Recent Events
Sunday, February 28 saw the annual election/business meeting for the club merge with the 13th annual chili cook-off. Bob Norman’s El Diablo chili won a $30 Penzey’s gift card in the Red Chili with Beans category, while the open category featured an old favorite as its winner, Gera Exire LaTour’s famous Chili Verde. Gera went home with a gift card, and took Chief Chili Pepper with her for the fifth time in the past eight cook-offs, as the Chili Verde was the overall chili champ. For those who don’t know, Chief Chili Pepper is the traveling trophy for the cook-off.
In other, non-food voting, Brett Glenna stepped aside from the president’s post, and we send a hearty “thank you” to Brett for his excellent years of service to the club. John Longballa, who had been vice-president, was elected president, a position he held back in 2005-2006. Matt Wiede, whose board member at-large term was expiring, was elected vice-president. Gera Exire LaTour, who gave a detailed account of the club’s finances, was re-elected treasurer, while Dave Royer, who detailed the current state of memberships, was re-elected secretary. Chris Smith was re-elected to his board member at-large position, and Dave Matson was elected to fill the post vacated by Matt Weide. Paul Illa’s and Dan Dugan’s board member at-large positions were not up for election.
The meeting was graced by the presence of Wayne and Noah Marklowitz from RF Doering Hop Farm. They provided a presentation on the state of their newer farm and hop processing business, and fielded many questions from members.
The next meeting is the annual Homebrew Fest, Saturday, April 2nd at Northern Brewer Warehouse.
On Monday, January 25th, twenty folks gathered in the basement of St. Francis Church School, a block north of Shamrock’s in Saint Paul. A joke was made that the high score for the evening had to be the next club president, and soon folks were intentionally rolling gutter balls! Current president Brett Glenna even managed a gutter ball on a lane with Bumper Buddies (Gutter Guards), as his ball rode over the inflatable gutter-filler all the way down the lane! The homebrew was flowing, and a relaxed atmosphere pervaded the event, given that we were the only people allowed on the lanes that evening.
On Sunday, December 13th, MHBA had its annual holiday party at the CSPS Hall. This was a change from prior years by having it on a Sunday versus the traditional Friday. Many people responded that Sunday seems to be an easier option than trying to rush during Friday evening traffic. For that reason we will be having it again on a Sunday in 2016.
We were treated to a wonderful live band that played holiday music for all. A big thanks to John Lonballa for finding and securing the band. This event is generally a very large turnout for MHBA and this year didn’t disappoint. We had plenty of homebrewed beer, mead and cider to go around, along with a keg of Summit’s Oatmeal stout. As usual, we had a great selection of food and we are all reminded at the commonality of brewing and having great cooks. This years People’s Choice award goes to Matt Weide for his melomel and Rick Oftel for his chocolate cake dessert. In fact, these two winners made a great pairing!
If you weren’t able to make it to this year’s party, please consider it for 2016. It is a great opportunity to see the creativity of your fellow members along with visiting people that don’t often make it to many other monthly meetings. One of the greatest things that I’ve enjoyed being involved in the MHBA is the lifelong friends I have made over the years. Homebrewing or not there are some great people in this club.
Thanks to everyone who came out to celebrate Learn To Brew day with the MHBA and Barley John’s Brewpub! We had lots of fun giving away some fabulous prizes and sharing some fantastic homebrew! We had over 30 gallons of beer brewed, 500 gallons of cider distributed and countless bottles of homebrew shared. All-in-all it was another fantastic event!
Here’s a small collection of photos from the event. If you have some you would like to share, reply to this email or share them on our Facebook Group!
Thanks a ton to Andy Ruhland and the entire Bad Weather crew for hosting us for our October meeting!
On Saturday, October 17th the MHBA was invited to take over part of the brand new Bad Weather Brewing flagship brewery in St Paul. At Bad Weather the space was beautiful and the beers were fantastic. We had a chance to tour the facility and check out all the brand new shiny! After a behind the scenes tour we got to dig into a great collection of homebrew provided by members! Thanks everyone for bringing it out and sharing!
Sunday, September 13th, Midwest Supplies hosted MHBA’s September club meeting and the Iron Home Brew Competition. In this competition, the beers entered were not judged “to style,” but were judged on how well lime was used in harmony with the beer. This was a great opportunity for brewers to brew outside the box. Congratulations go to all the brewers who tackled this difficult ingredient. We had a panel of 3 judges taste all 8 beers and award the Iron Home Brewer trophy.
This year the trophy and a $50 Midwest gift certificate was awarded to a team of brewers: Scott Ode and Jim Bradburn for their Lime Pale Ale.
Best of Show: Scott Ode and Jim Bradburn for their Lime Pale Ale
People’s choice, along with a $50 gift certificate was awarded to another team: Megan and Ryan Hoveland for their Lime Wit.
People’s Choice: Megan and Ryan Hoveland for their Lime Wit
All the winners noted that they utilized lots of lime zest to perfect their beers.
Other participants included; John Kreimer (tied for 2nd), Nathan Steigman (tied for 2nd), John Vircks , John Longballa, Dave Royer, and Kevin Meintsma.
We also had many entries in the Brewers of Fame program, including all the lime contestants, who will receive credit in the fruit beer category. Others who received credit for sharing at least a six-pack, keg, or growler of a particular style were Kevin Meintsma for a cream ale and a barrel-aged robust porter, John Kreimer for an IPA, a cherry Belgian, and a RazBerry Rhubarb Ale, John Longballa for a cider, a bitter, and a brown ale, and Jon Hunter for a dunkleweizen. This has been a great opportunity for brewers to get some immediate feedback on beers, and a great opportunity to focus the meeting on one beer for a few minutes. If you have a beer and would like feedback, please feel free to bring it to meetings and enter it in the Brewers of Fame program.
A huge thank you goes to Midwest Supplies for allowing us to us their space and donating some of the prizes. The competition was the brainchild of Matt Weide, so thank you to Matt for putting the event together.
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Thanks to everyone who came out and helped us make this year’s Saint Paul Saints game awesome!
We weren’t sure what to expect but the new CHS Stadium was beautiful. The tailgating was very reasonable for a first season in a new location. Here’s to hoping it gets even better in the next few years!
Here are a collection of photos from the evening. Thanks to everyone who posted and shared their pics!
Photo by Matt Weide
Photo courtesy of Courtney Ives
Photo by Matt Weide
Photo by Audrey Royer
Photo by Audrey Royer
Photo by Audrey Royer
Photo courtesy of Courtney Ives
Photo courtesy of Courtney Ives
This past Saturday, we had over 50 people attend MHBA’s April club meeting and 6th Annual Home Brew Fest at the Northern Brewer Warehouse. We had 30 different types of home brewed beers, including 5 different single hop IPAs that the guys from Nordeast Brewers Alliance brought to share with us. There were 14 different meads and ciders.
Prizes for People’s Choice included $25 gift cards generously donated by Northern Brewer and two seats on an upcoming Pedal Pub mixer generously donated by Al Boyce. Brett Glenna was the winner of People’s Choice Beer with his German Alt with Chris Smith the runner up by only a few votes with his German Wheat. Al Boyce brought in 6 different meads including black current, orange blossom, wasabi, sorrel & ginger, chocolate strawberry, and black raspberry. His selections tied for People’s Choice Mead/Cider with Gera Exire LaTour’s tart cherry mead. (Al won the drawing, but since it took six of his meads to beat Gera’s one, he gave her the prizes.)
A huge thanks to all those who attended, and especially to Chris Smith for setting up the meeting, and to Northern Brewer for allowing us to use your space.
April 2015 Homebrew Fest – Photo by Brett Glenna
April 2015 Homebrew Fest – Photo by Brett Glenna
April 2015 Homebrew Fest – Photo by Brett Glenna
April 2015 Homebrew Fest – Photo by Brett Glenna
April 2015 Homebrew Fest – Photo by Brett Glenna
April 2015 Homebrew Fest – Photo by Chris Smith
April 2015 Homebrew Fest – Photo by Chris Smith
April 2015 Homebrew Fest – Photo by Chris Smith
This past Saturday the MHBA hosted it’s annual Chili Cookoff! We had an amazing collection of great chili present and amazingly, we have a new keeper of ‘Chief Chili Pepper’.
This year we gathered at Northeast Neighborhood Services in Minneapolis. They have a beautiful location and great staff that helped as needed.
We ended up with a great variety of chili to sample with tasty options in each of our 3 categories. In the end we had to award 2 honorable mentions as well as our main winners.
Without further delay, this year’s winners were…
Honorable Mention: Tim Burrman
Honorable Mention: Michael Gray
Best Chili Without Beans: Dan Dugan
Best Chili With Beans: Jon Nyberg
Best Other Chili: Gera Exire La Tour
People’s Choice, Best Chili Overall: Jon Nyberg
A huge thank-you goes out to Kevin and all the staff at Boom Island for letting us crash their taproom and being fantastic hosts. Thank-you as well to everyone who came out and joined us. It was lots of fun meeting new people as well as seeing lots of familiar faces!
A quick reminder to everyone that even though our Social Event at Boom Island has passed, you can still get a great discount at the taproom when you show your MHBA membership card. You will get happy-hour pricing all the time!
