Next meeting: FRIDAY February 15th, 7:00 pm - 10:30 pm
Start thinking about which club member you want to be Homebrewer of the Year. At this month's meeting we will be voting for your favorite brewer.

Febrewary 2002 Issue
Buy an Alers t-shirt!

By Brian (I'd increase the gravity) Thatcher

Greetings Alers!

I wanted to let everyone know where we are at for planning our next year of fun activities. The officers and myself have gotten together and hammered out a calendar of events and activities for the next year. Nancy has volunteered to make a calendar that we can take home and hang on your fridge or any place you like to keep track of upcoming events. We will also be posting the most current two months in each newsletter. So you can see any changes that are made. Also we will not be able to make some additions until later in the year.

I would also like to thank everyone that showed up to our last meeting we had a great turn out. I would like to remind everyone that our meeting hours are 7:00 pm to 10:30 pm. With everyone gathering at the table's between 7:30 pm to approximately 9:00 pm to talk beer and see if we can learn a little more about this great subject.

Please keep in mind that Larry, Betty, Heidi, and Terri all have to be at work at 9 am the next morning. So please respect that we will not able to have an all night drinking party and they may want to go home early and close up shop on us!

I would like to bring up another subject that I know absolutely nothing about. I would also like to apologize to all the wine, cider and mead makers about not planning anything or even bringing the subject up in our last meeting. What I am hoping to find is someone in our ranks that would love to help in organizing some activities for this subject. Personally I really don't know the difference between the different wines other that they are different colors and use different grapes. So maybe something like wine 101 is what we need to help out with understanding more about wine.

Well that is enough for now and I hope to see many more new faces at the next meeting.

Your Overlord - Duane (I can drink all that) Roush

A "Witty" Note from the Scribe

I brewed a Belgian Wit this past weekend that looks like it will turn out good. My efficiency was a bit better than calculated so my gravity is a few points higher than expected. Probably one of the smoothest brew sessions I've had in a while. Hit all my temperature rests right on the mark. I'm going to try my hand at brewing an Alt next and see how that goes.

Beer Style Brew-Off

At the January meeting it was proposed to have a beer style brew off every other month. The idea is to discuss a beer style at a meeting and then have members brew a beer in that style. At the next meeting, there would be a sampling of commercial examples of the selected style of beer. The following month we would judge the homebrewed beers in that style.

Your elected officers have come up with a schedule for the year listed below. We are also thinking about awarding points for the best brewers of each style and using the points to help decide Homebrewer of the Year next year. Let's have fun with this; I know I am looking forward to it.

The proposed schedule is as follows:

Club Events Calendar

We would like to set the club events calendar early this year so that everyone has plenty of time to plan for any events they would like to take part in. This will be a work in progress and will evolve as specific dates become firm.

Atlanta Co. Buys Wash. Brewing Co.
by LINDA ASHTON, Associated Press Writer

YAKIMA, Wash. (AP) - The central Washington pub where the founder liked to brag that he started the wave of modern microbreweries has been sold to an Atlanta corporation.

The Yakima Brewing and Malting Co., along with Grant's Brewpub, was sold Monday by Stimson Lane Vineyards & Estates in Woodinville to Black Bear Brewing. The purchase price was not disclosed.

"Yakima Brewing is going to be the cornerstone of our plans to assemble a network of breweries across the United States," Paul Brown, president of Black Bear, said Wednesday. Black Bear plans to continue producing and distributing Yakima Brewing's line of Bert Grant's specialty beers.

Yakima Brewing was founded in 1982 by an outspoken Scotsman named Bert Grant, who settled in Yakima, the heart of the nation's premier hops-growing region. He often railed against the bland, uniform taste of nationally distributed beers. Grant, who died last year at the age of 73, contended his pub was the first establishment in the country to brew and serve beer on the same site since Prohibition ended.

"Bert Grant was a true pioneer in the U.S. craft brewing industry," said Greg Tranum, executive vice president of Black Bear. ``We intend to restore the brand to the prominence it deserves.''

Last year, Yakima Brewing produced 10,000 barrels of beer available by bottle in cities across the country. The brewery employs 10 people and the pub about 40.

Stimson Lane, the state's largest wine company, purchased the brewing company and pub from Grant in 1995. Stimson Lane owns such wineries as Chateau Ste. Michelle, Columbia Crest and Snoqualmie. The wine company's new strategic plan calls for a complete focus on producing premium wines, so a decision was made to sell the beer division, he said.

In October, Black Bear acquired Woodstock Brewing co. in Kingston, N.Y., and will introduce the Woodstock line of beers to the western United States. Although brewpubs have been around for centuries, American ones were closed in the 1920s under Prohibition.

Study: Drinking Can Ward Off Dementia
By Emma Ross

Jan. 24, 2002 | LONDON (AP) -- A new study indicates that daily moderate consumption of alcohol, which has already been shown to help prevent heart disease and strokes, may also ward off Alzheimer's disease and other types of dementia.

The study, published this week in The Lancet medical journal, also found that it doesn't seem to matter what people drink -- the effect is the same. The finding adds to a growing body of evidence for the health benefits of moderate drinking.
Experts say moderation -- between one and three drinks a day -- is the key.

The adverse effect of excess alcohol is beyond question. Besides destroying the liver, several studies have shown that excessive drinking can be toxic to the brain. Alcoholics can end up with a shrunken brain, which is linked to dementia. There is even a medical condition called alcoholic dementia.

"For people who drink moderately, this is another indication that they are not doing any harm. And for those who don't, if they don't simply out of health concerns, they might want to rethink that position," said Meir Stampfer, professor of nutrition and epidemiology at Harvard School of Public Health, who was not involved in the study.

Scientists at Erasmus University in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, conducted a six-year study of 5,395 people aged 55 and over who did not have signs of dementia. They were asked whether they ever drank alcohol. Those who said yes were quizzed on how often they drank and details on their consumption of specific drinks such as wine, beer, spirits and fortified wine such as sherry and port. The men mostly drank beer and liquor, while women preferred wine and fortified wine.

The researchers also checked whether participants' drinking habits had changed over the preceding five years or whether they had engaged in binge drinking -- more than six drinks in one day. Everyone was categorized according to how much they drank. Four or more glasses of alcohol per day were considered heavy drinking.

By the end of the study in 1999, 197 of the participants had developed Alzheimer's or another form of dementia. Those who fared best were people who drank between one and three drinks a day. They had a 42 percent lower risk of developing dementia than the nondrinkers.

Those who weren't daily drinkers but had more than one drink per week had a 25 percent lower risk and those who drank less than a glass a week were 18 percent less likely than nondrinkers to develop dementia.

The number of heavy drinkers, who numbered 165 -- mostly men -- was insufficient to draw conclusions about any affect heavy drinking might have on dementia.

Recalculating all the figures for each type of alcohol separately, and comparing wine to other types of alcohol, yielded the same results. "This red wine thing is a myth. The evidence for it is meager," said Stampfer. "It happens that red wine, in most cultures, is more likely to be consumed in moderation than spirits or beer, so for that reason it can appear to be specially protective, but in fact, the type of beverage does not matter."

Researchers suggested the blood-thinning and cholesterol-lowering properties of ethanol in alcohol may ward off dementia, which is often caused by a blood vessel problem. Another possibility, the study speculated, is that low levels of alcohol could stimulate the release acetylcholine, a brain chemical believed to facilitate learning and memory.

I happened to find the following story humorous. I hope nobody is offended. For more Satan advice or more by the author go to http://www.brunching.com

Satan on Wine Tasting
by David Neilsen

Hi, I'm Satan, and I'd like to talk to you about wine tasting.
Kids, a trip to Wine Country can be a wonderful vacation , filled with the great outdoors, good friends, bottles of wine and countless opportunities to sin and damn your soul to Hell.

The cornerstone of any Wine Country getaway is to go wine tasting. If you're like me, the only thing you'd rather do than spend a day hopping from one winery to the next is to drag your toenails through the rotting flesh of the damned while gorging yourself on their viscera. Yes, wine tasting is a truly special event.

The first thing to think about when going wine tasting is, of course, how to do it responsibly. Not everyone can wallow in sin while drunk on the vines of blessed vice. Someone has to drive, and that person should bring a soda, bottle of water or other refreshing liquid to ensure a safe trip for all. Remember, drinking and driving will kill you, and no one wants to become an unidentifiable mass of former humanity smeared along a winding road just because somebody didn't know when to say when. So pick a designated driver, or you'll be tempting fate, tempting the cops, and doomed to Hell for all eternity.

But enough of that, let's drink!

When you first arrive at your winery of choice, you will be able to sample their latest vintages. But don't just reach for the deep Cabs or Merlots. Start with the lightest wine, such as a Sauvignon Blanc or Pinot Grigio before advancing to reds such as a Sangiovese or Pinot Noir. The whites will freshen your palate, ease you into this most luxurious sport, and are just as good at dooming you to an afterlife of misery, suffering and pain as the heavier vintages.

Most wineries will pour a pinch of their wares into a glass etched with their logo. The logo is there to help remind you of your visit, and to keep them in your minds when you are at the store, selecting wine from all available. When I hold wine tasting events in Hell, I hand out glasses etched with such things as a ruptured spleen, severed head, or an image of five demons from the outer circles clawing their way through the skull of a poor soul, frozen in mid-scream as his brains are churned into so much silly putty. I want people to think of me when they drink.

Ready to begin?

First swirl the wine around the glass and notice the legs. Is this just a thin watery excuse for a wine that deserves to be sold in a box? Or does it cling to the sides and drip slowly down, showing the world that here is liquid refreshment worthy of imbibing? A wine with good legs will be pleasant to drink, and will leave you feeling happy, upbeat and open to sin. A wine with bad legs will taste off, be completely dissatisfying, and is a certain gateway to an eternity within the bowels of a fetid creature of nightmare where you will spend all of existence among a sauce of foul dung and putrid gore, with only the sound of a never-ending inhuman wail to keep you company for all time.

Now smell the wine. Is it fruity? Sweet? Bold? You can tell a lot about a wine from the scent. For example, most of my wines give off the faintest odor of human suffering, masked with an ever-present scent of bile and filth. One whiff peels the skin from your inner nasal passages, causing blood to flow freely backwards down your sinuses into your brain, where the constant building pressure can only be released by causing your head to explode into a shower of bone, brain and blood. But then, my wines are special.

You've looked at the legs, sniffed the bouquet, now it's down the hatch! At most wineries, you'll be given enough for a few sips, a chance to truly sample the wine. Take some in and roll it around in your mouth, let it hit all of your taste buds. Explore the experience. In Hell you don't often have this luxury, as more often than not, a ten-inch steel pipe is rammed down your throat and a hose of liquid fire is shot into your body, scalding your internal organs and causing numerous blisters to form on your insides, causing you to wretch about, still impaled on the end of the steel pipe as your physical structure turns into a mass of goo from the inside out. But each winery has its own method.

Hopefully, at the end of this wonderful experience, you have found a wine worth savoring, worth collecting, worth buying. Be sure to keep your newly-acquired treasures in a cool place, away from direct light. You wouldn't want your wines to go bad, as that is a waste of valuable wine and a sure-fire ticket into the depths of Hell and eternal damnation.

I'm Satan, see ya later!

Toronado Barley Wine Festival, February 16-23
Toronado Pub, 547 Haight, San Francisco, CA.
www.toronado.com

6th Annual Elysian Winter Beer Festival, Saturday February 23
Elysian Brewing Company, 1221 E Pike St, Seattle.
www.elysianbrewing.com

Real Ale Festival, Chicago, February 28-March 2
To be held at Goose Island, Wrigleyville, 3535 North Clark Street, Chicago.
www.realalefestival.com

3rd Annual Whiskeys of the World Expo, San Francisco, March 16
Enjoy and evening of tasting and nosing over 300 of the world's finest single malts, boutique bourbons and specialty spirits.
The Hotel Nikko, 222 Mason St., San Francisco, CA.
www.celticmalts.com
This one comes with a special recommendation from me. This will be my third year attending this and have really enjoyed myself in the past.

Oregon Spring Beer Festival, Portland April 19-21
Portland Expo Center, Hall D; N Marine Drive. www.springbeerfest.com
Fri - 4 -11, Sat - 12 -11, Sun - 12 -6.

Washington Summer Microbrew Festival, June 15-16
St. Edward State Park, Kenmore. www.washingtonbrewfest.com

Oregon Brewers Festival, Portland, July 26-28
Tom McCall Waterfront Park, Portland. www.oregonbrewfest.com

Great British Beer Festival, August 6-10
Olympia, London. www.gbbf.org

Fremont Oktoberfest, September 20-22
Under the bridge in Fremont, www.washingtonbrewfest.com

Great American Beer Festival, October 3-5
Colorado Convention Center, Denver, CO. www.beertown.org