
Could you remind me what this happy hour was all about? I remember discussing it, but I lost the finer details. Maybe tonight I will be able to send out this reminder. Hopefully, I can type up the minutes from last meeting, as well.
>
>

> From: Garrett
> Sent: May 4, 2004 10:12 AM
> To: Scott Bieber
> Subject Happy hour this friday
>
> Hey... are you gonna send out a reminder about our happy hour at
> Stewarts this Friday @ 7pm?? I hadn't seen anything yet.
>
> -Garrett1
>
>

From: Harald Ackermann
Sent: Monday, May 03, 2004 3:39 AM
Subject Brew

Good Morning Scott,

here the hot news!! I will be visiting the Area sometime around May 20th and stay until June 11th. Hope we get together.... Guess mentioned that already. The second news is: I made my first beer since I moved... May 2nd was a memorable day, it was my "back to Germany first brew" day.... I made a strong pale ale (OG 1.075) and hope it works out well. Guess it may result in a head ache if you drink too much. So... just wanted to let you know.... it was so exciting. Everything else is fine. Will be in Cologne this Thursday to Saturday (drink Kölsch and BAP Concert). I will also go to a wine seminar next week, that is going to be interesting!!!!!! Talk to you soon Harald ____________________________________________________________________
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