Greenbelt Brewers Association

Yes folks it is time we had some GBA paraphernalia to wear around town… Sweatshirts, shirts, tasting glasses, you name it, we want it with a GBA logo.  The question is what should the logo be… what should it represent?  I will leave that up to you.  Here we have two logos to choose from in our 2010 logo poll.  Please go to this LINK to enter caste your vote.  If you have comments about the logo please add  them onto the brewchat logo thread.

Hop Logo

Barrel and Dude Logo

Hello Fellow Brewers,

Back in December when the club board met, we decided we would like to see at least a quarterly brew session where someone in the club sends out an invitation to have anyone from the club come over to check out their brew day… so here we are in March (wasn’t it just January?) and I am happy to announce the first beginner brew day will be at my house next Saturday, March 13, 2010.  I am an all grain brewer and a big believer of batch sparging; its a lot cheaper to create a system to accommodate this style of brewing, and arguably a lot easier.  If you are interested in coming over for a brew day to hang out, watch me brew, and drink some homebrew, come on over.  Please e-mail me directly at sanatar@gmail.com if you plan on coming over so I know how many people to expect.  I will send out my address and more info as the date gets closer, so be sure to e-mail me if you want to come.  I am not sure what I plan to brew yet, I got quite a few beers planned so who knows.  Hope you can make it.

Sincerely,
John Sanatar

Happy New Year Green Belters!

We have a lot of events coming up at the beginning of this year.

This months club meeting we hope to have Todd Ashman from 50/50 brewing in Truckee, CA.  We are still awaiting final confirmation.

There is also a stone brewery tasting at the grad on Jan 23rd at 2:30Pm. http://www.davisgrad.com/beer.html

The Brewing Network will host a winters brews festival in Oakland at the Linden street brewery on Jan 30rd at 1:00pm.  More details at http://www.thebrewingnetwork.com/ontap

Next month northern calafornia will be fortunate to have two big brew festivals:

The first is the San Francisco Beer Week from Feb 5-14.  More details can be found at http://www.sfbeerweek.org/

The second is Sacramento Beer week from Feb 22-28.  More details can be found at http://sacramentobeerweek.com/

Hope to see you all there!

Greenbelt brewers interviewed on DCTV!

Club president John Sanatar, VP Mike Matiasek and member John Alexander were recently interviewed by Davis Community TV at Davis media access as part of the “In the Studio” interview series. They fielded questions about the brewing process and the club in an interview that lasted 28 minutes. The program will air on the following dates and times on channel 15.
9:00PM to 9:28PM on Wednesday December 23rd, 2009
7:00PM to 7:28PM on Sunday December 27th, 2009
7:00PM to 7:28PM on Tuesday December 29th, 2009
9:30PM to 9:58PM on Wednesday December 30th, 2009

The Davis media access website will likely have a link available to stream the broadcast sometime after the 23rd here.  If not we will post it on the website.  Stay tuned!

Greenbelt Brewers Association: Meeting Minutes 11/17/09

Tasting at the Grad on September 25th from 6 to 8:30pm: Lagunitas Brewery

This one has been popular in the past so arrive early if you want the glass!

Also remember meeting location has changed from the grad to the Sudwerk mastery brewery program classroom.

Grad tasting:The next tasting at the Grad is coming up soon.  This next tasting will feature Green Flash brews on Friday September 4th at 6pm.  Be sure to get their early to ensure you get a free pint glass. http://www.davisgrad.com/events.html

Barrel Aged Project: The clubs first barrel aged project is coming together, we appear to have 9 brewers who will contribute a dark saison to the barrel for ageing during secondary fermentation.  If you are contributing, remember to have the beer brewed by no later than the weekend of Aug 29-30 so that we can rack into the barrel the following weekend.

New Meeting Location: It looks like from September onwards we will have our meetings at the Sudwerks Brewery Classroom. This is the same class room in which the master brewery courses, taught by UC extension, are performed.  So their will be great brewing vibes in the room : ).  Special thanks to the Grad for hosting the club over the past year, their beer selection will be missed.

NCHF: The northern california homebrew festival is the weekend of September 19th. There are as many as 10 GBAers who have indicated they will go. It is sure to be a great time. Planning for the event is going to start to move off the email list so that everyone is not spammed and or made more jealous that they cannot go.  So if you want to go and drink great beer and represent the club, get in touch with John.

Club Structure: We had a great discussion at the meeting last night about the future direction for the club. In general it appears most everyone is interested in a little more structure. The two main things that emerged are one, we need to nominate or “voluntell” a board of directors to help John with the goings on of the club and two, informal beer style presentations and competitions. The way this will work is at each meeting we will have a designated presenter who will present a BJCP style along with commercial examples for sensory calibration, then in two months we will follow up the style with a club competition of the style.  Should be fun!  If you have other suggestions or want to be more involved please get in touch with John.  In September we will start the club competition with Kolsch to determine which one we will enter at the NCHF that following weekend.

Quite a few things coming up in the next few weeks that I wanted to let everyone know about:  First up is the new happy hour at the grad!  Every beer on tap is $2.79 a pint from 11AM – 8 PM Monday through Friday.  The thought of having a Mirror Mirror or Pliny for $2.79 is amazing!  This is something we can also take advantage of at our meetings!  Which brings me to the next meeting, which is Tuesday June 16th at 6:30 pm at The Grad in Davis.  I will not be able to make it, but have a pint for me guys!

The rest of this update are events coming up in our area in the next few weeks.  First up is a Chouffe glass night at SacBrew:

“We will be pouring the beers of d’Achouffe on Wendesday June 10th starting at about 2:00 and going till close.

La Chouffe
Mc Chouffe
Houbblon Doubblen IPA

Tasting flights, full glasses as well as logo glassware as well for you to keep. As usual Chef Cres will put together some great food specials that night. Hope to see you there!!”

Following that is another tasting at SacBrew on Monday June 15th.  They are throwing a release party for Orange County’s newest brewery, The Bruery to kick off their beers being distributed to our area.  If you haven’t had any of their beers, you are missing out.  Their Saison Rue is do die for.

Also next week, The Grad is doing a Speakeasy tasting on Friday June 19th at 6:00 PM.  If you are into hoppy beers you will love Speakeasy! 

Finally, the National Homebrewers Conference is going on the weekend of the 20th in Oakland California.  It really pains me to have to miss this event, since who knows when it will be in CA again, but if anyone is going, have a great time!  See you guys in July!
Cheers!
John

May has been a great month for beer; lots of fests, tastings and other great events.  We have one more event coming up, the yearly Davis Beer Festival hosted at Sudwerk’s Brewery on Saturday May 30th.  It is located in the parking lot, under the overpass, so it’s never too hot!  The site for more information is http://citizenswhocare.us/Beer.html

Also, save the date for this years Northern California Homebrewers Festival!  I cant wait for our club to have a presence this year!  The dates are September 18 and 19, 2009.  I plan on taking off work on Friday and heading up before the Hoppy Hour and the Beer Dinner.  We should all get a big camp ground and have a blast.  For more info visit http://nchfinfo.org/

Last night I mentioned the possibility of a Club Summer Potluck BBQ, I don’t think I would be able to host such an event until July, so stay tuned for more information as July gets closer.

Cheers!
John

Hello everyone!

Sorry I haven’t been updating this as much as I should be, work and my personal life have been quite busy.  Our March club meeting is taking place March 30th at 6:30 PM at the Grad in Davis.  I have connected with some new homebrewers in the area, and I hope to have a good turnout at the meeting.

There are a few really cool events coming up in our area that I wanted to let everyone know about.  First is the 6th Annual Firkin Gravity Festival at Triple Rock Brewery in Berkeley.  Looks like they will have ales on cask from 20 different bay area breweries.  I plan to head down to Berkeley for some Cheese Board Pizza and great Cask Ales, I don’t think a Saturday afternoon could be any better than that!

On April 16, a really great movie Beer Wars is airing in theatres across the nation.  It is playing in quite a few theatres in Sacramento.  I plan to watch it in the theatre in the K Street Mall downtown Sacramento after a few pints at River City Brewing Company.  If anyone else plans to attend please let me know!  Check the link above for trailers!  I am so excited for this movie!

Finally, April 17th is the Lagunitas beer tasting at The Grad in Davis.   This event is NOT TO MISS!  I for one am just drooling thinking about a fresh keg of Hop Stoopid.

Cheers!

John