Spruce Tips Are Poppin Out!

 It's that time of year again when the spruce tips pop out from the ends of the branches, so make a spruce tip beer.

Spruce tips have been used in the brewing process for hundreds of years. In fact, they were one of the main additions in beer before people learned about brewing with hops! Spruce tips add a fresh, bright aroma. The fresh, tender tips have a mellow pine scent and a crisp flavor.

 Alcoholic spruce beer was common in the colonial United States and eastern Canada. The Daily Order for the Highland Regiment in North America (early to mid 1800’s) stipulated that: "Spruce beer is to be brewed for the health and conveniency of the troops which will be served at prime cost. Each gallon will cost nearly three coppers."
 Harvest some tips soon and give this recipe a try or experiment on your own. Spruce tips work nicely with ambers and browns also. Cheers!

Spruce Tip Pale Ale
(5 Gallons)
8 lbs Pale Malt (2 Row)
1 lb Munich Malt – 10L (Great Western)
.50 lb Carapils
2 lb Caramel / Crystal Malt – 60L
1 oz New Zealand Hallertauer (8.5% - 60 minutes)
.50 oz Cascade (8.6% - 20 minutes)
4 to 8 oz Spruce Tips (15 minutes - less for subtle flavor, more for strong flavor)
1 tsp Irish Moss (15 minutes)
1 oz New Zealand Hallertauer (8.5% - 5 minutes)
American Ale Yeast
 Mash crushed grains at 152 degrees for one hour. Bring to a boil and start hop additions. Cool wort in a fermenter and pitch yeast. Rack to secondary after primary fermentation has slowed (usually 3-5 days). Condition in secondary for two weeks before bottling or kegging.

Grand Rapids Wins Beer City Title Outright!

 Again Grand Rapids wins the Beer City title with 27,005 votes!  Kalamazoo was a distant second with 11,150 votes and Asheville NC, last years co-winner, received 10,075.
 Thank you for voting, now have a beer.

Brewer's Workshop

Brewer's Workshop is a software tool intended to assist the home brewer in recipe design and record keeping. With all the BJCP beer styles built in, Brewer's Workshop can help with recipe design to ensure you are on the mark for the style of beer you are after. Brewer's Workshop has nicely formatted Email and print functions to document what you have brewed. Read more at their site. brewers-workshop

Founders Expansion With Beer Garden

 Founders Brewing Co. broke ground on a large-scale taproom expansion project on April 1 that will expand the taproom and add a second floor.
In place of the Grandville Ave. parking spots, Founders is building a 3,975-square-foot partially-covered beer garden that will feature multi-level seating, an outdoor bar and a fireplace. The taproom expansion is the second phase of the brewery’s $26 million overall brewery expansion project that will create approximately 50 new jobs and increase annual production capacity to 340,000 barrels of beer.  Also, the second phase construction will add an educational facility for beer tourists, additional offices, an enlarged deli kitchen and company store. Construction should be completed fall of 2013.
 The taproom will stay open during construction and the current layout will remain unchanged except for the restroom and company store areas.

Mobile Beer Canning Truck In Michigan

 Two Western Michigan University graduates are launching Michigan Mobile Canning, the state’s first mobile canning line. They have invested more than $160,000 to replicate what is a successful business in Colorado.  The Wild Goose Canning Technologies MC-250 modified system will be housed in a 16-foot box truck, with custom-made, sleeve-wrap labeled cans designed to can beers. Their aim will be to arrive when a brewery is ready to distribute beer, fill the cans under the brewer's direct supervision and then leave. The line will be able fill 2 to 2.5 million cans a year (approx.7,500 to 8,500 barrels).
 The MMC are aiming to help small breweries who have never packaged before by helping to package for the first time, and help them get into the retail setting by going  state-wide rather quickly.  Many craft brewers have been seeing the benefits of cans, there’s less packaging weight and it stacks better for storage.
 Michigan Mobile Canning's first client will be Right Brain Brewery in Traverse City, with more in line for the summer. The pricing will be pay-as-you go for interested brewers.
 The first truck will be on the road in Michigan by June and they hope to expand to two trucks by 2014.
Michigan Mobile Canning  www.michiganmobilecanning.com

Zeeland's first brewery: Tripelroot To Open Spring of 2014

 Nate and Laura Gentry have started renovation in downtown Zeeland changing the old 5/3 building into a restaurant and brewpub called Tripel Root. The couple bought the building at 146 E. Main St. in February and have successfully convinced Zeeland city leaders to allow take-out alcohol sales at full-service restaurants. The building's last tenant was a Fifth Third bank branch, in the 2,400-square-foot building which started out in the late 1800s as M.C. Ver Hage hardware store. The new decor will include hardwood flooring and an outdoor German-style beer garden on what was once a bank drive-through. Laura says “We want to be local and environmentally friendly, with kind of an earthy feel and the historic pieces of the building highlighted”. They are still raising money for what’s estimated to be an $800,000 project.
 Nate Gentry, a homebrewer of ten years, says Tripel Root plans to brew on a 7-barrel system, with three fermenters and three serving tanks. The company is seeking a Class C liquor license that
would allow for guest taps, wine and liquor. The planned food menu will feature stone-baked pizza-like flatbreads. Gentry said Tripel Root is planning ales at two tiers of beer strength with many different options. A Belgian-style tripel ale will likely be a mainstay.

Beer Releases Coming...

 Here are some releases to look forward to in our near future.

•March 27: Clementine Lemon Thyme, Liberty Street Brewing
•April 1: Bloody Red Ale, Schmohz Brewery
•April 1: KBS , Founders Brewing Company
•April 5: Hopsun, B.O.B.’s Brewery
•April 11: El Mole Ocho, New Holland Brewery
•April 14: Doom, Founders Brewing Company
•April 16: Zaison, Brewery Vivant
•April 20: Episode 13: B. Nektar Strikes Back, B. Nektar Meadery
•May 5: Big Red Coq, Brewery Vivant
•TBA: Archangel, North Peak Brewing Company
•TBA: Double Trouble, Founders Brewing Company
•TBA: Oat Pale, Mitten Brewing Company

Dry Hop Flavor Experiment...with Bud Light?

Dry Hopped Bud Light
 No, your eyes aren't deceiving you; I'm dry hopping Bud Light today. I borrowed this idea from one of the brewers at Anchor Brewing. He mentioned on a Brewing Network interview that this is his favorite way to see the differences between different hop varieties. They just buy a 12er of Bud Light, pop the caps, drop in a few pellets, and then taste the differences. It sounded like a great idea to me, so here we go!

There isn't too much to talk about in terms of a 'how-to'. Label and sanitize your caps, pop the caps, drop in some pellets, and re-cap. It's a pretty straight forward process. I keep all my hops in mason jars, so it's a pretty simple process for me to open a jar, steal a few pellets, and seal it back up with the foodsaver. The only real question was how many pellets to add to each bottle...
  click here for the entire story

Siciliano's HB Competition Update

 by Greg Johnson  sicilianosmkt.blogspot
Several weeks ago, when we announced the 10th Annual Siciliano's Homebrew Competition, we linked  to two pdf documents—a contest entry form and a form with bottle labels. Please note that we have since decided to move the registration process online.
 This year, thanks to our friend Dan Frechette from the Kuhnhenn Guild of Brewer's (KGB), we will be using the Beers To Fear online software for entry registration. We will begin accepting entries on Monday, March 25th and will stop on Sunday, April 14th, or once we've reached a total of 250 entries (more on this below). More information about the online entry format will be detailed as we near March 25th, including the website URL, directions on how to enter your beer, and label printing, which this website will fully facilitate.

The contest this year will be capped at 250 entries, with one entry per person, so that the judging load remains manageable. If we were to allow more than 250 entries, the amount of time we would need to judge the beers would increase significantly. Increased judging time means asking our volunteer judges and stewards to take more time out of their weekends than they already so graciously give us. So to help provide the best experience for our judges and ultimately provide the best possible feedback for our participants, we have chosen to keep the competition on the smaller side. There are other, larger competitions in the state that we help sponsor throughout the year for anyone looking to receive more feedback on their beer, namely the Michigan Beer Cup and Homebrew at the World Expo of Beers.

Important points for the 10th Annual Homebrew Competition:

1 entry per person
250 entry cap (NEW!)
Entries accepted March 25th – April 14th (or until 250 entries is reached)
$5 per entry, cash or check only
BJCP Style Guidelines for categories 1-23 will be used
Beer submission & bottle label printing will be web based (NEW!)
Good luck to all who enter!

Siciliano's AHA Big Brew Update

 By Steve Siciliano sicilianosmkt.blogspot
On Saturday, May 4th, the Calder Plaza in downtown Grand Rapids will be the site of what is shaping up to be one of the largest American Homebrewers Association Big Brew events in the sixteen year history of the nationwide celebration. As the sponsor for this particular event, Siciliano’s Market will be donating and providing the following:

The ingredients for forty-eight all-grain batches of “Beer City IPA”
Bottled water for brewing
A chilling station capable of simultaneously chilling six kettles of wort
Platform hand carts for moving brewing equipment to and from vehicles and for transporting kettles of hot wort to the chilling station.
We are now asking those who wish to participate in this event to complete a sign-up sheet at Siciliano's Market. If you cannot get to the store, we ask that you contact us (steve@sicilianosmkt.com) with the following information:

Whether you would like to brew one of the forty-eight batches with your own equipment (mash/lauter tuns, propane burners, kettles, etc.) and thus be designated as the captain of a “brewing team”
Whether you would like to brew but are unwilling or unable to transport your equipment to the event. In this case you will be assigned to a brewing team
Whether you would like to participate as a member of a specific brewing team and if so indicate the name of the captain you would like to brew with
Whether you would like to participate as a volunteer helper
While we will do our best to accommodate everyone who would like to brew, it should be noted that the number of batches and the number of spots per team are limited. Please indicate if you are willing to participate as a volunteer helper if all the brewing spots have been filled.

We will be able to consume homebrew within the designated area of the venue. However, please note there will be no kegging systems allowed; bottles and growlers only. This event will be open to the public and we will be allowed to offer tastings to anyone wearing a wristband. (ID’s will be checked at the gate.) Siciliano’s will be providing the tasting cups as well as educational literature on homebrewing.

The Big Brew at the Calder will be a great way of showing the area, the state and the country what a vibrant homebrewing community there is in west Michigan. We feel that this highly visible event will generate a good deal of buzz as we will be inviting the mayor and the city commissioners and will be sending out press releases to the local media. The Great American Beer Trail will also be filming at the event.

We ask that you join us in making The Big Brew at the Calder a huge success.

Great Lakes International Cider & Perry Competition

 The Great Lakes Cider & Perry Association is pleased to announce their annual “Call for Entries” for the Great Lakes International Cider & Perry Competition (GLINTCAP), to be held on March 23rd & 24th, 2013. Online entry registration will open on February 22, 2013 and close on March 11.
 greatlakescider_2013

Rare Beers Stolen In Boulder CO - Man Arrested

9newscom - Police arrested 26-year-old Adam James Dickinson in Fort Collins Thursday after thousands of dollars worth of rare and vintage beers were reported stolen from Avery Brewing Company in Boulder.

Dickinson was a former employee of the brewing company from March 2012 until October 2012, when he was terminated.
 The thefts were first reported in mid-October of 2012 and police have been investigating since that time.
 A manager at Avery Brewing suspected that Dickinson was responsible for the thefts of the rare beers, which totaled more than $15,000.
Some of the bottled beer was worth $200-to-$300 per bottle. More than 570 bottles were recovered during a search warrant executed at the suspect's home in Fort Collins, and included several cases of Isabelle Proximus beer ($200/bottle); bottles of Duck Duck Gooze beer ($100/bottle); bottles of Rogue Old Crustacean beer ($100/bottle) and one bottle of 2001 Rogue Old Crustacean Barley Wine ($100/bottle). Other beers recovered separately as evidence had been given to Dickinson's new employer as a gift, and included very rare bottles of Black Tot Barrel-Aged Imperial Oatmeal Stout ($300/bottle) and Sui Generis Barrel-Aged Sour Ale ($300/bottle).
 Police say Dickinson had sold some of the stolen beer on eBay and had also offered some stolen bottles to a new employer, who cooperated with the investigation.
Dickinson is being held at the Larimer County Detention Center. Bail has been set at $5,000

Steve Berthel Joins New Holland

 New Holland Brewing Co.has announced that brewer, Steve Berthel has joined the New Holland crew. He is joining the team as Head Pub Brewer and will oversee the specialty beers brewed at the Pub.

 Berthel (or “Bert”) is an established Michigan brewmaster whose career started back in 1997 as head brewer at Kraftbrau in Kalamazoo, MI. In 2005, he took a leap of faith with his business partner and opened a new brewery – The Livery in Benton Harbor. The Livery was built in a 100-year-old former horse stable and carriage shop and has become a well-respected brewery in the state. Bert is also a member of the Board of Directors for the Michigan Brewers Guild.
“The same creativity and imagination that goes into renovating a hundred-year-old horse stable into a thriving brewery – also goes into Bert’s remarkable brews,” says New Holland president, Brett VanderKamp. “We’ve known Bert for years and respect the passion he brings to the brewing community.”
“I’ve always respected the vision and integrity of New Holland,” say Berthel. “Brewing is a labor of love for me and it’s an honor to put my talent and energy into a company like this one.”

Proposed Renovations for New Holland Brewing Co

 New Holland Brewing Co. is planning a $1 million renovation at the downtown Holland brewpub.  Improvements included are the tap system,  expanding a rear porch space into a beer garden, renovating the kitchen and updating the restrooms.
 The expanded kitchen means that more entrees will be made from scratch while having a lunch and dinner menu. The tap handles increase from 28 to 42 that will help cut down the wait for beer. In the rear of the pub,  7 parking spots will make way for the porch expansion into a beer garden with seating for 100 people, up from a current capacity of 50. There will also be a new outdoor bar and music stage. Two new family restrooms will also be installed near the rear entrance. The plans projected completion is for May 1st.
 New Holland is also planning a pub crawl on Saturday, Feb 16 celebrating the re-release of the brewery’s first beer, Paleooza,  now made entirely with Michigan-grown Cascade hops.

Possible Tax Break In Store For Small Breweries

 A new bill introduced by The House of Representatives this week offers brewers who produce 6 million or fewer barrels a year would pay $3.50 per barrel on their first 60,000 barrels, $16 for each barrel between 60,001 and 2 million, and $18 for every barrel thereafter. 

 The current federal law states that brewers who produce fewer than 2 million barrels of beer per year pay tax of $7 a barrel on their first 60,000 barrels and $18 a barrel on every barrel thereafter.

Make a stir starter

 Increasing yeast volume is a good reason for growing a yeast starter. Although your yeast volume will increase dramatically, the main reason for growing a starter is so that you can pitch actively growing yeast into your wort and have active fermentation quickly. There are many advantages for making a yeast starter, your wort will begin fermenting much quicker, thus leaving less chance for infection. You will also find that you produce a cleaner, higher quality product. That all being said, here is an inexpensive way to make a stir starter that will aid in yeast growth.
  DO NOT WORK ON LIVE CIRCUITS. Your power supply should not be plugged in until you have completed the construction of this SPECIFIC build CORRECTLY. Electricity can kill, regardless of the voltage applied.
 All in all parts should cost about $20.
-I used a 6 volt Cell Phone charger as my power supply. Just about any one should work in the 5-12 volt DC range. (They are all DC current)
-4 inch computer fan.  (12 volts DC for example)
-Hard drive magnets. You can also buy rare earth magnets online from a number of vendors. Neodymium magnets are cheap retail if you can't find an old hard drive to scrap.
- 2 inch diameter steel washer.
- Some scrap wire will be helpful, however we'll only need about a foot of black and red wire.
  The following items are from Radio Shack:
7" x 5" x 3" Project Enclosure: Part Number 270-1807
25 ohm 3 watt Rheostat (aka Potentiometer): Part number 271-265
12 Volt DC/30Amp Rocker Switch with LED - Part Number 275-018
Silver Tone Knob - Part Number 274-424
  If you aren't soldering savy, you'll also need to buy:
1/4" Fully Insulated Quick Disconnects (10-Pack) - Part Number 64-4040

  Bolts and nuts from the hardware store are (4) 2.5 inch 10/32 bolts), 12 10/32 nuts, and 4 washers to fit the 10/32 bolts.

 The most important part of all of this is using the steel washer. By gluing the washer to the fan, you are adding magnetic point for your magnet to stick to without gluing it. This will allow you to fine tune the plate before gluing down your magnet (They won't come off very easily once glued) Also, if you decide that you want to use a larger or smaller stir bar, you can add or remove magnets and center them correctly without having to scrap your fan.
Drill holes and mount the potentiometer. Mount them up using the enclosed hardware that came with both of them. Also drill a hole on the bottom corner of the enclosure to run the power supply out of the box.

 Wiring-
Get your Black and Red computer fan wires stripped. If you aren't soldering, put a female quick disconnect onto the Red wire.
 Next, cut off the power supply “phone” side and try to keep the power cord going to the wall socket as long as possible in case you make a mistake. Some phone chargers will have two wires, while others I've found have a “braid” going around another insulated wire. The “braid” is our ground or negative and the inner cable is your power side. For the chargers with 2 single wires inside, black is your ground.

 Strip about 1/4” of the insulation off your wires. Take the black cable of your computer fan and the black cable of your power supply and twist the exposed wire together and insert them into one of the female quick disconnects. Make sure that you feed your power supply cable through the hole you drilled in your enclosure before crimping or you won't be able to close your box when you are done.   Connect these two wires to the “Earth” male connector on your power supply.
 Now, take the Red cable from your power supply and add a female disconnect onto this cable and attach it to the “male” terminal on your power switch labeled “Supply”
 The only male terminal left on our power switch is the one labeled “Load”. Take some of the spare wire, about 4-5 inches, and strip off the insulation from each end. Attach a female disconnect to each end. Now, attach one side of the wire onto the “Load” terminal on your power switch, and the other to the center pin of the potentiometer.

 The last step is to take the “Power” cable (red) from your computer fan and attach another female disconnect. Attach this disconnect onto the right side pin on the potentiometer.
 After completing the previous steps you are now ready to plug in your power supply, flip your power switch to the “On” position, and try turning the knob on the potentiometer back and forth. You should be able to observe the fan speeding up and slowing down as you turn the knob back and forth.
 Now glue the steel washer onto the fan. I used some 60 second epoxy so that I could turn the fan on and off to observe if the washer was centered on the center of the fan.
 The next steps in this project is to fine tune the positioning of the fan within the enclosure, and try magnet combinations and positions until you get your bar spinning correctly.

 I used 2 ½ inch #10-32 bolts with matching nuts and washers to mount my fan. I also used some ¾ inch stand offs to raise the fan.

Arrowhead Hop Rhizome Presale

BOTL Club Members:
 Arrowhead Hops is beginning its Hop Rhizome Presale for 2013. All rhizome varieties will be $3.00ea. for club members (reg $3.50).  Rhizomes will be shipped by late March/ Early April depending on weather conditions.  Please visit www.arrowheadhops.com to place your orders.  Under the “Shop for Hops” pulldown you’ll find a Homebrew Clubs page, enter the discount code "clubprice" to access the page to receive your discount.  Shipping will be (1-6) $3, (7-12) $5.50 and 13-up $11.50. If you have any questions please let me know.
Cascade, Centennial, Columbus, Galena, Magnum, Mt. Hood, Northern Brewer, Nugget, Sterling, Willamette

Michigan Beer Fests and Events

Feb 23 -  Grand Rapids - Michigan Winter Beer Festival  MI Winter Fest
Feb 18-23 - Grand Rapids Craft Beer Week
Mar 4-10 - Traverse City Craft Beer Week
Mar 9 -  Jackson - Southern Michigan Beer Festival  So. MI Beer Fest

New Holland Brewpub in GR?

By Garret Ellison — The state’s third largest microbrewery could soon be opening a new brewpub in Grand Rapids.  Although nothing has been signed yet, New Holland Brewing Co. president Brett VanderKamp confirmed that the company is scouting locations in the "greater downtown" Grand Rapids area for a new brewery location similar to the company's Eighth Street Pub in Holland.
 VanderKamp, who founded New Holland with former partner Jason Spaulding in 1996, has had his eye on a location in Grand Rapids for "a number of years," he said. "We feel connected to Grand Rapids and feel that it's important for us to have a storefront there."
"We've had deals come close in the past," he said, but the company ultimately decided to pursue other investments. "On our end, it just wasn't right due to our team and where we were at." This time around, "everything's really coming together for us." VanderKamp said he is currently narrowing the location between “two or three" spots.
 The restaurant would be similar to the brewery’s popular pub in downtown Holland, a full-service restaurant that serves artisan liquors and the company's beer, which is brewed at the pub's onsite system, and the larger Holland Township production facility.
 Grand Rapids "would be more than just beer," he said, although details on the scope of the location are still being finalized. "A little more focus on food." The location does not have a formal name yet, but would be a New Holland-branded location. “It'll be a real, physical brewery.”
 The location is planned for open in 2013, and VanderKamp said he's hoping to have more details formalized by the end of the year, but that could be delayed by the holiday season. "There's still a lot of stuff in play."
 New Holland undertook a $3 million expansion of the production facility this year, adding five new large, outdoor fermentation tanks due to "exponentially" increasing demand for their high-gravity stout, Dragon's Milk.  The new tanks will allow the company to reach 50,000 barrels of beer per year, said VanderKamp.
 The new location is "something that's been on our radar for many years," he said. "We think we have something to offer that would be unique to the Grand Rapids market."

BOTL Christmas Party

 We had a great time Saturday with a lot of good food and great homebrews, as always! Thanks to everyone who worked at making it all come together and to New Holland for hosting.
                                          Happy Holidays to everyone!

                                          Looking good Kim and Brian!