We are going to have a practice beer judging session for those who are interested in helping judge the Kitsap County Fair Homebrew Competition on Saturday, July 11, at Marti & Ernie Gwaltney's home. We will have a selection of commercial beers and home brewed examples of various styles. Some of the beers will be obviously flawed to help calibrate participants' palettes. We will be using the BJCP guidelines and score sheets for the judging.

Contact Us if you are interested in participating. Anyone interested in learning a little about judging beer is invited to attend. Bring beer for us to practice on if you have any on hand.

The June meeting date and location have changed!! Darryl had to cancel, so it will now be at Alan's on Thursday, 6/18. Here's Alan's note:

Hi All,
Darryl had to cancel Friday's meeting so I figured it would be nice to have the promised deck overlooking water but now it will be Hood Canal not Liberty Bay. The meeting has been changed to this Thursday, 6:30> at the Moums' a few miles north and west of Poulsbo. I'll bring home some good BC beer, yes the beer scene is really looking up up here.

Bring any homebrew or commercial brews you'd like to share. I'll have some coals for the grill(s) and some hotdogs or whatnot. Bring anything you might like to grill.

As always, new members are welcome and encouraged to attend. If you brew, are interested in brewing, or even just love great beer, you can be a member of the club just by showing up. If you aren't on our mailing list, Contact Us to be added and for directions to Alan's house.

This showed up in our inbox the other day and I gotta say, it sounds like a blast. Washington's first true homebrew festival. I have visions of it morphing into a huge multi-day event a la the Northern California Homebrewers Festival. Let's get a group over there to participate and show off some of the awesome beers this club produces:

Save the Date!
Saturday, August 15th, 2009
BEERSTOCK 5060

The first, legal get-together of Washington homebrew clubs
to taste each other’s home brew and talk brewing across home brew club lines.

Thanks to the passing of Bill 5060, after July 26th, it will be legal to have this type of event. John, president of Beer Renegades of Everett Washington, and Chris, president of Cascade Brewers Guild, came up with the idea. Mark and Alison Joy, from the North Seattle Brew Club, have agreed to host the party on their 3 acre property North of Seattle, just three miles off 1-5 from the Stanwood/Camano Island Exit # 212 (near Arlington).

Each club can bring as many different brews as they’d like to share with other club’s members. Each club is responsible for their own jockey boxes and/or dispensing set-ups, signs, table and sun shield. Come a little early to pick your spot and set-up.

Events planned starting at 2:00pm:
-Sample other brew club member’s beer & talk with brewers.
-Bring a bottle of your home brew, sit down with a beer judge and discuss its merits. (not a competition)
-There will be beer games and a beer quiz with prizes awarded.
-A raffle for those in attendance.
-A pot luck dinner will be held around the bon-fire. (Extra bonus points for bringing a dish made with beer.)
-A used brewing equipment garage sale--bring what you want to sell and bring a list of what you need.

Each attendee must be a club member or club member’s spouse/partner and at least 21 years of age. All attendees will need to bring a tasting glass, a pot-luck dish (main course provided) and any non-alcoholic beverages they would like to consume. Chairs and camping gear are both welcomed and optional. Car pool if possible. Near-by hotels are available: Arlington Motor Inn 360-652-9595, Quality Inn 360-403-7222, Medallion Hotel 360-657-0500.

There is no charge to attend, however, we are going to rent porta-potties, so we’d like to talk to clubs who are planning to attend about pitching in.

Please discuss this at your next meeting.
If your club is interested in participating, please contact
John at rivera98208@yahoo.com or Alison at Alibabagrl@aol.com.
We will send you a stack of fliers and more detailed information on
BEERSTOCK 5060, August 15, 2009.

Chuckanut Brewery is sponsoring a bus tour of northern Washington breweries on August 8, and we are trying to get as many club members as possible to go. So far Brad and his wife are signed up and at least a few others have expressed interest. There are 38 spaces left on the bus as of this writing. Let's see if we can fill it up with West Sound Brewers. This will be a great opportunity to visit some breweries in our region that are a little bit out of the way for most of us.

Chuckanut is owned by Will and Mari Kemper of Thomas Kemper fame, so there is a Kitsap connection, a connection to some of the founding members of our club, and a bit of nostalgia for those who remember the awesome Kemper brewpub in Poulsbo.

The bus will depart from Brouwer's in Seattle and stop at Chuckanut & Boundary Bay in Bellingham, Anacortes Brewery, and Skagit River Brewery in Mount Vernon. The cost, $50, includes lunch at Chuckanut and sample tasters at each brewery. Chuckanut beers will also be available on the bus, which will have a bathroom (which is a great thing on a beer bus tour).

Here are all the details from the press release:

Northern Washington Summer Beer Bus Tour

The Northern Washington Summer Beer Bus Tour will begin and end in Seattle at Brouwer's Café (400 North 35th Street Seattle, WA 98103). Hosted by Chuckanut Brewery, the Bus Trip will leave on Saturday, August 8th at 10 a.m. traveling North to visit four Northern Washington Breweries: Chuckanut Brewery (Bellingham), Boundary Bay (Bellingham), Anacortes Brewery (Anacortes), Skagit River Brewery (Mt. Vernon). The Beer Bus Tour will have Chuckanut Beer on tap on the bus, along with bathrooms. Sample Tasters at each Brewery with a bbq lunch at Chuckanut Brewery, included in the price of admission. Advance Registration is required by Saturday, August 1st and ticket price is $50 dollars. Must be 21 and older. Contact Chuckanut Brewery 360-752-3377 for purchasing tickets.

BBQ Lunch at Chuckanut Brewery will be a choice of Local Hempler Brats with house sauerkraut, Local Misty Isle Cheese burgers, and Garden Burgers all served with Tim's Potato chips. Jim Parker (Assistant Brewer, Chuckanut Brewery) & Skip Madsen (Washington Brewer) long time friends, will be reuniting as hosts to the Northern Washington Summer Beer Bus Tour, they guarantee that it will be more fun than you should ever be allowed to have! For more details and purchasing tickets please contact Jim Parker at jim.parker@chuckanutbreweryandkitchen.com or 360-752-3377.

Chuckanut Brewery and Kitchen, located in Old Town, Bellingham, it is a brewery and restaurant offering a full-service menu. Started by the originators of Thomas Kemper Brewery in 1984, Mari and Will Kemper are now pleased to welcome guests to their new brewery and restaurant starting at 11:30 am every day.

Once again, West Sound Brewers will be putting on the Kitsap County Fair Homebrew Competition. This is our fourth year organizing the comp. There is still time to brew some beer specifically for the competition. Entries will be accepted July 24-31 at our usual drop-off locations: Olympic Brewing Supplies in Bremerton and Hood Canal Brewery in Kingston. Check out the flyer on the Fair website for entry details.

When preparing your entries, we strongly encourage you to use our Online Label Generator to print out your competition labels. In addition to saving you time, it will help keep us organized. If for some reason you don't want to use the online label generator, you can download and print out blank labels here. Blank labels will also be available at the drop off locations in the near future.

Great news coming out of WAHA. Now we won't be breaking the law every month when we get together at meetings to sample each other's beer:

Washington Homemade Beer and Wine Makers,

Raise a glass of homebrew in celebration!

At 2:00 today Governor Gregoire signed Senate Bill 5060 in the presence of Mark Emiley, Tim Hayner, and Tom Schmidlin, the three founding members of WAHA. Starting July 26th (estimate) it will be legal to enjoy your homemade beer and wine in private, but as a community! This is a great day for homebrewing in Washington!

The wording of the final bill can be found here (link to pdf) but in short, by law, you will be able to finally LEGALLY take your homemade beer and wine out of your house to enjoy privately with your friends, family, and very importantly, organized events like club meetings (and of course competitions or exhibitions). The constraint on only judges tasting the beer or wine is gone and the impossible restriction on returning beers or wines from competitions is gone. Also, very importantly, the limit of 1 gallon has been raised to 20 gallons which will mean that transportation in kegs will finally be legal.

Thank you to everyone who made the calls and sent the messages. Thanks to everyone’s effort, we made this homebrewed bill successful.

Now that we are done with this effort, WE WANT YOU TO DO TWO LAST THINGS!!! First of all, none of this would have been possible without Senator Jacobsen agreeing to sponsor this bill and that wouldn’t have been possible without Arlen Harris helping connect us. Please take a minute to either call (360) 786-7690) or e-mail (http://www1.leg.wa.gov/senate/Jacobsen) Senator Jacobsen and let him know how much you appreciate his sponsorship.

If you see Arlen around, please thank him for his help! (He always appreciates some good homebrew). Arlen has already helped changed the face of Washington craft brewing and through his help with connecting us with Senator Jacobsen has helped advanced our homebrewing community. Thanks, Arlen.

Also, more than likely your legislators voted for the bill (there were only three representatives who didn’t, you can view the bill roll calls here: http://apps.leg.wa.gov/billinfo/Summary.aspx?bill=5060&year=2009). Take another minute and call or e-mail them to let you know that you appreciate their support. By letting them know that the homemade beer and wine communities noticed, they’ll keep us in mind in future bills. They know we exist (and can be loud when we need to). Don’t let them forget.

Congratulations again on gaining a new right. The right to bear homebrew!

Cheers,

Mark Emiley

WAHA Executive Chair

Hi All,
Our meeting for May takes place on Saturday, May 2, at the Wyatts' about 3 miles north of Poulsbo. I'm assuming they'll let us set up for brewing as early as 9AM since the international Big Toast takes place at 10AM. We'll let you know if otherwise in our reminder mailing next week.

Don will be firing up the grill(s) so bring whatever you'd like to grill, snacks, and easy to serve potluck dishes.

This is also Big Brew 2009, see details below. If you're interested in checking out fellow brewers' systems, techniques, and ingredients, or if you just want to hang with fellow brewers, or if you just can't get enough of the smell of boiling hops and malt, don't miss this event.

Contact Us for directions.

2009 Big Brew Recipes
This year's Big Brew recipes are the tale of two AHA members whose homebrew recipes have gone on to be brewed by craft breweries.

Dave Levonian's award-winning Saison recipes have been brewed by Ballast Point Brewery for the 2008 Great American Beer Festival Pro-Am Competition, and by the Lost Abbey Brewery as one of the commemorative beers for the 2009 National Homebrewers Conference this June in Oakland, CA.

Jim Denier is an award-winning homebrewer who brought his Dark Mild recipe with him when he started brewing at Dry Dock Brewing Co. in Aurora, CO. The SS Minnow Mild Ale is a favorite at the brewery, and was a favorite with the 2008 Great American Beer Festival (GABF) judges too; it was the silver medal beer in the Session Beer category!

We hope you enjoy brewing this year’s Big Brew recipes! If you have any left, bring it with you to the National Homebrewers Conference in Oakland, CA this June to share!

BIG BREW FACTS-
2008 More than 10,500 gallons were brewed by almost 4000 participants at 242 sites on six continents worldwide. Sites were registered in 42 states in the US, as well as in Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, England, Israel, Kenya, The Netherlands, Russia, and Uryguay.
2007 Over 9000 gallons of homebrew brewed by more than 4000 participants at 242 sites on four continents worldwide. There were sites in 42 states, as well as Israel, Australia, Argentina, and Russia.
2005 7,347 gallons of homebrew brewed worldwide at 210 Big Brew sites by 2,956 participants.
2003 3,706 gallons of homebrew were produced at 157 Big Brew sites by 1,405 participants worldwide.
2001 5,185 gallons of beer were brewed at 182 brewing sites by 1,864 participants worldwide.

Here's an update from WAHA on the progress of SB 5060, which will legalize transport of homebrew for private functions in Washington:

Washington Homemade Beer and Winemakers,

On Saturday, April 18th, the amended Senate Bill 5060 passed the Senate again
unanimously and now will be heading to the Governor's desk to be signed into
law. She can decide to not sign the bill or veto it. While we don't expect
this to happen, you can make one call or send one e-mail to help seal the deal.
Please call (360-902-4111) and/or write the Governor a message asking for her to
sign Senate Bill 5060 when it comes to her desk. (You can also call the
legislative hotline to leave a message at 1-800-562-6000).

You can send the Governor a message through this tool:
http://www.governor.wa.gov/contact/default.asp

This really is the final step and we will officially be able to enjoy homebrew
and wine outside our houses starting July 25th (pretty sure of that date). Make
one last call to finish this up!

As always, you can find all of the current details at
http://www.wahomebrewers.org/legal
Cheers,
Mark Emiley
WAHA Executive Chair

They guys at WAHA have made arrangements with Bill at Olympic Brewing Supplies for drop off of Puget Sound Pro-Am entries at the shop. Read the earlier post for all the Pro-Am details. The drop-off window is May 11-26, so there is still time to brew up a batch or two if you don't have anything in bottles ready to submit.

The April Meeting will be at Steve Moga's house in Illahee, on April 18 beginning at 4 PM. Contact Us for directions and stay tuned for the April Newsletter for more details.