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The
Impalement Post
The Official eVersion of the
Impaling Alers Newsletter
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Next
meeting: April 17th 7:30 pm March 2003 Issue By Brian (I'd increase the gravity) Thatcher
The Hopunion denim embroidered jacket will be raffled off at the April meeting. Get your $2 tickets at Larry's the next time you visit. All proceeds go towards the club funds. You do not need to be present to win. Buy early, buy often!
Greeting fellow Alers. How many of you are ready for Spring to get here? Well, it won't be too long, the hop shoots are just starting to nudge their way out of the ground and the beer festival calendar is starting to fill up. There will be no meeting this month! The plan to meet up at Manny's Brewery in Georgetown on the regular meeting day has also fallen through. It will be rescheduled at a later date. I will be in San Francisco the weekend of the 22nd for the Whiskeys of the World Expo. I hope to run into a couple of you the following weekend at the Hops on Equinox (see below). Stouts to be judged in April In April we are scheduled to judge homebrewed Stouts. If you have a stout of any sort (dry, sweet, oatmeal, foreign, or Imperial) don't forget to bring some in for the competition. The top three finishers receive points toward the Homebrewer of the Year award. At the last meeting we sampled commercial examples of stout. In the Dry Stout category we had Beamish Stout in the Nitro can. There were two Oatmeal Stouts, Young's and Samuel Smith's. We also had Guinness Extra Stout, which fits into the Foreign style. Finally we finished off with two Imperial Stouts, Samuel Smith's and one of my all time favorites, North Coast Old Rasputin. We also had the opportunity to sample some of John Navin's homebrewed stout and Bill Shockley's Oatmeal Stout. (From the Website
http://www.washingtonbrewfest.com/spring/index.html) So what makes the Hops on
Equinox celebration so unique? This year's Spring Beer Festival is a benefit for Northwest Folklife, a local not-for-profit organization. Northwest Folklife creates opportunities for individuals and communities of the Pacific Northwest to celebrate, share and sustain the vitality of folk, ethnic and traditional arts for present and future generations. Admission
National Homebrew Competition This is the first warning for the National Homebrew Competition. Entry for the regionals are due between April 9 - 18. The first round judging will take place from April 25 to May 4. The second round and awards will be June 19 - 21 at the AHA National Homebrewer's Conference in Chicago, IL.
For more information and entry
forms go to:
http://www.beertown.org/events/nhc/index.html Cascade Brewer's Guild promoting BJCP Exam The Cascade Brewer's Guild has tentatively set June 28th for the Beer Judge Certification Program Exam. The test will be at Bear Creek Brewing Co. in Redmond at 1:00. The club will be conducting a study group on Wednesdays at 7:00 pm for 12 weeks prior to the exam, starting in early April. The class will be administered by CBG club secretary Alan Hord and President Tom Schmidlin. The classes will involve discussion of study material and sampling of classic examples of beers. The cost of the classes will be to cover the cost of the sample beers and will be determined on the night of the class (cost of beer divided by number of participants, typically $7 to $15). Please reserve your spot in advance for the study sessions. For more information, go to the CBG website http://www.cascadebrewersguild.org/, or email Alan Hord at Alan@HordsOfFun.com. Thomas Hardy Lives! Famous vintage beer expected to
return to America in July "We were devastated, as were legions of Hardy's fans, when the brewery ceased production of this one-of-a-kind beer in 1999" said George Saxon, President of Phoenix Imports. "After much discussion with Eldridge Pope on options to resurrect the brand, we reached an agreement with them last September to purchase it, along with Royal Oak Pale Ale and Thomas Hardy Country Bitter." Saxon began working on plans to save the beer shortly after the Thomas Hardy Brewery, formerly Eldridge Pope & Co., discontinued production. The brewery's origins date back to the 1830s and it was run by the Pope family for more than 100 years before they sold it to focus on their growing pub chain. The former Pope beers will be brewed by O'Hanlon's Brewing Co. in Devon, not far from Dorchester (home of both Hardy and the former Pope Brewery) in the south of England. Reintroduction plans for Phoenix's brands have not yet been finalized for all countries, but Hardy's will be the first to return to the U.S., probably in August. Royal Oak and Thomas Hardy Country Bitter will follow. Initial brews of Hardy's are underway at O'Hanlon's, true to the original recipe and ingredients. "Fortunately, finding a top-notch brewer to brew the beers for us proved much easier than purchasing the brands," Saxon said. Coincidentally, we had just signed an agreement to import three award-winning, bottle conditioned beers from O'Hanlon's." Packaging will vary by country, but plans for America are focused on a 25cl (8.5 oz.) bottles. Labeling will hark back to the traditional style originally introduced to America by Phoenix in 1986, updated for the 21st century. Hardy's Ale was first brewed in 1968 at the request of the Thomas Hardy Society to mark the 40th anniversary of the author's death. Each vintage was blended from as many as six different brews and underwent three fermentations. Collector's have been known to pay outrageous amounts for bottles from the 1960s and in the hundreds of dollars for those from the 1980s. The O'Hanlon's beers are expected to be available to U.S. drinkers in the spring. They are Original Ruby Stout, Double Champion Wheat Beer and Original Rye Beer. Name that WalMart Wine BENTONVILLE, ARK (AP) -- Some Wal-Mart customers soon will be able to sample a new discount item, Wal-Mart's own brand of wine. The world's largest retail chain is teaming up with E&J Gallo Winery of Modesto, CA, to produce the spirits at an affordable price, in the $2-5 range. While wine connoisseurs may not be inclined to throw a bottle of Wal-Mart brand wine into their shopping carts, there is a market for cheap wine, said Kathy Micken, professor of marketing at Roger Williams University in Bristol, R.I. She said, "The right name is important." So, here we go with the top 12 suggested names for Wal-Mart Wine: 12. Château Traileur Parc And the number 1 name for Wal-Mart Wine... 1. Nasti Spumante Monthly Meeting Schedule Some of the events are tentative at this point and new ones may be added. There also seems to be a possibility of having a representative from Merchant du Vin at one of the meetings to talk and offer samples. We may also try to have one of the Ralph's from Hop Union over for a meeting.
Club Events Calendar
Upcoming Events
4th Annual Whiskeys of the World Expo, Saturday
March 22nd
1st annual Hops on Equinox, March 28th-29th
Spring Beer and Wine Fest, April 18th-19th
Washington Summer Microbrew Festival, June 14th-15th
Seattle International Beerfest, July 11th-13th
Oregon Brewers Festival, July 25th-27th
Great British Beer Festival, August 5th - 9th
Great American Beer Festival, September
25th-277th
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Hopunion Jacket Still up for Grabs!
Spring
Break!
