These are the people who will be organising events for you. If you have any suggestions, please contact any of the committee members.

Congratulations to Chris and Carol Guy on the arrival of their daughters Sam and Ann. You have all our support and some beer if needed (You probably wont get much time to brew during the next few months).

It seems that life is what happens when you are trying to do something constructive. Once again I have had the opportunity to gallivant around our sub continent. First up to Zimbabwe, back to Nisbets brewery and then on to Botswana – a quick wizz around to various mines, which left no time to get to the Kalagadi Brewery in Gaberone. From the outside it looks about the same size as Bavaria Brau. Next time my planning will be better.

Did you know the politically correct term with which to describe a female brewer is a Brewster.

Often in home brewing literature Pilsner Urquell is quoted as the bench mark Pilsner – The Czech term for Cheers is NA ZDRAVI (nasdravee).

The committee has been throwing a few ideas around about getting back to the basics of home brewing – brewing the best cheapest beer possible! Some of us have spent R’000 on upgrading our breweries to produce acceptable beers at the same time we have learnt an awful lot about the brewing process which could stand us in good stead to brew good cheap beer.

Some of the ideas that have been discussed are using ingredients such as sorghum malt and anchor yeast which is readily available in supermarkets, plastic buckets – no taps. A further challenge would be to develop a method to brew beer in a manner that does not need electricity enabling rural communities to empower themselves. The rules and judging guidelines will be published soon.

The library has just received a magnificent boost with the purchase of numerous excellent books – a list will appear in future a future issue of the news letter. Unfortunately many of the magazines have not been returned, and to loose some of the books would be a great tragedy we have therefore decided to charge R200.00 for a library card entitling the holder to take one book out the library. Only fully paid members will be issued with library cards. The R200.00 will be refunded if the holder surrenders his library card and no books are outstanding against his name.

Donald

‘CORNY’ KEG SERVICING

I recently did a bit of extra cleaning and servicing of my Cornellius type beer kegs. I dismantled the ‘IN’ and ‘OUT’ valves and gave then a thorough clean with an old tooth brush which is very handy for the springs and threads. I also took out the small pressure relief valve which also gets gunged up and is often forgotten. In order to get at the internal threads I had to saw the head of the tooth brush in half lengthways, but it worked great ( A brewer can always make a plan ). I replaced all the little rubber ‘O’ rings too. These are readily available from East Rand Seals in Edenvale ( Tel. 011 452 1253 ) and literally cost a few Rand for the whole lot. Just take along your old seals and they will measure them up exactly and provide replacements.

WATER TREATMENT

I came across a very useful article in the Brewing Techniques library of back issues. It is a very simple approach to brewing water treatment by Karl King and includes details of setting up a spread sheet that can calculate chemical additions you can make to your particular water in order to achieve a desired profile.

The basic article is under the BT web site back issues – issue 1.3, plus a formula correction under issue 1.4.

The spreadsheet is very simple to set up and then you simply enter the figures from your local water analysis and the desired profile figures ( It gives the figures for several major brewing cities ). You can then enter different combinations and quantities of the commonly available chemicals to best match the water you need for the style you want to brew.

Note: Effective Lab Supplies in Turfontein is one good source of additives.

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The committee has been throwing around a few ideas about holding our very own WHB Spring Beer Festival 2000. Although now it will probably become a Mid Summer Beer Festival – Mid-Summer Night, Summer Solstice Sacrifice?

It will probably be linked to this years competition with top beers being available to all attendees. Visit the web site for more information.

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This beer festival was held at St David’s Marist College Inanda over the week end of the 7^th and 8^th October. All the Namibia Breweries brands were represented. Although not all very well. The only Namibia Breweries beer on tap was Windhoek Draught. (Guinness and Kilkenny were also available in some tents on tap). Each brand had a tent, which I thought was a great idea to differentiate the brands with in a controlled environment. I also thought that the tent displaying the various brands would be supplying that brand on tap, alas not so. This gain proving that my marketing ideology, which is based on engineering principles holds no water.

However the beer was great the food was great, although the prices were rather steep, but then the local down the road does not have that same beer-fest atmosphere. This is something to keep in mind for our own beer fest.

All in all we had a great time Nikki could let her Germanic genes out to play and I enjoyed the beer.

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