Category: Meeting Notes

Fellow Members of OVHA,

Happy belated New Year!  I hope that everyone is setting brewing goals for 2016 and taking advantage of this nice cool weather to brew some beers.

This year began with a huge transition in our board.  Long time “Treasurer for Life” Jack Frey and “Secretary for Life” Chris Norrick have finagled their way out of their positions and were replaced by Amelia Gonzalez and Nate Ferrell.  On behalf of the club, I would like to thank Jack and Chris on their years of service to our club as we now have to put them out to pasture.

Your newly elected board and I have met and are planning lots of exciting things for us this year. We are planning another big barrel brew (thanks to John Mills and Carson’s for hosting last year), rare beer tastings, and we WILL have a club brewery trip (details coming soon).

Even at this early date in 2016, we have already successfully attended our first event, Christ the King’s Winterfest on January 9th.  Thank you to all that donated your beer and time and a special thank you to Nate Ferrell for being our point man for this event.  While I did not attend due to having a house of sick kids, Nate said that our participation was much appreciated by the organizers of the event.

At the January meeting former OVHA president and BJCP judge Sky Buttrum will be speaking on the new 2015 BJCP Style Guidelines and we will vote on the styles for this year’s Big Turkey competition.

Don’t forget, the start of the New Year means it’s time to renew your membership dues on the OVHA website. It’s those dues that allow us the ability to have special guests, rare beer tastings and prizes and allows you to enter Big Turkey and participate in other club events.  In February we will take the annual club group photo, so be sure to get your dues paid so you can be in the picture.

Speaking of pictures, I’ve been told I’m supposed to have a picture to accompany this message every month.  I’ll get that taken care of soon so that you can all gaze upon my ugly mug.

Here’s to a productive brew year,

Kenny

Fellow Homebrewers,

I can hardly believe it’s already time for me to write my final president’s message before I pass the gavel on to our next president of 2016, Kenny Purcell. 2015 has been a great year for me and for our club. We have honored our club traditions and events, and most importantly followed the mission of our club which is to promote the art, heritage and enjoyment of homebrewing through education and preservation of the many varieties of brewing techniques.

It has been a great honor and privilege to be the president of such an amazing club and I am extremely grateful and humbled by the experience. In 2015 we had another great club barrel brew (even if the results were less then optimal). We shone like the stars we are at every local event we support (each year I wonder how we could possibly out do ourselves next year). We have increased our club image recognition with some great new signage for the club events and also gotten some awesome new shirts as well. I am pleased our club has continued to participate in the big brew for National Homebrew Day as well as Learn to Homebrew Day, and I greatly enjoyed our quarterly club social nights. It was a real treat meeting outside of the hectic and sometimes noisy club meetings and beer fests to share some time with club members, friends, and family members in a social setting. I have personally grown as well as a homebrewer and I will continue to challenge myself with personal goals with the support of the Evansville homebrewing community.

One of the things I am most proud of is the canned food and money we have collected during the meetings throughout the year. I have been blown away by the generosity of our club members to donate money and food to those in need. I feel very strongly that a club our size has an obligation to our community to give back to it and by supporting great local organizations like SWIRCA, The Evansville Zoo, The Evansville Museum, Wesselman’s Woods Nature Preserve, Holy Redeemer, and the Food Pantry we are ensuring a prosperous future for our community.

At the December meeting we will vote for the 2016 board of directors. I want to give a huge thank you to the 2015 OVHA board: Vice President Kenny Purcell, Treasurer Jack Frey, Secretary Chris Norrick, and Board Members John Dippel, Dwayne DeLaney, Jill Mecklenborg, Nathan Ferrell, and Michael Julian. Our board has worked hard to make sure our club stays on track and moving in the right direction. The support they provide has been crucial to the success of our club. It is the hard work and dedication of our board members behind the scenes that keeps our meetings and events running so smoothly and I want to thank them for their support. I would also like to thank former presidents Jeff Smith, Don Heisler, John Mills, John Dippel, Dwayne DeLaney, Peter Frederick, Kenny Lucas, and Dutch DeHaan for their wisdom and guidance. They are an invaluable treasure to our club with an encyclopedic wealth of knowledge who collectively has probably forgotten more about homebrewing than I will ever know!

Before I turn the keys over to Kenny Purcell I have just a few reminders. December means it is time to renew your club dues for the next year. The club relies on our membership dues to maintain our equipment for brewing events, to supply the meat for the December meeting, to purchase materials needed for the club group brew, and all the other great things our club does for us like rare beer tastings, door prizes, and so forth. So please be sure to renew your dues, we are counting on you! We will have our first appearance at the Christ the King Winterfest on January 9th, 2016. This is a new event for our club and we would like to have a good showing as we do with our other events. The hours will be from 6:00 pm to 11:00 pm.

And lastly, don’t forget the December meeting is this Wednesday December 16^th at 6pm. At the December meeting we encourage all to bring your family and friends along with a side dish or dessert. We will announce the big turkey winner at the meeting and vote in next year’s board of directors.

Thank you Ohio Valley Homebrewer’s Association for making my term such a memorable one and I can’t wait to see what Kenny has in store for us in 2016!

Cheers!

Sky Buttrum

Greetings Homebrewers,

Wow, I can’t believe it’s already time again for another homebrew meeting. 2015 is winding down fast! At the Wednesday November 18^th meeting it’s time to turn in your big turkey entries! The OVHA Big Turkey brewing contest is open to all paid members of the OVHA. The beer styles for the 9th annual OVHA member’s only Big Turkey brewing contest are Porter and IPA, BJCP Category 12 and Category 14. One winner, the Best of Show, will get their name on the Big Turkey trophy, brew their recipe at Carson’s Brewery, receive one year’s free OVHA membership, and get a Big Turkey ceramic stein. Other prizes to be announced. Be sure to go online to www.ovha.net/turkey to get your entries registered before you turn them in Wednesday! Also, I’d like to give a big thanks to Tin Man for hosting the judging!

At the November meeting we will be holding the annual officer nominations for the 2016 OVHA board of directors. This is a great experience and I strongly recommend any one who has any interest in being a board member to self-nominate themselves for a position on the board. If you have some great ideas for the club or just want to participate more here is your chance! Serving on the board and as president has been a great honor for me and a very fulfilling experience. According to the OVHA by-laws The Board of Directors shall consist of the president, vice president, secretary, and treasurer of the association and five at large members who shall hold office for a period of 1 year or until their successors are elected. The nine Board of Directors members shall be chosen from among the members of the association, by the members of the association present at each Annual Meeting. Nominations for the board shall be made one month prior to the annual meeting. The vice president shall assume the role of president the year following his term. The Board of Directors shall meet no less often than quarterly. Special meetings of the Board may be called by any member of the Board of Directors upon 7 days’ notice in person, mail, or electronic delivery.

Learn to Homebrew Day was a smashing success this year thanks to the hard work of organizer John Mullins. We had seven brewers a brewing, and a few spectators come out to celebrate right out on the main drag at Dr. Tieman’s Chiropractic in Boonville. Learn to Homebrew Day (LTHD) was established by the American Homebrewers Association (AHA) in 1999 to encourage homebrewer’s to introduce their non-brewer friends and family to homebrewing. A big thanks to Dr. Tieman for letting us host this event in his parking lot. He has already welcomed us back for future events.

The 2015 beer festival season is wrapping up with Holy Redeemer’s Tap & Cork which is the last festival of the year. Right now on the OVHA website it looks like we have about 13 members signed up to serve and 11 kegs of beer donated. A big thanks to John Mills for organizing this event, and I am greatly appreciative for all of the hard work our club members have put into donating beer and their time to these charity events this year. Just a reminder, the first beer festival of 2016 will be held at Christ the King’s Winterfest on January 9th, 2016. This is a new event and we would like to have a good showing as we do with our other events. They are expecting around 400 exhibitors. The hours will be from 6:00 pm to 11:00 pm, so we will need some servers and some beer donations. You can sign up to volunteer or donate on the OVHA website.

The new OVHA work shirts have been ordered! We had a total of 28 shirts ordered which should be ready to be picked up at the December 16th meeting. Price will be $40 per shirt, add $2 for 2XL & 3XL. Remember, the December 16th family meeting is an hour early at 6pm and a family friendly potluck. The December meeting is the meeting where members are encouraged to bring the family and friends out for a pitch-in dinner. As is customary the club will supply the meat dish so prepare your favorite side dish to share. Also, don’t forget December is the time to renew your membership dues.

We only have two meetings left for the year so don’t miss them! Remember your canned goods and I’ll see you at the meeting Wednesday!

Cheers,

Sky Buttrum

Greetings Homebrewers,

Fall is finally upon us! As the leaves and temperature both begin to drop, we outside brewers enter prime brewing season where, just like in the Goldilocks story, it’s not too hot, not too cold, but just right. Like many other craft beer enthusiasts that also means some of my favorite style beers are in fashion, mainly malt forward and spiced fall beers like pumpkin beers, oktoberfests, marzens, and soon stouts, Christmas beers, and winter warmers.

In honor of that glorious gourd that is the pumpkin, our October meeting will be dedicated to the pumpkin beer and the topic of brewing with vegetables. We have a special treat in store, another rare beer tasting! We have managed to obtain a case of the very rare and much sought after St Arnold’s Pumpkinator! The 2015 Pumpkinator currently has a 98% rating on ratebeer.com and is an incredibly difficult beer to get your hands on, even if you live where it is brewed in Houston, TX. It is a 10% imperial stout brewed with a combination of pale two row, caramel and black malts, Cascade and Liberty hops, pumpkin, molasses, brown sugar, spices and dry-spiced. A single batch of Pumpkinator is released every year around October 15 and typically elicits black Friday quality lines of craft beer fans at the liquor stores causing it to sell out roughly 15 minutes after opening. We are incredibly fortunate to have such a rare treat make its way all the way up to Indiana! We will also have a discussion on brewing with vegetables and you are encouraged to bring and share any vegetable beer recipes (and vegetable beers!) that you may have.

In other club news, Learn to Homebrew Day is coming up fast. Learn to Homebrew Day (LTHD) was established by the American Homebrewers Association (AHA) in 1999 to encourage homebrewers to introduce their non-brewer friends and family to the most rewarding hobby, obsession and lifestyle since the beginning of time! This year John Mullins has offered to head the event. We will be brewing at Tieman Chiropractic, 202 S. Fourth St. in Boonville (corner of 4th and Locust). This location is right on the main drag through town, and would be hard to miss by anyone driving by. John will be there by 8:30am, and ready to fire up by 9:00. Restrooms will available to brewers for the day, and John will be bringing his Crank n Stein 3 roll mill with drill, along with RV hoses, charcoal filter, and extension cord (and anything else we may need). John will also be grilling burgers until they run out, since this will be getting into lunch time. A big thanks to John for heading this, and if you have any questions feel free to message or call John Mullins at (812) 217-2552.

Holy Redeemer’s 6^th annual Tap and Cork Festival is Saturday November 14^th from 6-9 pm. John Mills, the event organizer, will need volunteers and beer donations, so keep an eye on the OVHA chat room, set a keg or two aside, and mark your calendars.

After the Tap and Cork, the next club beer festival will be the Christ the King Winterfest on January 9^th from 6-11 pm. Nate Ferrell is the event coordinator on this one and it will also be the OVHA’s first time participating in this festival. We always have a long period of downtime in the winter and spring where no beer festivals are going on so I am pleased that our club has decided to add another festival to our list.

Thanks to everyone who volunteered at the Evansville Museum’s Brew Ha-Ha and the Wesselman’s Wandering Owl. Both organizations are treasures in our community and by donating our time and beer to these events we are ensuring their continued prosperity. Both groups have expressed their sincere gratitude to the OVHA for our donation and we will continue to support them in the future. We are working to repair some minor equipment issues and create a post event procedures list for cleaning the equipment for better efficiency in the future. And also, we may or may not have misplaced the OVHA pop up signage, so if you happened to take that home after the event please let someone know.

Reminder, next month’s meeting will be held early on November 18^th as we have in the past due to Thanksgiving. At the November meeting we will be collecting your Big Turkey submissions and nominating next year’s Board. If you want to be a board member or think you know a good candidate please let us know, and don’t be afraid to nominate yourself as well. We are always desperately in need of members willing to put forth their time and effort into the monster that is coordinating the OVHA club meetings and events.

In a final note, I am still on track to meet my new year’s resolution goal of brewing more by brewing at least once a month every month for the year. I hope everyone in the club is having as much luck with their “brew year” resolutions. To me there is nothing more wonderful then brew day. I love that sweet smell of the wort boiling and the spice of hops. I love sharing my finished beer with my friends, family, and strangers at the beer festivals. So for those that haven’t brewed in a while, there is no better time than now to dust off the old kettle and start making something special!

Don’t forget your canned good and I’ll see you at the Wednesday meeting!

Cheers!

Sky Buttrum