June 2003

Editors Note: [Please submit any beer related information or articles to the newsletter editor at m@ttjarvis.com or call me at 342-2203. The ‘deadline’ is the 3^rd Sunday of the month.]

Next Meeting:

July 19^th Annual BBQ!!

See Kent’s remarks below for times, directions and the game plan for this stellar event!

July 25^th -27^th Oregon Brewers Festival - Portland

Portland Waterfront Park…. 80 beers….. need I say more?

July 20^th BJCP Exam

There are about 12 club members doing study session with Chris Studach. Several are taking the test to become official beer judges thru the Beer Judge Certification Program. Let’s wish them luck!

Upcoming Meetings and Events:

August 8-10: Annual club campout at Clark Creek - Don’t miss it!

August 18: wine and mead night, Russ and Amber

September 6^th - 7^th: Hop Madness Festival - Willamette Mission State Park, near Salem - Stay tuned for more details!!!

Bus Trip

See Robin’s comments below….

And Now a Word from President Robin Chitwood:

John and Kelly Wilson laid on an impressive spread Saturday afternoon, with homemade pizza cooked in the gas barbeque and many good homebrewed and commercial Belgian beers, thanks to contributing members. The tasting line-up included about fifteen different Belgians – browns, dubbels, trippels,Saisons and Hommelbier. Thanks John and Kelly for a great evening.

Intrepid travelers: For those who could not attend the June 4th meeting, we have finally reached a consensus. The Oregon coast itinerary will include a stop in Florence and eight or nine breweries northward to Pacific Rim in Astoria. Chip Hardy is working out the details. I have talked to Kevin Hornbuckle and he’s got us down for either of the first two weekends in October. Anyone who’s interested but not already signed on call me or Chip for more info.

Plans are shaping up for the Hop Madness festival. Matt Jarvis and Dan Shultz (Oregon Brew Crew) are taking over from Dave Wills of Freshops to put together what will be the second annual hop festival at Willamette Mission State Park, near Salem, on September 6th & 7th. This will be a great chance to get together with other Willamette Valley clubs.

Karen and I were flying back from Germany the weekend of the Sasquatch brewfest so we didn’t make it. I was happy to hear that it yielded about eleven thousand dollars for the scholarship fund. It sounds like next year’s will be even bigger.

Beer touring through Germany and Czech Republic was about as good as it gets for a homebrewer. Karen and I enjoyed about sixty different beers, mostly lagers, on the three-week trip. That doesn’t include quite a bit of repetition. Those crisp, refreshing Czech Pilsners and ponderous dunkels led us through many cobbled streets in Prague, searching for that exotic brew we can’t get at home.

Bamberg, Germany, was one of the prettiest cities I’ve seen, with tasty fresh “keller bier” served under the trees. We drank Schlenkerla Rauchbier from a bar-top wooden cask at the source. The cavernous beer halls of Munich, with the roar of animated conversation and the clinking of thousands of glasses made me realize the immensity of the Bavarian beer culture. We are already planning for another trip someday. There are still a few hundred beers we missed. In fact there are over three hundred breweries in Franconia alone, a small part of Bavaria. If wealth could be measured in beer, the kingdom of Bavaria would be truly prosperous.

Cheers, RC.

And Now a Word from President Kent Macdonald:

Thanks to John and Kelley for a fantastic Belgium beer night. The pizza's were great and the beer was even better.

The BBQ is on July 19th at 4:00pm. Our address is 25823 Tanya Ln. Veneta. Go west on 126 (West 11th) take the first right at Ellmaker(there is a Grocery Cart store there) this will dead end into Jeans Rd. take a left, the first right is Conrad, the first left is Tanya. We are the third house

on the right. (935 4668, call if you get lost). This is a Cajun theme party so get out your etouffee and jambalaya recipes! We will have crawfish, corn on the cob and pecan pie. And of course bring your best brews! The activities will include, a treasure hunt for the kids, volleyball and badminton, and of course the King of Brews competition, (with new and improved events!). We have plenty of room for camping so feel free to stay over. And please absolutely no pets are invited. For all the newcomers this is usually a large gathering with lots of great beer and fun for everybody, we would love to see all your new faces.

Kent.

Other News:

Wanted: Rod Surcamp wants to pick up a few corny kegs - give him a call at (541) 726-8792 if you have any to spare or know of a good source. (Word has it that Pepsi doesn’t sell them at the local plant anymore…)

Trip Report: Palm Springs, CA

by Matt Jarvis

Before I left for my biz trip to Palm Springs, I mentioned it to Chuck Link who, coincidentally, used to work around there. I asked him for any good places to go, and he mentioned a place called ‘Babes’… no, it ain’t a strip joint…. he said they had good food and beer and would be worth a look….

So off I go, land at Palm Springs and jump on the shuttle to my hotel in Rancho Mirage. Well, as it turns out, Palm Springs has become one big long group of cities, one after another, stretching for several dozen miles eastward out into the desert. So as we drive 20 minutes or so I was getting more and more depressed, thinking that it was going to get very expensive taking taxis all the way back to Babes…

We turn off Hwy 111 to the hotel, and to my great joy and amazement, right there, within a couple blocks from where I’ll be staying for a week, is Babes! Whoo whoo! “Life is good” I thought to myself….

So I made short work of checking into the hotel, a quick call to the office to tell them I made it in one piece, then off for some dinner. To make things EVEN BETTER - Babes is a brew pub as well! I dined on some above average ribs and tried three of their beers - Wheat, Pale and Dark Lager… all were pretty darn good…

I’ve noticed that in hotter climates (it got up to 124F while I was down there) they prefer smaller beers, so it seems that each style is scaled down about one or one and a half steps… so their IPA’s are like our pales, their Scotch ales are like our low end Browns - that sort of thing…

So that was all cool, but later that night I’m chilling out in the hotel bar drinking $6.50 SNPA’s, when the bartender tells me about a new place JUST ACROSS THE STREET, called the Yardhouse (www.yardhouse.com)…. are you sitting down? This place had 170 freekin’ beers on tap!!!!!!!! Damn - I’m only in town for a week!

The next night I went over there and you can imagine my jaw hanging open as I made the lap around the two islands of taps - each with about 80 taps…. the menu was 4 pages of beers and two pages of food items…. food was excellent! I managed to try 6 new beers on two separate visits (had a coworker in tow and didn’t want to look like a total lush). Not only did this place have hard to come by beers, such as Kona Brewing out of Hawaii, but they had FOUR of their beers…. in addition to the Kona pale (tasty!), I had the Wittekerke White, Warsteiner Dunkel, Erdinger Hefetrub Weisse and a couple others I can’t remember… all were quite yummy.

So, if you ever find yourself heading south, rest assured that you’ll be able to find ample sustenance at either Babe’s or The Yardhouse…..

Cheers,

Matt

From Denny: This came to the Cascade Brewers email addy, and I thought we might want to put it in the next newsletter.

Hi all,

We’re baaack! It’s time once again ladies to start planning for the Queen of

Beer Women’s Homebrewing Competition 2003! The Competition is scheduled for

October 25. We’re going back to our roots. Hangtown Brewery in Placerville CA

has offered to host the judging and post event celebration.

All beer styles will be accepted. Please refer to the most recent BJCP Style

Guidelines for description and category numbers!

Entry fees are still $7.00 for the first entry, and $5.00 for subsequent

entries, and will be accepted from October 3 through October 18. We will take

entries at the Northern California Homebrewers’ Festival. Just visit the HAZE

Booth!

For additional information, check out the QOB website!

www.HAZEclub.org/QOB/QOB.html

Club Information: For over 20 years, Cascade Brewers Society is a sometimes formal, but mostly informal club devoted to the appreciation and art of creating fine alcoholic beverages (you know; beer, mead, cider, and wine). For more information regarding the Cascade Brewers Society, please contact Kent Macdonald at 935-5711 or Robin Chitwood at 342-2397.