Yesterday was Big Brew Day, a national day for homebrewers to gather together in a common place and celebrate the art of homebrewing by brewing. The American Homebrewers Association has designated the first Saturday of May as Big Brew Day. As a club the membership of MUGZ was welcomed to Great River Brewery, they have graciously hosted for the last several years. They have embraced our club and its membership. A big Thank You goes out to Paul, Scott, Cal and the rest of the crew for hosting us again this year.
We had at least 8 batches of homebrew brewed yesterday, it may be more because I was busy and was not able to get a full count. From what I remembering seeing we had brewers brewing extract with grain beer to all grain beers, no snobbery here everyone was welcome. We even had a group made up of only women that brewed a blonde ale and as well at least one mead. They had their one person security force and assistant made up of one woman's husband.
Probably as you may remeber from my earlier blogs I had an opportunity to play, I mean brew, along with six other members of MUGZ on Great River's brew system. They gave us an opportunity to brew a beer of our own choosing and then this will be a seasonal beer that they will sell through their tasting room. Tentatively the beer will be ready right around Memorial Day and they will have a special tapping of the beer! I believe the seven of us can not wait to have the opportunity to see the reaction of the public to our creation.
We brewed a Blonde/ Kolsch, kind of a hybrid of the two beers. Some may say there is not much difference between the two so how can it be a hybrid, but it really does not matter. Base malt was split between 2 row pale and pils malt, with a bit of wheat and munich malt to round out the grain bill. Hops we used included Sorachi Ace, Cascade and Santium. The yeast we used was California Ale yeast.
They allowed us to do the whole brewing process including harvest the yeast, the mash, transferring to the boil kettle, cleaning the fermentation vessel, and most importantly the proper sanitation to hopefully make a good clean beer. Scott was there to guide us through the brew day and make sure we did not burn down or blow up the brewery. I know I had a great day and hope this can be something that can continue in the future with other members having the opportunity to brew on the system.
Overall I believe every one had a great day. There was an opportunity to commune with many friends and enjoy the glorious day. Again thank you to the gang at Great River for hosting us and providing the opportunity to get together.
QC Beerguy
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