Entry registration is now open for the Sour Times homebrew competition! Pull out your best SOUR, WILD, and FUNKY beers and get them registered at SourTimesNBA.com today! Space is limited to 100 entries in the European Sour, American Wild, and a couple Historical and Local styles. There were many great entries last time and we look forward to seeing what you are going to enter!

Cheers! 🍻🎖️

It was another full night at our latest meeting. We are grateful to have Two Track Malting dial into the meeting to talk about their processes and products along with a few beers brewed by members with Two Track Okefenokee Pale — an American Bitter, SMaSH Pale Ale, Rye IPA, and New Zealand Pilsner. They make amazing malt products, so keep an eye out — and ask you local retailer — about stocking some!

Here are some notes from the business portion of the meeting:

• The fundraiser for East Side Neighborhood Services closed out with $1150 raised and a matching $1000 check coming from the club. Thanks to everyone who supports ESNS!!
• We are cleaning up the Google Group used for the email list and club knowledge base access. If you have not yet paid your 2022 dues, please check that email and reach out to club leadership. Unpaid accounts will be removed from the Google Group soon.
• We had a couple in-person events recently
  • Taproom Takeover at Fat Pants in Eden Prairie. A number of members got together for a pint, a bite, and social hour. We will be at Waldmann in St. Paul the first week of May. Check out the Club Calendar for a full schedule.
  • The first bike ride was a success with stops at Wooden Ship, Steel Toe, and LynLake. Plans are being formed for potentially two rides in May: a longer ride west of the city and a ride into St. Paul for the Bad Weather Arcade Bay event. Fill up your tires and join the rides!
• A few members of the club will be at HomebrewCon in Pittsburgh in June. Say hello if you run us — and, more importantly, check out the education session on sour beer blending!
• With more events happening this year again, we are also thinking of some ideas for a field trip, potentially to Duluth for All Pints North, Fargo breweries, Schell’s Oktoberfest, or somewhere else around the region. Previous trips have been to Mighty Axe Hops, Schell’s, and Rahr Malting.
• The Sour Times competition is open for account registration with entries open through May and judging in the first half of June. Check out the competition site for more details.
• Planning for the 2022 Yeast Experiment is underway. Ideally we will find a way to brew ourselves or work with a brewery partner to create a batch of middle-of-the-road wort where different yeast strains will provide different results. We are targeting the beers to be shared at the July meeting as the experiment topic.

In closing, we would like to give a shout out to the Primary Fermenters homebrew club. They recently announced they are shutting down operations. The NBA has been lucky enough to partner with them for events like Brew For Good and they will surely be missed. We are lucky to have so many other clubs in the area including St. Paul Homebrew Club and Minnesota Home Brewers Association.

Cheers!

Our friends at Two Track Malting will dial into the monthly meeting on Thu Apr 21 7-9pm to talk about their operation and excellent malts. As a sponsor of the 2021 NBA Homebrew Competition, they donated a bag of their Okefenokee Pale that a few members used to brew a few malt-forward beers to showcase the grain and the differences in its application.

Stop by East Side Neighborhood Services for the monthly meeting and see what makes the difference in Two Track malts. See you there!

Starting in April, Nick M is planning club events for bicycle rides between local breweries. These will focus on social rides with slow, short trips between taprooms. The first ride is targeting April 9 or 16 with more trips planned throughout the summer.

All are welcome to join. Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter for more details as plans are finalized. Cheers!

Pull out your sour, wild, and funky beers and get them ready for the next edition of the NBA Sour Times competition. Entries open on May 1 with judging taking place in early June.

Styles Accepted – 2021 BJCP Style Guide

Updates will be posted to the club Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Good luck, brewers!

We are starting to plan some warm-weather events and activities, so read on to see what we have been up to and where we will be going this year!

• The fundraiser for East Side Neighborhood Services is continuing through the end of the month. Thank you to everyone who has donated so far! We are at $930 so far and the club will be matching up to $1000! ESNS, our home for many years, is a great organization and deserves the support to keep helping our community!
• Planning for the Sour Times Homebrew Competition of sour, wild, and funky beers has kicked off and we plan to make that happen in a few months. Keep an eye out on all the club channels for more news to enter your beers or to help judge!
• There is a spate of barrel transfers happening this spring. The barrel program is open to any active members and include both sour and whiskey barrels for some amazing beers!
  • The George Dickel Dark Sour barrel was transferred in February, creating excellent beer as always. It was refilled with more Dark Sour.
  • Next up will be one of the French Oak lambic-style barrels.
  • Our Rittenhouse Rye barrel will be transferring the Imperial Stout out in the next few months and another beer — style to be determined — will fill it up again.
  • HOBO — Honey Oak Barrel One — is due for transfer again in early Summer.
• The Communication Committee met recently to make sure we are focusing on the right channels and communication within the club and to partners and potential members. If anyone is interested in helping with that communication to manage social media or add blog posts to the website, please reach out to Jason B.
• We have some exciting education topics on the calendar. At each monthly meeting there is an education topic (styles, process, equipment, etc.) or an experiment (ingredients, process, variables, etc.) to help the club expand our knowledge and think about beer in new ways to improve what we make.
  • The March meeting landed on St. Patrick’s Day, so we focused on Irish beer styles. Brady and Richard each made and Irish Red. Jason, Jim, and Aaron each made an Irish Stout. We talked about Export/Extra Stout, but did not have an examples. It was a great discussion around these classic styles.
  • In April, we will have a guest speaker from Two Track Malting to talk about their products and process. A few members will be brewing malt-forward beers with their Okefenokee pale malt to share during that discussion.
  • Coming up in May, Jim I will discuss his process around recipe development, how and why he makes decisions for malt, hops, yeast, and water profile, and we will discuss how others approach this topic.
  • There are many other exciting education topics coming up this year, too!

All are welcome to join the club! Feel free to stop by a monthly Taproom Takeover social hour or monthly meeting if you are interested in learning more about the club before becoming a member. Active members are able to use the club equipment including a 30-gallon brew system, six-tap jockey box, a tools library, book library, and access to the club hive mind through the email distribution list and Discord server.

Follow us on this blog, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter for updates. The Club Calendar also shows our upcoming meetings and events. The club benefits everyone from new brewers starting a first batch to seasoned veterans looking to hone their skills and get feedback on new styles and techniques.

Cheers! 🍻

Next week is the monthly club meeting, which lands on St. Patrick’s Day! Let’s chat about Irish Beer styles and share our own recipes. All are welcome to join and learn about what makes Irish Red Ale, the difference between Dry Stout and Extra Stout, and how these beers compare!

Bring some tasting glasses and stop by East Side Neighborhood Services on Thu Mar 17 at 7pm to join in! Sláinte! 🍀

I, for one, am looking forward to warmer days and brewing outside again! How many more weeks did that groundhog say?

In the meantime, here are some highlights from this month’s club meeting:

• Membership renewal is due. Renewing (and new) members get a few bottles from the club solera. There will be a clean-up of the Google Group of inactive members coming in March/April, so please make sure your payment is in.
• Recent Events
  • Taproom Takeover at La Doña Cervecería — a good turnout with great beers!
  • Dickel Barrel Dark Sour transfer — keep an eye out for the new batch being shared at upcoming meetings and events!
• Upcoming Events
  • Taproom Takeover at Dangerous Man, Fat Pants, and Waldmann over the next couple months. Keep an eye on the Club Calendar for these social hours every First Thursday. All are welcome!
  • Club bike rides. Nick M is planning out some taproom rides potentially starting in April. Check out the thread in the Google Group emails to sign up!
  • Learn To Homebrew Day on Saturday, May 7. Nothing officially planned yet, but keep an eye out for likely a brew day with our friends at Midwest Supplies.
  • HomebrewCon in Pittsburgh on June 23-25. The NBA will surely have a contingent representing our great beers. Let’s meet up for a beer!
• Barrel update: We are refreshing the names/numbers of the barrels for better tracking. Surely they will continue making great beers. Keep an eye out for a couple coming due very soon for transfers:
  • #2 French Oak Lambic-style
  • #10 Rittenhouse Rye stout
• Upcoming Education: Every month we have an education and/or experiment topic including guest speakers, blind triangle tests, and hands-on equipment.
  • March: Irish Styles on St. Patrick’s Day. Please bring Irish-style homebrew to the meeting to go along with this education topic exploring a few styles!
  • April: Two Track Malting guest speaker and sample beers
• Beginner’s Corner: During the monthly meeting we make space for any questions that members may have — and no question is too simple!
  • Nick M asked what people are using for heat sources in fermentation chambers. A heat wrapper is not working well enough in his garage. The most popular answer from the club was a small ceramic heater. What do you use?
• New business: Anything new that needs to be addressed.
  • The club now has a Discord server for real-time chat between members! This is available to any current member.
  • The Craft Brewers Conference is in Minneapolis this year, May 2-5. This is for professional brewers and it is great to see our city getting some recognition!
  • The Northern Ale Stars put on their Terry Sarne Memorial Brew-Ha-Ha competition recently and a couple club members took home awards!
    • Aaron D won First and Third place in the Wild and Sour Beer category with NBA Flanders and NBA Kriek beers.
    • Jason B and Adrian S took home Second place in Light Belgian with a Turbid Saison collaboration from this past summer.
  • Jim I brought a few books from his library to share. We keep a spreadsheet available in the NBA Knowledge Base with myriad books for members to borrow from each other.

All are welcome to join the club! Please follow us on this blog, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter for updates. The Club Calendar also shows our upcoming meetings and events. The club benefits everyone from new brewers starting a first batch to seasoned veterans looking to hone their skills and get feedback on new styles and techniques. Feel free to drop by a Taproom Takeover social hour or stop by a meeting any time to check us out first.

Cheers! 🍻

This month at the monthly meeting Lallemand Brewing will be dialing in to talk about their new Farmhouse hybrid Saison-style yeast. This non-diastatic hybrid was selected through advanced breeding techniques to remove the STA-1 gene to brew outstanding Saison beers.

Members of the club received sachets of this yeast from the 2021 NBA Homebrew Competition sponsorship by our friends at Lallemand, so join the meeting and taste the difference in these batches.

Brewers of all levels are welcome to join the club! Check out a meeting or Taproom Takeover before joining. Watch the Club Calendar and Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter for updates about our meetings and events. Cheers!