December 2012 Meeting Minutes

Happy Holidays everyone! On December 3rd, the Treehouse Brewing Club held their annual Holiday Homebrew Competition at Crabtree Brewing Company. Here are the highlights.

There were 13 beers entered into the competition. These beers were split into two flights for judging: Regular holiday ales and Spiced Holiday Ales. Members of the clubs judged each category and the top 2 beers in each flight were then moved onto the finals where a small panel of judges did the final winning selections.

The overall winner this year was Dennis Swingler and his Winter Warmer Stout. Congrats Dennis! He takes home the traveling trophy. Display it proud!

Other entries included: (highest ranking listed first)

Ken Kramer - Holiday Porter
Steve Skinner - Saison
John Coan - Wheat Wine
Neil Fisher - Oak Aged Coffee Porter
Eric Reinsvold - Pumpkin Spice Saison
Neil Fisher - Bourbon Barrel Aged Brown
Jeff Graber - Seasonal Amber Ale
Shawn Crawford - Holiday Spiced Ale
Steve Skinner - Barleywine
Eric Riensvold - Cherry Cranberry Blonde (Honorable Mention)
Marco Sanchez - Pumpkin Spice Brown Ale
Neil Fisher - Run Barrel Aged Old Ale

See you all in the New Year on January 7th, 2013!

November 2012 Meeting Minutes

Nov 5th, 2012 meeting minutes

Eric Reinsvold: President
Bill Gehrman: Treasurer
Dennis Swingler: Vice President
Erik Briscoe: Brewery Liaison
Steve Skinner: Secretary
Dave Butler: Media Specialist

Our seasonal beer competition will be held at our Dec meeting. Please bring in your Stouts, Porters, Barleywines or spiced beers that would be appropriate for the Christmas season. We will be setting up for the contest at 6:30. Anyone who is interested in helping out is encouraged to come in then to get stuff set up.

We are looking at rescheduling our Booze Cruise to Feb 23rd. Check your calendars now and reserve that date if you are interested in attending. The more people that sign up, the less it will cost each person to go. More information will follow as the date draws near.

We are looking at having a beer club competition between Brewnion Colony and Treehouse sometime in March. Nothing has been set for sure, but we are looking at 3 styles: Imperial IPA, Imperial Stout, and Belgian Dark Strong. These beers can take a while to brew and condition so you might want to consider getting something started soon if you want to participate.

We also discussed having everyone brew a simple beer, identical grain bill and yeast and the only difference would be the hops. Everyone participating would use a different hops and when the beers are ready we will bring them in and compare the flavors, that way we can sample what an individual hops tastes like. Eric R. will be posting a recipe before too long and we are looking to share the beers at our January meeting.

Elections for officials will be coming up in March. It's a few months away, but give it some thought if you would like to run for office.

New members:

Kurt Dallow, Brad Denney, Paul Dolan, Jeff Graber, Mark Lindemann, and Marco Sanchez.
Welcome to the club!

Beers Sampled:

Dennis Swingler - 2nd run Stout.
Ken Kramer - Cider.
Shawn Crawford - Oktoberfest.
Eric & Tiffini - Engllish Pale Ale.
Ken Kramer - 2nd run Wee Heavy.
Marco Sanchez - Peach Pale Ale.
Kurt Dallow - Brown Ale.

Submitted by: Steve Skinner

Highlights from Learn to Homebrew Day

We had an excellent turnout for yesterday's Teach A Friend To Brew Day. There were 13 brewers in all, the biggest turnout we've had so far. Here is a list of the following members plus a few others that showed up and what they brewed.

Erik Briscoe: Gluten Free Ale
John Coan: Wheat Wine
Jeff Crabtree: Seasonal Porter
Shawn Crawford: American Amber
Jeremy Fusco: Wheat
Michael Hinton: Heather
Ken Kramer: Rye IPA
Mike Lurbe: Vienna Lager
Eric Reinsvold: Gluten Free Ale
Brian Schmalhorst: Pumpkin Spice Ale
Steve Skinner: Pumpkin Spice Ale
Dennis Swingler: Vienna Lager
Mike Terango: Queen of Diamonds (Zymurgy recipe)




We also had several of our club members win raffle prizes:

Alan Hermance - 50 lb. bag of 2 row
Erica Coan - Better Bottle
Michael Hinton - 2 vials of yeast
John Coan - 2 lbs. of hops. ??
Mike Terango - Hydrometer
Michale Hinton - 1 year Brewnion Colony Membership




We also have 2 new members: Kenton Keiner and Michael Rauh.

Report from Steve Skinner 11/4/2012. Photos by Dave Butler.

Call for Learn to Homebrew Day Participation

Save the date - Saturday, November 3rd, 2012 10:00am to 4:00pm - Learn to Homebrew Day. It's time again for the annual AHA Learn to Homebrew Day event. In addition to a fun day of homebrewing, we'll be doing several FREE raffle drawings in the afternoon (2:00pm-ish) for Homebrew Club Members and their guests (4 tickets max). We'll have raffle items for both new brewers and experience brewers alike. Be sure to come down and bring your new brewer friends for a chance to win some cool stuff.

Let Eric Reinsvold know if you're planning on coming down and brewing. He'd like to get a diverse number of brew setups; everything from the Crabtree Pilot brew system to extract rigs, so don't be shy about setting up and showing new people how you brew. Also, if anyone wants to demonstrate a mead or cider, feel free to spread your knowledge (but don't forget, Beer is President, so mead can be VP and cider can be Secretary of State). We may need a couple of RV water hoses and a splitter, but otherwise everything should be ready to go.

Juice of the Barley (Homebrew Shop) will be having sales / discounts all day and Crabtree is getting a food truck for us as well. If the weather holds up, it's going to be an awesome time. Family and friends are all welcome!

Feel free to contact Eric with any questions if you're willing to donate something cool for the raffle.

Cheers,
Eric Reinsvold - treehousebrewers@gmail.com

October 2012 Meeting minutes

Meeting minutes for October 1st, 2012 - held in the Brewer's Lounge at Crabtree Brewing.

The Russian Imperial Stout has been moved to kegs and the Wee Heavy is now in the oak barrel. The blended final gravity going in to the barrel is 1.026. A date will be set for the bottling of the R.I.S. in the near future.

Our brewery tour is scheduled for Sat. Oct 27th. Transportation is still being looked into by Dennis. We will be touring in the Longmont/Boulder area. Specific breweries have not been chosen at this time.

We are looking at having a friendly competition between us and Brewnion Colony around October fest next year focusing on German style beers.

BJCP classes are being held at the tasting room on the 2nd Tuesday of each month from 6:30 to 8:30pm. There are still openings for those who want to audit the class.

New members:

Eric Kent, Tiffini X and Brian Wille have joined our club. Please make them feel welcome.

Beers sampled:

Michael Hinton - Red Ale
Brian Schmalhorst - Passion Fruit Brown Ale (fruit beer contest winner)
Neil Fisher - Sweet Josie Brown Ale (commercial)
Neil Fisher - Brown Ale
Steve Skinner - Blueberry Lager
Neil Fisher - Imperial Brown
Eric Reinsvold - Pumpkin Belgian Beer
Steve Skinner - Ginger Beer

September 2012 Meeting Minutes

The September meeting was held on the 10th, one week later due to the Labor Day holiday. We have one new member, please welcome Alex Drayer to the club. Eric has already sent out information concerning bottling the Russian Stout and getting the Wee Heavy into the Keg. We are looking into having a brewery tour on Oct. 27th. We will firm up plans at our Oct. meeting. Teach a friend to brew day is coming up on Nov. 3rd. Keep your calendars open for a group brew at Crabtree brew house (the old location).

Notes on our fruit beer competition held on Aug. 12th.

Beers entered:

Eric Reinsvold - Blackberry Wit
John Coan - Apricot Peach Opal
Steve Skinner - Blueberry Lager
Brian Schmalhorst - Passion Fruit Brown

Congratulations go out to Brian on his Passion Fruit Brown.

Steve Skinner - Secretary

August 2012 Meeting Notes

Meeting was held at the new Crabtree Tasting Room on August 6th, 2012.

It was voted on that the club would purchase a bouquet to express thanks from the club for what they have done for Treehouse Home Brew Club.

Bill is getting the bouquet and will have it there for the Crabtree's Grand Opening which is Wednesday August 8th. Hope everyone can make it.

Jeff said the club can use the conference room in the future for all of the clubs meetings.

It is reported that we took 1st place at the Gnarly Barley Brew Festival for our Grand Crew! No official word yet but that's the word on the street:>) Kudos to Eric for getting the beer submitted.

The fruit beer competition was discussed and Eric would like you to contact him if you have a beer to enter or would like to participate in judging etc.

We will hold a Holiday beer competition for those interested at the December meeting.



Jeremy Fusco spoke to us about his new home brew shop opening next week at the Crabtree complex. He is planning on having all the basic home brewer need and has offered the club a 10 to 15% discount as well as being competitively priced. He had many innovative ideas and is soliciting any ideas that members have to make the shop all it can be to us and the general public. Jeremy is very interested in working closely with the club.

We discussed the Wee Heavy club brew for those who are participating. Grain, hops and yeast were purchased by Jeremy Fusco and should be arriving shortly. Plan on picking those up next week.

We discussed the the Front Range brew tour to happen late October or early Nov. A bus is planned from Kenny's steak houe. Del is looking into an agenda for breweries.

Apple cider was discussed and where we can apples, cider or both. The possibility of purchasing a press was also discussed. Dave said he has built a hydraulic press.

BJCP meetings will start soon and Jeff said we can meet at the tasting room.

Beer was brought by:
Ken Kramer-American Brown and American Amber
Alan Hermance-American Brown (with Yager) :>)
Eric- Chocolate Milk Mint Stout and an aged Crabtree Barley Wine

Hope I did not leave anyone out, but seems like I missed a couple of beers, sorry bout that. See you all at the Grand Opening or sometime soon!

Dennis Swingler - Vice President

Minutes from the July and June meetings

July 2nd, 2012 Meeting

Club members decided it would be a good use of club funds to supplement a grain purchase from Jeremy.  Interested club members can purchase grain and part of the price of the grain will be paid for out of our funds.

Eric suggested that we move our fruit beer competition  from our August meeting to Sunday, August 12th to be held at Crabtree new tasting room if it is ready and available to us.  Competition would be held from 2 to 5 pm.  Everyone agreed that this would give us more time to sample and vote.

Beers sampled:

Dennis Swingler - Schwartz Beer

Steve Skinner - American Brown Ale from Big Brew

John Coan - English Brown Ale from Big Brew

Del Scholfield - English Brown Ale from Big Brew

Eirk Briscoe  - Saison experiment

Del Scholfield - Irish Red

June 4th, 2012 Meeting

Mead presentation by Greg Bowdish of Hunters Moon Meadery. 

Beer Tasting:

Mike Terrango - Saison

Erik Briscoe - Pale Ale

Eric Reinsvold - English Brown from Big Brew

Mike Terrango - Oktoberfest

Eric Reinsvold - Saison

Mike Terrango - Irish Dry Stout 

Members brew for National Homebrew Day May 5th

The day turned out perfect for a brew day out on the parking lot at Crabtree Brewing on Saturday, May 5th, 2012. Several members brought out their equipment and brewed up a storm during the long afternoon. At 11:00am, a national simultaneous toast went out to homebrewers everywhere. There was plenty of beers being hoisted for the toasting. For those not able to make it, here are some pictorial highlights from the morning of National Homebrewers Day - aka Big Brew. Enjoy! Photos courtesy Dave Butler.

Google Group created for the club

Hey everyone,

This is invitation to join the Treehouse Brewing Club Google Group. If you haven't already joined, this Google Group will make communicating with the club a lot easier. Once you're added to the group, you can post messages that will be sent to all members simply by emailing treehouse-brew-club@googlegroups.com.

Each member can change their subscriptions so they can choose to receive an email update each week with all the messages, or receive an email each time a new message is posted. All the messages for a topic are easy to read within the group as well, making it useful as a forum or listserv.

Plus, members of the group can unsubscribe on their own if they no longer wish to receive messages from the club. This way we don't have to constantly add or remove email addresses from our list of members.

I really urge everyone to adopt this as a way to communicate via email with the entire club. That way instead of each of us having to manage a list of contacts, constantly adding and removing people, the email list is stored for everyone to access and each person can make their own changes.

If you have any questions about using it, don't hesitate to ask.

http://groups.google.com/group/treehouse-brewing-club

--Neil Fisher

About this group:

Used for communication among members of the Treehouse Brewing Club in Greeley, CO that meets the first Monday of the month at Crabtree Brewing Company.

March 2012 Club Minutes

Club Officers elected in March:

Eric Reinsvold: President                                                        

Dennis Swingler: Vice President                                                      

Steve Skinner: Secretary

Bill Gehrman: Treasurer

Erik Briscoe: Brewery Liaison

Dave Butler: Media Specialist

New Members:

Kelly and Annie Stiefel

Barrel beer info.  We have about 60 gallons of the brown brought in to the brewery to be transferred in to the barrel when the Grand Crew gets bottled. Eric is going to check with Jeff and set up a time in the next few weeks to get the Grand Crew bottled and the sour racked into the barrel.

Brian says that the BJCP classes are booked up through 2012. He is collecting names of members that are interested in taking classes next year.

Shawn Crawford and Ken Kramer will be heading up the judging for the Wit competition on May 7th.

The club is looking into purchasing some grain bins to keep our grain separated from Jeff's stock and Eric is going to bring in some info on 3 different mills for us to choose from so we can have our own mill.

Dave Butler is working on building a web site for the brew club and should have it up and running in a month or so.

We discussed Big Brew which is coming up on May 5th.

Beer Tasting:

Mike from Liquid Poets in Ft. Collins              Blonde

Mike from Liquid Poets in Ft. Collins              Belgian Pale Ale

Mike from Liquid Poets in Ft. Collins              Irish Red

Shawn Crawford                                            English Brown Ale

Scott Hubly                                                    Belgian Black

Greg Bowdish                                                Vanilla Cinnamon Mead

Steve Skinner                                                 R.I.S. 2nd run

Dennis Swingler                                              Schwartz Beer

Ken Kramer                                                   Pale Ale

We also sampled 3 commercial Wit Beers donated by Brian, Eric and Ken (hope I got that right)

Hoegaarden Wit,  Dogfish Head Namaste and White Rascal.

Welcome to the Treehouse Brew Club

Welcome the new blog of the Treehouse Brew Club. We are a growing membership of homebrewers in the Weld County area that get together regularly to share the knowledge, the experiences, the flavors and the fun of homebrewing our own alcoholic beverages.  While we specialize in homebrewing beer, we do have members who make other types of drinks including meads, wines and hard ciders. Our goal is to improve the standards of homebrewed beer with knowledge, passion, insight and for the love of the hobby.

All levels of homebrewing experience are welcome to join us.  We meet each month on the first Monday of the month at 7:00pm at Crabtree Brewing Company in Greeley, Colorado.  The good folks at Crabtree has graciously provided a place for us to meet and even let us use some of their equipment on occasion including some wooden barrels for our projects.

Crabtree Brewing Company is located at: 625 3rd Street, Greeley, CO

On several occasions, we'll hold additional gatherings for brewing sessions, competitions and other special events. We'll host tours of local breweries and attend competitions and other events around the state.

For more information about this club, send us an email to: treehousebrewers [at] gmail.com.  We are registered with the American Homebrewers Association.

If you're on Facebook, please visit our Facebook page and "Like" us at:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Treehouse-Brewing-Club/158879897476156