February 2015 Meeting Notes

Homebrew Alley Competition

Congrats to and a round of applause for Johnny Soj (John DiSpirito) for taking Second Place in the Belgian and French Ale category (which was a huge category that had 56 entries) with his Patersbier.

Taste of RVC Recap

The club poured at its first event last month, the Taste of RVC.
It was a charity event for some local and irish charities, and funding the RVC St. Patrick’s Day parade.
Lot of fun, and we were well received. If there are other events that people are involved with like this and you would like the club there, let us know.

Malt Ingredient Class

Beer Tasting and Evaluation Class

Interclub Stein Brew Challenge

As mentioned last month, a couple of months ago, Andrew Luberto and some other members of LIBME did an authentic stein brew.
They brewed 30 gallons of beer without using a direct heat source. They repeatedly heated up granite blocks until really hot, and put them into the wort, causing it to boil.
The team at LIBME thought it would be fun to have an interclub challenge to see what can be done with the finished beer. LIBME, HHCBC, BEER, Brewer’s Collective and Beer Loves Company will be participating.
We’re all going to get together on Monday, Feb 23 @ Great South Bay Brewery to taste the results. It’s an open event which will bring together the local homebrew clubs. We would love to see as many of you there representing HHCBC as possible.

Great South Bay’s Hog Cabin Extravaganza

Saturday, March 7.
Release day for GSB’s Hog Cabin Maple Bacon Porter.
Food vendors will be there with bacon showcased foods.
Cornhole tournament.
Tickets available at GSB’s website for the tournament, and a combined $20 ticket for three drinks and two food items. You don’t need a ticket to attend, as beer will be available for purchase as usual (except no flights). See the website for more info: http://www.greatsouthbaybrewery.com/hogcabin/index.html
Should be a fun afternoon, hope to see you there.

Queens/Bronx Brewery Bus Trip

We had planned a trip in January to some breweries in the Bronx and Queens but had to postpone due to a few open spots.
Bronx Brewery, Single Cut and Gunn Hill.
A show of hands at the meeting demonstrated significant interest.
We will look at dates when Danielle returns from vacation.

Spring Craft Beer Festival

March 21^st at Nassau Coliseum. This is the last time it’s going to be there.
We are all set up to pour there and will have twelve brewers there; six pouring for each session.
If you’re pouring and have any questions, see Ken Dalton.
We’re in the process of getting the jockey boxes done. BTW, this is what most of the funds we’ve collected via raffles is being used for.

The New York Best Wings Festival

Sunday, June 7 is the NY Best Wings Festival.
Being put together by one of our own members, Matt Kourie.
We will be holding a club-only competition for brewers to pour at the Wing Festival.
There will be two winners, one in each category, selected by a panel made up of club leadership, and the organizers of the wing festival.
The categories are: A) Pale Ales (American, English, IPAs) that would pair best with hot wings, and B) Creative Specialty Category – here we want to see you pushing the envelope, making an interesting beer; there are no limits on ingredients and/or style combinations; the winning beer in this category will be the one determined by the judges to best exhibit innovative creativity in brewing an enjoyable beer.
Each winner will receive a free ticket to the event, and will be required to bring a 5g corny keg of the winning beer to the event.

Next Meeting

The next meeting will be at Barrier Brewery on Tuesday, March 17. Otherwise known as St. Patrick’s Day.
At this point I don’t think we will have a speaker/guest. Just an opportunity to celebrate our hobby’s most revered holiday.

New meeting locations

We’ve been really lucky to have local places open their doors to us and host our meetings, from the guys here at Press 195, to our home brewery @ Barrier, and Effin Gruven, Black Sheep and EAT Gastropub.
We’ve got our next two meeting locations locked in, but we’re always interested in hearing about other spots we should be checking out to host a meeting.
A big focus for us right now is places more central and northern Nassau County, since we’ve been heavily South Shore concentrated.
So if you’re aware of someplace that would make a good meeting place, let us know.

Thanks to Press 195

We want to thank Chris, John and all great folks at Press 195 for being our host. Food was top notch and beer selection was great.

Steve Pominski – Barrage Brewing

Steve spoke for a while on the challenges of starting a brewery and gave quite a few brewing and yeast management tips.

Handgrenades Homebrew and Craft Beer Club