National Homebrewers Conference Check In

[JimPotts]

Here are some preview pics for the three local brewery logos, courtesy of my brother's photoshop skills.

[JimPotts]

He's not actually done with the "Vagrant" one. He's going to have the chicken fallen over, and change it to "Belching Tradition."

[Steven P]

Nice! I still.need a tank 6 3/4 if anyone has the time

[Matt F]

Awesome!

[tony b]

Nice! I still.need a tank 6 3/4 if anyone has the time

I'm on it. What's the ABV?

Still need the ABVs for the following beers: Randy's BiCentennial IPA, Lee's Terminator Bock, and JIm F's James' Brown Ale.

[Steven P]

I'm at 7.3%

[tony b]

I have a brown ale to go (no name, yet) - it should be an american brown clean flavor with lots of nuttiness.
Also have an 'Apple iPA' going. It's a ~4%, ~30IBU pale ale with all additions after 20 minutes (simco, centennial and amarillo). I may even spike it with cider!

How about "Apple of My Eye PA"??

Since Jim F has taken the "James Brown" name for his Am Brown Ale, we'll have to come up with something else for yours. Unfortunately, the first thing that popped into my sick mind was the old sketch from "Kentucky Fried Movie" for Brown 25 from Uranus Corp.

[whitedj]

Good old brown 25. Or it could be a knockoff of a rogue hazelnut nectar possibly with an x-men spin. Have also thought about ripping off the NAACP.

[tony b]

Steven, see if this works for you. Sorry, it's in WORD, but when I try to convert it to an Adobe pdf, it can't do this font, so it makes a lame substitution. It prints hardcopy just fine.

Steven's Tank 6 3-4 Farmhouse.docx

(126.33 KiB) Downloaded 33 times

Here's Tim's 2, with the template add-ons.

Tim's NHC Beer Posters.docx

(285.4 KiB) Downloaded 28 times

[Shane]

I have 2 ideas.
1) Round or square Hunter's Specialties logo with hunter sitting at beach with harpoon at side for Harpoon Ale.
2) Round logo with outer rim stating Summer Bullet. Harpoon crossing either a shotgun or rifle.

Still searching for a decent quality logo to start. HS has low res logos on their site. Maybe at a national sporting goods store would have a better one.

Just racked to secondary. Right at 5%. Will dry hop as recipe calls for, once Mittelfruh leafs arrive Thur or Fri. I don't like dry hopping with pellets and couldn't find Vanguard leaf this time of year. Oh well. Trading from daughter triploid to mother Noble. Can't go too wrong.
My photoshop skills are rusty for clearing the logo rim, but otherwise I could set it up.
See you guys at the tech meeting Wednesday.

[Shane]

May need some help on clarity during secondary. Had twice the yeast and lots of trub and cloud. I even let it rest an hour before racking and held the cane above the bottom. Saved 5 gallons from the original 6. But I do have another 2 gallon pail with more. I have read sometimes dry hopping reduces clarity as well. Definitely yellow. A bit like a Czech so far. Never had Harpoon Summer Ale to know the goal.

[Matt F]

For any beer I want to clear up I just chuck the carboy in my fridge and cold crash until clear. Then rack above the sediment. Is very effective for dry hopping with pellets. Not sure with leaf.

[tony b]

Dan, here's a poster for your "Apple of my EyePA." Just need to fill in the ABV. If you don't like green eyes, I have the same in blue or brown.

Dan's Apple IPA.pdf

(54.93 KiB) Downloaded 40 times

[Matt F]

Just us and MUGZ are the only homebrew clubs pouring from Iowa. We are in booth 50# and MUGZ right by us in #51. Cool.

[tony b]

That's awesome!!!

Noticed that there are a LOT of homebrew clubs in Grand Rapids. My favorite name - The Big Lebrewskis !

Here's the link to the setup "rules" for Club Night, and there are a shit-ton of them!!! - http://www.ahaconference.org/events/clu ... uidelines/ We obviously need to get together and go over all this stuff ASAP!

Here's some highlights - "Clubs are no longer allowed to bring in food samples for Club Night." So there goes that idea, but in the end, it's less work for us, too.

"New for 2014
Clubs will NOT be able to load-out their Club Night booth on Friday, the night of Club Night. This means clubs are expected to load-out large items for their booth, requiring use of the loading dock, on Saturday morning. Clubs will not have access to the dock on Friday, the day of Club Night. Friday’s tear-down times should be used for removing smaller items from your booth and untapping kegs." So, after a big night of hard drinking, we have to be there by 8am to have access to the loading dock to take out the bar and we have to be done by 10am.

Also, "Please note: Each club is limited to a MAXIMUM of 20 beers in the AHA cellar. You may bring more kegs, but only 20 can go into the cellar." Right now by my count - we have 17 beers (Looking for 3 more to fill out the bar - twice).

"Once beer leaves the cellar, it becomes the responsibility of the owner and cannot be stored back in the cellar." So, once Club Night is over, we have to deal with all of our kegs.

Plus, the kegs all need to have this special tag on them - http://www.grogtag.com/nhc. BUT, according to the NHC page, we missed the cut-off date (May 24th), but I did it on their website anyway. If it doesn't come by next week, I'll have to hand make one. Here's what they said,

"If for some reason you have not filled out the system by Saturday, May 24, you will need to get blank labels onsite at DeVos Place in Grand Rapids. If your kegs do not come pre-labeled, this will delay dropping off beers at the conference.
•No unlabeled kegs can go directly to the dock. Any homebrew delivery not appropriately labeled will be asked to come back once the appropriate tags are on your beer!
•You must go to the conference registration counter to receive your labels, fill them out, tape over them so they don’t smear, and then finally take your kegs back to the dock."

No wonder folks don't sign up for Club Night!!!