The January meeting was held at the home of Carrie Yutzy, our very own WASH club Webmaster. The style of the month for January was Sours, and our club President Dan was kind enough to bring us a lovely selection of commercial sours to try!
Since it’s a new year, it’s time once again to elect officers for the club! The incumbents were all reelected, three cheers for them!
WASH Officers:
Dan Hakes – President
Bill Judson – Vice President
Raphael Lieberman – Treasurer
Carrie Yutzy – Webmaster
We talked about the SCHF (Southern California Homebrewer’s Festival). This is an awesome event. It’s held at Vail Lake Resort in Temecula, CA and will be on the weekend of May 5th through May 7th. Dan and Anne have a RV campsite reserved, which will have plenty of space for tents, right near the Pacific Gravity camp. If you’re interested in coming along, let Dan know!
More details about the festival can be found at http://www.calhomebrewers.org.
A special note about the event registration. You need to sign up for a California Home Brewer’s Association membership before you can purchase a ticket to the event. It’s $10, but you must be sure that the name on the membership matches the name on the account and the festival ticket. You can have only one membership per account. You must register separately if you wish to buy tickets for more than one person. It’s a touch convoluted, so please ask if there are questions.
Our sour tasting was delicious, and Dan was kind enough to fill us in on the history of the style. The style originated in Belgium. Since kitchens were commonly in basements in those days, the wort was boiled in the kitchen and then carried up to the attic to cool in large, open-air vats. As it cooled, it would pick up wild strains of yeast and bacteria, including lactobacillus, pediococcus and brettanomyces yeasts. These organisms secrete acids, which give the sour beer its trademark tart taste.
At the end of the meeting, we picked the location for the next Suds Search, and Bill was kind enough to offer his home for our February monthly meeting.
We are headed to FrogTown Brewery for our February Suds Search. Located in the Frog Town section of LA (duh!) they are a brewpub and a homebrew supply store. Their website has a list of 6 beers on tap. (Their Beers) They also fill growlers and we will be able to get a brewery tour. Additionally, they offer a 10% discount on grain for AHA Members.
We have been in contact with them and they welcome homebrew to share, so bring a bottle if you have something you want to sample.
Date: February 4th, 2017
Time: 5:00
Address: 2931 Gilroy Street Los Angeles CA 90039
Phone: (323) 452-BREW
Website: http://frogtownbrewery.com/
Our next club meeting will be at Bill Judson’s House, located at 1809 Westmoreland Blvd. It will be on Sunday, February 19th at 4:00 pm. The style of the month will be porters.
See you next Month!