2011 December Meeting #158

Details

Written by Frank Weichmann

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The WHALES Newsletter and Minutes - December 2011 - Issue #158

Woodbridge Homebrewers Ale & Lager Enthusiasts Society 

Crafting Award Winning Beer, Mead, and Cider Since 1996

The December 2011 WHALES meeting started at 8pm.  We had 32 members and 1 visitor in attendance with 11 flight entries (per the sign in sheets).

Events past, present, future.

The first order of business was to discuss recent and upcoming events.  

January 21^st - Holiday Party – Was going to be at Woodbridge VFW but it wasn’t available. We have a hold on the room at the Linden American Legion but they didn’t want to take a deposit until Jan 1^st. A virtual signup sheet will be posted on the website so folks can list dishes they plan to bring so that we don’t have a lot of repeats. More info to come via website and email.

 Bobby reminded everyone to pay their Dues for the 2012 year as soon as possible.  All renewals should be paid by the December meeting at the latest.  Checks can be made out to Keith Story for $40.

January 11th: One Year Rare Beer Blowout! Taphouse Grille
344 French Hill Rd Wayne  24 drafts will be featured including Dogfish Head 120 min IPA, Great Divide Oaked Yeti, Firestone Walker Special

Gary is sending around a BYO $14 subscription signup that is good for new, renew, or continuations. We’ll need at least 10 people to make it happen.

Competitions

Bobby announced the winner of 2011 Home Brewer of the Year. We had a tie this year between the brewing team of Don and Stephen Boyle and Jim Schreyer. The club will be presenting the Award Mugs at the January meeting and they’ll also be recognized on the WHALES plaque on the wall. Bobby noted that the total points are up big time so the WHALES are going awesome in the competition department. 

Frank gave an update on the upcoming competition year and that a newsletter for competition news whould go out shortly. War of the Worts is our first HBOY eligible regional competition and it’s normally judged third week of February. However, the entry deadline is such that we end up collecting at the January meeting.

Club Only Comp for Dark Lagers/Category 4 judged at January meeting also.  Please register on the site if you have an entry.

Projects

The club has 3 projects active right now

The Double Barrel Framboise at will be distributed around May15th, so discussions will need to start happening in the early spring if we want to keep the funk going in those barrels.

Wee Whale II continues to sit and gather more flavor.

Whales Bourbon County Stout (Jay has some to share tonight). Team 2 needs to start rallying to get their brew plans going. Need a host for the barrel and brew.  Need to brew end of January for mid Feb racking.

Gary and Joe made a batch of Port Cider to be tucked away for NHC 2013 pouring. The club paid for that share . They also have several samples of various flavored varieties to share with us tonight.  The line up included Cinnamon Vanilla, Parsimonious Cardone, Black Currant, Apple Pie and the base Apple Port.  Cinnamon Vanilla seemed to be the crowd favorite.

As always, if you have any ideas focusing the club equipment or a group project, please contact the steeringcommittee ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. ) or create a thread in the Group Brewing forum.

Steering

Committee approved spending $48 a year for the next 3 years for a new website host that is more stable and offers unlimited space and bandwidth. No major changes to the site other than some downtime during the cutover.

Whales 2012 Renewal Gift. Club voted on design element preferences. By far, the majority liked the long skinny "speed opener" style. Favorite graphics elements were hope cones on the vine, Beer bubbles/foam, and the flight of beers. You also favored the whales website banner version of our logo and the circular logo and didn't care for the larger slogans. Next step.. I'm going to put together a few finalized designs with both front and back displayed and let you guys vote one more time on what goes to press. For those who liked the credit card or dogtag openers, I will help out with a group buy in the future.

 2012 Officers and Leadership. Welcome Joe Januzzi to the Secretary position (he was on the steering committee for one year) and also welcome back Keith Story for his 3rd term as Treasurer and Bobby to his second term as President. Bobby took a moment want to recognize Frank's contribution to Steering committee this past year and noted he's stepping down to focus more energy on Crazy Frank Giveaways and promoting Competition activity. He also recognized Keith "Pres" Seguine for his contributions to the steering committee over the past two years, not to mention the 10 year presidency term prior to that.

 Elections for Steering Committee took place. Frank printed out ballot sheets to make it quicker and easier. Bobby then introduced each of the members running for the 3 available seats. 
 

Dustin Craft – Member since 2010, has not held any positions to date.

 Jay Desimone – Member since 2008, served on the steering committee for the past two years.

 Craig Easton – Member since 2008, has not held any positions to date.

 Brad Jones – Member since 2007, served as Secretary in 2009 and steering committee in 2010.

The election ballots were collected and it was an extremely close vote for the last seat. Congratulations to Jay, Craig and Brad who will be serving as Steering Members for the 2012 year.

Upcoming

COC Dark Lager

WOW comp collection 

Flight and Other Items

The 50/50 was a 75/25 for the NJ Food Bank.  Craig was the winner of 43 dollars while the club was able to send 129 dollars to the food bank.  Some other drawings were made as well, JD won the Segrams and Nick walked away with a Home brew calendar.

-Frank (with heavy plagiarism of Bobby's awesome meeting agenda notes)

2011 November Meeting #157

Details

Written by Frank Weichmann

Hits: 119

The WHALES Newsletter and Minutes - November 2011 - Issue #157

Woodbridge Homebrewers Ale & Lager Enthusiasts Society 

Crafting Award Winning Beer, Mead, and Cider Since 1996

The November 2011 WHALES meeting started just shortly after 8pm.  We had 30 members and 2 visitors in attendance with 5 flight entries.

Events past, present, future.

The first order of business was to discuss recent and upcoming events.  

Gary gave a overview of Cider Day that took place on November 5th, 2011. Gary, Luke, Brad and Jen headed up to NW Massachusetts.    A stop at Pine Hill Orchards were a massive amount of pressing occurred with 3 blends and over 2700 Gallons.  Next was the Home Cider Making Seminar where they poured a special Black Currant flavored version of the club Apple Port that Gary, Luke and Joe S crafted on the side..  Also taking place was the Cider Salon and Dinner where several cider makers had 2 to 6 samples available.  Sunday the group participated in an open session for cider makers to share and provide feedback.  Overall, Gary stated it was a great weekend and a lot of fun.

On November 12th, 2011 Brian Spence hosted the AHA Learn to Brew Day Big Brew at his home.  This is one of the bi-annual big brew out events we participate in.  The day was a great event and there were several styles of beer being brewed.  

Click Here to See the Pictures Posted By Brian and Frank

Not exactly an event but we are collecting dues for 2012 at this and the December meeting.  All renewals should be paid by the December meeting at the latest.  Checks can be made out to Keith Story for $40.

Nominations were accepted at the meeting for the 2012 Officers and Steering positions.  Since there were no multiple nomination for any of the officer positions, no voting will be required for President, Treasurer or Secretary.  Congratulations to Bobby (President - 2nd Term), Keith Story (Treasurer - 3rd Term) and Joe Januzzi Jr (Secretary- 1st Term).  As for Steering members we have 4 nominations for 3 spots, so we will have the election in December. The following members are hoping for your votes:  Craig E, Jay Desimone (Current Steering Member), Brad Jones (former Secretary and Steering member) and Dustin (Nominated and accepted at the meeting by Jay B).

The Holiday Party is quickly approaching, Jan 21st to be exact.  Be sure to save the date on your schedules as it is always a great time.  The club voted to have the event at the VFW in Woodbridge (Online vote took place before the meeting) but the VFW in Woodbridge is not available and Bobby is going back to the Linden location to secure the booking for the club.  Look out for more information to come on the website.

Competitions

Frank and Jay B are going to be teaming up to take over the role of competition coordination, HBOY tracking and general promotion/pep talks.  A big Thank you to Colin who handle the position for several years for the club.

The "Valhalla - The Meading Of Life" competition was judged on October 22nd, 2011

Big congrats go out to Jon Morales who took gold in traditional mead, Luke and Gary got a bronze with a Cherry Melomel, and Luke also got a high scoring Honorable Mention with a Blueberry Cordial in the open mead category.  Its worth noting that Lukes Honorable Mention was a 42 (45 was the lowest placing for that category - some stiff competition!!!!)

WHALES Slaughtered THE 2011 AMATEUR BREWING CHAMPIONSHIP (Stoney Creek competition)

6 whales, 4 golds, 3 silver, 3 bronze

Table 2 - Amber and Dark Lagers, Amber Hybrids (11 Entries)

3 Don & Stephen Boyle Colonia,NJ 3B Oktoberfest WHALES

Table 3 - Bocks (9 Entries)

1 Anthony DiPrimio Nutley,NJ 5C Doppelbock WHALES

Table 4 - Light Hybrids (8 Entries)

2 Nick Fox Cranford,NJ 6B Blond Ale WHALES

Table 6 - American Ales (12 Entries)

3 Jay Buchanan South Plainfield,NJ 10C American Brown WHALES

Table 7 - English Brown Ales (9 Entries)

1 Don & Stephen Boyle Colonia,NJ 11A Mild

Table 9 - Stouts (13 Entries)

2 Michael Slocum Aberdeen,NJ 13F Russian Imperial Stout WHALES

Table 11 - German Wheat & Rye Beers (10 Entries)

1 Anthony DiPrimio Nutley,NJ 15A Weizen WHALES

Table 18 - Spice, Herb, & Vegetable Beers (23 Entries)

2 Don & Stephen Boyle Colonia,NJ 21A Spice, Herb, Vegetable Beer WHALES

Table 19 - Smoke & Wood-Aged Beers (11 Entries)

3 Jim Schreyer East Brunswick,NJ 22C Wood-Aged Beer WHALES

Table 21 - Meads (12 Entries)

1 Jim Schreyer East Brunswick,NJ 24B Semi-sweet Mead WHALES (orange blossom)

Projects

The Double Barrel Framboise at will bedistributed around May15th, so discussions will need to start happening in the early spring if we want to keep the funk going in those barrels.

Wee Whale II was poured at Big Brew andit's good. Still more time on the Oak sounds good.

Impy Stout cast offs and second runnings beers were bottled last Sunday at Jay's house. I haven't seen a floor that sticky since.. 2-3 bottles each, big beer extra Palo Santo, second runnings1.045 on palo, 1056 yeast, S04 yeast, etc. Extra bombers so we can do a horizontal tasting of all versions sometime early next year.

Imperial Stout Team 2 is beginning to rally their plans, so check the forums for more details. If you haven't paid Mike D'Onifrio for the grain, please do so.

As always, if you have any ideas focusing the club equipment or a group project, please contact the steeringcommittee ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. ) or create a thread in the Group Brewing forum.

COC - Club Only Competition for Category 15, German Wheat and Rye

Bobby provided handouts with the BJCP Style information for the CoC before getting started.  We had 8 entries for the evening.  Nick Fox took home first Place with his Hefe and will represent the Club at the AHA competition.

Steering

The steering committee discussed stepping up the renewal schwag to something like a printed pint glass and a custom bottle opener, but these details will be worked out via a membership poll in the near future.

Upcoming

We'll continue to collect dues for 2012 at the December 2011 meeting, we want to close out the dues collection at the December meeting so please make your best effort.

We will also be voting for the 3 additional steering committee members.  

Flight

-Frank (with heavy plagiarism of Bobby's awesome meeting agenda notes)