Fellow Homebrewers,
The month of June has flown by so fast for me that I can’t believe it’s almost over! I’d like to personally thank everyone who contributed to the Mesker Zoo Brew this year. It was truly the best Zoo Brew we have ever had as a club and I am really astonished by how much our club has grown. We donated somewhere around 35 different beers to sample and had a solid 26+ volunteers there to help! This is the most we have ever contributed and participated to an event in the history of our club and I am so very grateful to be a part of it. I hope we can make the upcoming events which are the Indiana Brewers Cup and SWIRCA just as special. As a reminder, it is critical that if you would like to serve at one of these events you must have a valid Indiana server’s license. Indiana law requires ANY and ALL persons dispensing alcoholic beverages to possess a valid ATC employee permit and you must produce said permit on demand of an Indiana excise officer. Any violation of this could cause the event permit to be revoked. According to Indiana law it is illegal to give away an alcoholic beverage without a permit. I strongly recommend all club members to obtain a servers permit. It is extremely easy to obtain, just go to http://www.in.gov/atc/2641.htm
For the June club meeting tech topic the subject will be feral fermentation with John Dippel. Have you ever wondered how beer was fermented in the old days before brewers had White Labs, Wyeast, and all the other great yeast manufacturers we have today? John Dipple will show us how to collect and propagate wild yeast and what to expect during fermentation. This will be a tech topic that all you brettanomyces funk freaks (myself included) won’t want to miss!
I hope everyone who wanted to get their beer entered in the Indiana Brewer’s cup was able to register in time because the homebrew category is closed! I want to give Jeremy Dunn a HUGE thank you for volunteering to drive our entries up to Indianapolis. For new members or those that don’t already know Jeremy Dunn won a gold medal in the Indiana Brewer’ cup last year for his Belgian Strong entry. Once again I am amazed by the dedication and willingness to volunteer of our club members. To everyone who has an entry, good luck! This is one of my favorite weekends of the year and if you have never been to the brewer’s cup I strongly recommend you consider volunteering at http://www.in.gov/statefair/fair/contests/2560.html. The brewer’s cup has been called “The Super Bowl of Homebrewing competitions” by some people and I can guarantee those that attend will not be disappointed. I have a feeling this year we are going to shine more than ever and maybe even give our friendly rival club, those Foam Blowers of Indiana, a run for their money!
The next Evansville beer event is the SWIRCA & More Brewfest on August 29th at Bosse Field. The event is 7-10pm with a VIP hour starting at 6pm. I expect this to be another record setting event for our club. For those that don’t know, SWIRCA stands for South Western Indiana Regional Counsel of Aging and is a non-profit organization serving seniors, people with disabilities, and their caregivers. SWIRCA & More Case Managers serve 5,000 adults and children providing over 30,000 hours of direct client services each year and offer services like home delivered meals, respite, Structured Family Care-Giving, repairs that directly correct and/or prevent health and safety hazards for the elderly or disabled individual to enable them to remain safely in the community setting, and so much more. I feel very strongly about SWIRCA and the support they provide and I love that our club donates their beer and time to support this cause each year. So get those brew pots fired up and get to brewing!
Cheers!
Sky Buttrum
