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Short's Brewing Company News: The Northern Michigan Home Brewers Guild (The Fellowship of the Brew)

Man o man, the home brewers have been a healthy tangent to the Short’s Brewing Company portfolio as of late. The group is still working on detailing the annual syllabus and defining roles as to who should fill the ranks of president, secretary, treasurer etc.  Aside all of the formality, we have been having a lot of fun. The fellowship of the brew as I like to call the guild, was formed in November of 2006. Since then we have brewed an extract and all grain batch. We have held discussion on various topics like using hops and recipe formulation. We have bottled beer and have touched on a peer sensory evaluation of the beers brewed within the guild. We are still working on the details for the purchasing cooperative, and have had discussion about a group competition. We have even discussed the possibility of a field trip to places like Hop Union where they grow and package hops, and Briess Malting where malt is manufactured and other breweries around the state.  

This past month of March has been great! I was solicited by an avid mushroomer, Joe Briedenstein to make a mushroom beer. I don’t know who would want to put mushrooms in their beer, but I thought this opportunity would be great for the one of the homebrew guild meetings. Joe does guided mushroom hunts throughout the year and in involved in Boyne City’s Mushroom festival in May. Joe is also a big advocate for Michigan Tourism. He’s been trying to get me to make mushroom beer for a while now.  I was not only a great opportunity to involve an interesting beer project within the guild; it would be closely tied in with helping supporting the mushroom hunting section of the Michigan tourism industry. We made about 10 gallons of all grain mushroom ale at our March meeting on the 21st. Joe provided us with 2 lbs. of a north woods blend. It included: shitake, porcini, morel, oyster, boletes and lobster mushrooms. We used one pound of the mix in the mash. The mash essentially cooks the mushroom and in theory would remove the flavor from the solid into the liquid much like it does with the grain. We used the second pound at the end of the boil. With the wort (unfermented beer) being still very hot, would easily cook the mushrooms. We cooled the wort into two 5 gallon glass carboys and added the mushrooms that were cooked in the kettle. We then added our yeast and aerated the jugs by shaking them vigorously. The batch has since fermented and transferred into secondary fermenters and is now awaiting bottling.

At our March meeting we also had a guest speaker come and talk with the guild. Kim Schneider of North Peak brew pub in Traverse City. Kim did a great job with her presentation. She is one of a handful of professional women brewers in the nation. Kim shared her experiences as a home brewer and how that led to her becoming a professional brewer. It was enlightening to hear Kim describe several aspects about the profession of brewing and how it compared and contrasted to home brewing experiences. I could tell the group was enthralled just as much as I was. I learned a lot from Kim as she shared her experiences with us. I am looking forward to inviting many more professional brewers to come and speak to the guild.

On Wednesday March 28th we had an opportunity to showcase our club on TV 9&10. We were able to encompass a condensed version of brewing from start to finish. My assistant brewer Stevo recommended a spring bock. I thought it was appropriate considering the season supported it. I wanted to do an all grain batch to better enhance the visual component of the video documentation. It would also serve as a good pilot brew for the big brewery, since I have never made a bock beer before. Jeff Cullen, a founding member of the guild did a great job explaining the introduction elements for the beginner, intermediate and advanced home brewer for the first section of the live report. Jeff also explained how to bottle condition finished product during the third section of the report. Flip Rutledge is also a member of the guild and he finished the third segment by explaining his equipment and method of kegging his home brew versus bottling it. Nice work guys.

Here is a link to the NMHBG segment on TV 9&10
(http://www.9and10news.com/mtm/ontheroad/)

Other exciting news with the fellowship of the brew is our very own Mike Wooster, or as I like to say, Mikie Woo Woo. Mike’s recent brewing activity landed him on the cover of the Northern Living section of the Traverse City Record Eagle April 1st. The article was very thorough, covering the Northern Michigan Home Brewers Guild, and national home brewing trends. Way to go Mike! Here is a link to the article (http://www.record-eagle.com/2007/apr/01brewers.htm)

Thanks to Mikie Woo and a great article by Tom Carr of the Traverse City Record Eagle, the Northern Michigan Home brewers Guild is spreading the word about brewing at home. The article triggered Charlie Psenka of the Leelanau Brewing Company to contact us. Charlie has founded a similar group called the Michigan Home Brewers Guild (http://www.mhbg.org). He will be at our next meeting (April 25th) to talk about the MHBG and how the two Northern Michigan brewing groups can work together, to continue to support the hobby of brewing beer at home.

 

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Smugglin Plumbs: Sweet perfume of rich roast and plum, cast through hearty malted complexity, finishing slightly sweet and dry. .75 lbs. plumb per gallon. 5.8% ABV

Cup a Joe coffee Cream Stout: Deep aromatics of malt, sweet espresso and cocoa. Flavor is robust with big malt character covered with cream and coffee. 6.0% ABV

Snow Wheat: Winter Hefeweizen Style What Ale - notes of banana and clove

Hangin Frank: Toasted pale ale with tons of citrus hoppiness.

The Golden Rule: Our organic English IPA has a simple malt profile which lends most of its attention to the unique hop flavor and aroma. 5.8% ABV

The Magician: A rich lustrous dark red London ale. Rich malt complexities lending notes of toaste caramel, raisins, toffee, and slight roast chocolate. Very light hop additions let the true malt characters promenade throughout the tasting enjoyment this beer
offers. 6.0% ABV

Black Cherry Porter
Chocolate Wheat
Huma Lupa Licious
The Village Reserve
The Soft Parade
Local's Light
Pontius Road Pilsner
Autumn ALe
Bellaire Brown
Pandemonium Pale Ale

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