If you can boil H2O you can make beer

Today I decided to blog about homebrewing, MUGZ and the wonderful suppliers that make homebrewing possible.  This morning I took over 5 gallons of a Russian Imperial Stout for Barrel Project 2011, a collaborative effort among multiple members of MUGZ and our friends from the Henry County Club.  The idea is to fill a whiskey barrel with a common recipe of a RIS, we chose a recipe from Jamil Zanishef's book Brewing Classic Styles.  As I am blogging I'm sure the blending party is just hitting its stride.  This has been and should continue to be a fun project.  The great thing is that just one brewer is not responsible to fill a whole whiskey barrel by themselves and each batch is just a bit different.  It will be interesting to taste the beer as it ages and changes in its flavors.  Hopefully this can be something that can continue to happen over time.

As I said if you can boil H2O you can make beer.  If a person is wanting to make their own beer it can be very simple to start.  A person can go to various retail stores and find a Mr. Beer kit, many award winning homebrewers have begun this way.  Also you can go to a homebrew supply store and by an extract kit off the shelf.  That with a few basic bits of equipment and you are brewing your own beer.  Just remember every beer you brew is the best beer ever!  Even if it does not turn out to be drinkable or not.  The really good thing about homebrewing beer is even if the beer is retched a homebrewer will not be killing anyone with the beer.  If the beer is undrinkable no one will drink enough to really harm themselves.  The bugs that do turn beer bad will not really harm a person beyond just making them sick.  Unless the homebrewer puts something noxious in their beer they will not poison anyone.

One cool thing about homebrewing is that the brewer decides what level they want to brew at.  There are extract brewers, partial mash brewers and all grain brewers, and at any level a brewer can make an award winning beer.  Also the brewer decides what kind of equipment they brew on from recycled brewing equipment to the top of the line brew systems from suppliers such as Blichmann http://www.blichmannengineering.com/ , or a Sabco system http://www.brew-magic.com/ or some other system builder.  Many homebrewers enjoy fabricating their own system and brewing the way they want it.  Again any system that is used can produce an award winning beer.  So that means there is no right way to brew beer.  There is no need to be intimidated by the all grain brewer or to look down on the extract only brewer, both are an equally correct way to brew.

This leads me into talking about my homebrew club MUGZ http://www.mugzhomebrew.org/.  We are currently around 60 members and are continuing to grow yearly and monthly.  We have members that run the gambit form extract to all grain, from award winning brewers to brewers that brew just for the enjoyment.  The interaction among our members is quite amazing, there are quite a few different personalities amongst our members.  Each member brings their own unique ideas and point of view, which is a great thing that will only strengthen the club.

We meet the last Sunday of the month at 2pm for the educational portion of the meeting and try to start the business portion around 2:30pm and be finished by 3pm for socializing and tasting of the beer that the members bring.  We currently hold our meetings at Great River Brewing http://greatriverbrewery.com/ , we thank them very much for opening up their business to us once a month for our meetings.  Some of the activities we have include club only competitions, bus trips to craft breweries, local, regional and national competitions, and traveling to various beer fests.  Every member can chose how they want to participate within the club.

MUGZ has grown immensely from the days of having only a handful of members showing up to a meeting.  But without members such as Tim Dugan,  Eric Ware, Steve Slach, Tom Gritton and other early members we would not be where we are today.  So they deserve a hand for guiding MUGZ along the way to what it has now become.

Homebrewers would be no where without our local homebrew shops and we have a great local homebrew shop in Galesburg.  Somethings Brewn http://www.somethingsbrewn.com/ is run by a husband and wife team that have very few peers.  They always are willing to bring ordered supplies to a MUGZ meeting and they put up with the constant harassment by other members that they are buying their supplies from the big guys instead of Jim and Mary.  There are few better people than them!

Also in Davenport Camp McClellan Cellars http://www.campmc.com/ does carry homebrew supplies.  They do not have quite the knowledge as Jim and Mary but they do a good job.  Plus it is nice to have some place to go when you find out you are out of something or need a part on your brew day.

Well I am going end my ramblings here for tonight.

QC Beerguy