If you haven't stopped by Two Brothers Brewing in the past month, be prepared for a brilliant sight on your next visit. The brewery has just completed a major expansion which includes additional fermentation and conditioning capacity as well as a bottling line. Actually, the bottling line came first and the tanks were needed to keep up with the demand for the bottled product. This new capacity will enable increased availability of the Two Brothers product line in area liquor stores. And mark Saturday, June 13th on your calendar. That is the next date for a tour of the brewery. The tour starts at 2pm, lasts about 45 minutes, and walks through the entire process and all the equipment. This is followed by samples and an opportunity to buy low-fill cases cheap!
You'll notice that this issue of the Knave Knews highlights the club's involvement with National Homebrew Day on May 2nd. Through the dedicated efforts of Dick Van Dyke, this evolved into an entire weekend of brewing and homebrew tasting all hosted by Total Beverage in Naperville. I thank John Kleczewski and his assistant, Marc Kullberg, for coordinating the brew-in and brewers Shane Coombs, Tom Oelrich, and Russ Johnson for schlepping their equipment to Naperville. Also taking time out from their busy weekend schedule to help brew and/or staff the UKG tasting table were Laurel Coombs, Chris Campanelli, John Mains, Mike Uchima, Don Alton, and Chris Barrett. A special note of thanks goes to the management of Total Beverage for what I'm sure was a Herculean task in getting approval from the City of Naperville to brew on their premises. The club also recognizes L.D. Carlson for their generous donation of supplies and ingredients that became 15 gallons of barley wine.
The following weekend, a number of club members sharpened up their No. 2 pencils and took the BJCP exam. Thanks goes to Steve McKenna for tutoring many of the exam takers over the weeks preceding the exam, as well as, administering the exam itself. Many of you may not be aware that Steve is also the club webmaster and has done an outstanding job keeping the UKG website up to date and accurate. On the social scene there are two announcements. First, tickets are available for the club outing to the Kane County Cougars game on July 23rd. This is a great opportunity to get together with fellow members outside the regular monthly meetings. Not to mention that the ballpark offers a pretty good tap selection (better than you'll find at Wrigley or Comiskey). Reserved seat tickets are $6 and available from Darrell Proksa. Second, the club is starting a UKG Social Night which will occur the second Saturday of each month. For more information see the related article in this newsletter.
Finally, in this newsletter you will find a ballot for the upcoming election of club officers. The election will be conducted during the June monthly meeting on the 25th. If you are unable to attend the June meeting, please vote using the enclosed ballot and mail it to the designated election judge as provided for on the ballot.
Have a safe and enjoyable summer !
Darrell
Environmental specialists at Molson Breweries in Canada had a problem. The company was spending thousands of dollars in surcharges to pour beer more than 110 days old into city sewers. After some thought, they came up with the idea of feeding the stuff to cows. "Our mandate as a company is to try and eliminate all the byproducts of the brewing process from going to the landfill," says Peter Rochefort with the brewery. The program seems to be quite a success. And rural neighbors needn't fear any drunken cow revelry. Stale beer is only one element mixed into their feed and their multi-chambered stomachs metabolize the alcohol while ingesting the protein. Scientific test show cattle can absorb many litres of beer without any rise in their blood alcohol levels. MOOOO-eh?
Sooner or later I guess it had to come to this. But later would have been fine with me. Vegetarianism is growing faster in the United Kingdom than anywhere else in Europe with recent polls indicating up to 50 percent of people are cutting down on meat consumption. To meet the demand, the Vegetarian Society has been asked to endorse a variety of products ranging from digital cameras to shoes and, more recently, beer. The "V" sign has already been awarded to a range of foods including beef and tomato pot noodles, tea biscuits, pies and pasties. Camera maker Ricoh recently won approval for a new digital model which avoids the use of gelatine commonly used in making photographic film. Now you might see where this is leading. Drinkers in British pubs can now order "Viga" lager beer made without the use of gelatine or isinglass - derived for the bladders of tropical fish - in the brewing process. This should prove to be quite a hit with the blokes at the pub.
UTAH....Anheuser-Busch is paying the Salt Lake Organizing Committee 50 million smackers to market Budweiser as the official beer of the 2002 Winter Games and of the US Olympic teams through 2004 and this has some Mormons up in arms. Students at BYU presented the SLOC a petition with more than 2,400 signatures protesting the sponsorship. They claim the sponsorship "not only misrepresents the values and standards of the state of Utah, but also undermines and degrades the very sprit of the Olympic Games." A spokeswoman for the SLOC, Caroline Shaw, said the petition will be forwarded to Anheuser-Busch but won't affect the sponsorship. That she says "is a done deal."
TORONTO, ONTARIO.... There is no greater love. The newly formed singing group, "Men for Moms" sang at Queen's Park on Sunday April 19th, in protest of Premier Mike Harris' cutting $37-a-month subsidy to pregnant women. Harris defended his move by saying, "What we are making sure is that those dollars don't go to beer." The Men for Moms group brought eight six-packs of Molson, Big Rock and Gritstone beer with them which they offered to give to Harris. "This beer would have been bought with money from Mike Harris' tax cut," said singer/politician Jack Layton. "So we're willing to give that beer back to Harris and we urge him to give the money to pregnant moms to buy food." The six-member group sang a Layton song, We're Going To Give It Back, and then left the 48 bottles of suds on the steps of Queen's Park for the Tory government.
NEWTON, MA....Jim Koch should have known better. The owner of Boston Beer Co. lives in Newton and is a long time supporter of Little League baseball, He was approached by Terry Sacks, president of the Newton East Little League about advertising at Jay Gordon field where the little tykes play. So Jim bought in, and a four by eight foot sign was hung on the left field wall. Its message, "Our beer is carefully aged before drinking. You should be, too." The parents who came to the games immediately cried "FOUL". Needless to say, an umpire was not consulted on the call, and the sign was brought down with much humph and hurrah. Sorry, Jimbo, that's Strike Three and you're outta there.
AMSTERDAM, NETHERLANDS... A Dutch brewer had just the answer for those who couldn't quite remember the words to toast the queen on her birthday last April 30th. - Beer cans printed with the national anthem. Grolsch sold millions of the orange-colored cans before Queen's Day festivities so lager lovers could remember the words to the "Wilhelmus." Queen's Day is celebrated in many Dutch towns with daylong street parties at which beer is the drink of choice among revelers clad in the national color, orange. Although the Dutch are proud of their royal family, a growing number of the younger generation does not know the words of the 12-verse anthem. The Grolsch cans had just the first and sixth verses,"Nobody ever sings the others," said Grolsch spokesman Paul Koenings.
The Urban Knaves are stealing a concept popularized by the Chicago Beer Society - something called "Social Night". This is an opportunity for members, families and friends to meet and socialize outside and between the regular monthly meetings. To make scheduling convenient, Social Night will always fall on the SECOND Saturday of each month. The location will rotate and be announced at the regular meetings, in the newsletter, on the Web page and via e-mail. These gatherings will "start" at 7:30pm. Come anytime thereafter, leave whenever. Just look for the group with the black caps and/or Trappist-front T-shirts.
The first Social Night gathering will be at Palmer Place in LaGrange on June 13th. You may recall, this was the fourth stop on this past February's train crawl. It is located on LaGrange Rd. a few blocks south of the railroad tracks. We will meet in the beer garden area at the rear of the building (assuming good weather).
The July Social Night will be held at Irish Times in Brookfield. Irish Times is located across the street from the Brookfield train station. Rumor has it that they also have a beer garden which is where we will meet. If you have any favorite watering holes that you would like to suggest for future Social Nights, please contact the President or Newsletter Editor to get it on the schedule.
The City of Brotherly Love's image took another hit recently when it was discovered that the beer sold at Phillies game in Veterans Stadium was not everything it was advertised to be. Don Russell, a reporter for the Philadelphia Daily News, and ardent baseball and beer fan, was tired with the lousy food and high prices at the Vet and in addition to writing stories about the worst hot dogs in America, he decided to check out the beer. Ads throughout Veterans Stadium tout beer sold in 12 and 18 ounce cups. Well, Don bought a few of these beers and measured them. And what do you know, they all came up short about 2 ounces. So he went back another day and checked again. Same result. Now 2 oz. may not sound like much, but just do the math. Each year they sell about 750,000 cups of beer at the Vet. You skim 2 ounces from each cup, and you save a cool $495,000. Ogden Entertainment which runs the concessions at the stadium refused to answer questions on the subject. After reading the reports in the Daily News, two cousins filed a class action lawsuit charging negligence and fraud. Shortly after this, Ogden took down all signs at the Vet that referred to the size of the cups of beer sold. As of this time, no final disposition has been made in this brew-ha-ha.
Congratulations go out to the following Knaves whose beers will be moving on to Portland, OR for the next round of judging in the AHA National competition:
| STEVE MCKENNA | Barley Wine |
| JOE FORMANEK | Barley Wine, American-Style Ale, English-Style Bitter, and Stout |
| RUSS JOHNSON | German-Style Wheat Beer |
| PHIL GRAVEL | California Common Beer |
Last year at this time I reported on the winner of an Irish Pub given away by Guinness Imports. Well, they have done it again. This time the winner is Trevor O'Driscoll of New York. Trevor was one of ten finalists flown to Ireland for the final competition. He had to throw a few darts, pour a pint of Guinness, and give a 50 word speech on why the pub had to be his. Finishing second to last in the dart competition, Trevor got on a roll pouring his pint. When he changed clothes for his speech and appeared as a "seanachai", an aged Gaelic storyteller, complete with robe, long white hair and cane, he sewed up his first place finish and won the pub. Last year's winner, Doug Knight of Minneapolis was on hand as a judge, but the three previous winners of the pubs have since all sold their winnings. O'Driscoll is unsure how long he will stay in Ireland. When asked he responded, "A month? A year? Forever?" he said. "Jeez, until today I didn't even think I'd win a pub."
Deer poop. But don't spit out your Molson's just yet. The problem of deer excrement only affects Canadian feed barley. So far the malting barley has not experienced this problem. But the problem has got the attention of the Canada Grain Commission. Last year, Japan rejected two shiploads of grain because of the problem. There have been two or three other incidents where customers complained informally, but accepted the shipments. The problem is caused by an increased deer population, and grain that remained in the fields over the winter due to an early snowfall. "Customers will continue to buy our grain only if they're satisfied with the grain they receive," said Wally Madill, former chief operating officer of the Alberta Wheat Pool and current member of a 3-man committee to study the problem. Just to be on the safe side though, I don't think I'll be buying any Labatt's for a while.
The British can be very picky when it comes to talk of a European Union, but some Londoners are drinking deep of a key ingredient of Brussels life: Belgian beer. In the heart of London, restaurant Belgo serves up no less than 101 varieties of Belgian beer to quench the thirsty Brit. Compared to the average London pub, the choices are no doubt impressive. And yet, Marc Stroobandt, who pours and serves the beer at Belgo with a masterly touch, had to choose from around 800 beers available in Belgium itself. He had to sift his way through fruit-flavored beer, chocolate-tasting beer and even a tobacco-flavored brew. Londoners clearly like Stroobandt's 101 choices. "Everyone seems to like it, and the British palate is really open to all these different flavors. We're talking about very sweet and sour beers to very dry beers. But fruit beers are very, very sweet and the British palate seem to be very open to it," he said. So what is the current favorite beer at the Belgo? "For the moment, it's the white beers that are very popular. They are very lemony, very refreshing, and they're not too strong." Stroobandt said. Should the customer have some problem in making up his or her mind as to which beer to tap first, beer lovers may want to recall the old song that says: "Order six of each, that's the way to learn..."
With the arrival of warm weather come the boys of summer. Once again this year, the Urban Knaves will gather at Elfstrom Stadium in Geneva to drink a few beers and cheer on the Kane County Cougars. We probably do more beer drinking than cheering, but hey, that don't make us bad guys or nothin'. This year's trip is scheduled for the 23rd of July as KC plays host once again to the Rockford Cubbies. It's also Thermo Mugs night, whatever that is. If you missed the game last year, don't let it slip by again. See Darrell or Tom for the $6 tickets.
In his internet column Fred Eckhardt has spilled the beans about "Light" beers. In responding to a challenge to write a column about the subject, Fred explains that while judging at the Great American Beer Festival, when it came to the Light beer category, there was only one criteria used in judging - taste. If he found any, he rejected the entry! The awards he said, went to the top three beers with the least taste. It's a great article, and you can read it in its entirety at: http://www.allaboutbeer.com/columns/fred6.html
Duff Beer, Homer Simpson's favorite brew, has become a real-life collector's item in Australia, with asking prices up to $6,300 per case. South Australia Brewing Co. was banned from selling Duff by a court that found it had illegally tried to "exploit a strong association" with "The Simpsons". But, Duff has re-appeared for sale in classified ads. In 1995 Duff sold for $15/case. but now a six-pack could set you back $750.
Only in California. A group of Northern Californian micro-brewers sponsored a beer day at UC-Berkeley. Only they called it a symposium and titled it, "Beer and Culture". There were lectures featuring an archaeologist, an anthropologist and an art historian. The seminar explored the role that beer - and the men and women who drank it - played through the ages. The ancient Celts and Inca were lauded for their contribution to barley history. To sum up some of their findings:
As high noon approached on May 2nd, the front facade of Total Beverage in Naperville took on the appearance of a brew-on-premises as a handful of intrepid Knaves, under the direction of John Kleczewski, prepared to brew three batches of barley wine in commemoration of the 10th anniversary of National Homebrew Day and the 20th anniversary of the formation of the American Homebrewers Association (AHA). The Total Beverage site was one of over 100 sites around the world that registered with the AHA in an attempt to garner a world record for most gallons of beer brewed at the same time (2:00 Eastern, 1:00 Central, etc., etc.).
When the 1 o'clock hour struck, all three kettles were "fired up" simultaneously and brew got underway. All three batches were brewed using the same extract and specialty grain recipe provided by the AHA. As the brew-in commenced, the clouds of steam attracted a number of interested bystanders including some current and former homebrewers. While all the excitement was going on outside the store, homebrew was being served inside. The Knaves poured samples of seven different cream ales that were brewed as part of the Yeast Common Denominator experiment. This provided a great opportunity to "educate" the general public in terms of what homebrewing is all about, as well as, an understanding of key ingredients and how just ONE of the components (yeast) impacts the character of the end product.
The education process continued into Sunday, May 3rd, when nine different homebrews were served side- by-side with a representative commercial example. Not surprisingly, some of the people who sampled on Saturday, returned on Sunday to experience the variety of styles in evidence. Many were overheard expressing a preference for the homebrewed selection over its paired commercial example.
A listing of the beers served for this event/weekend appears below. Stay tuned for future details regarding tastings of the three barley wines that were brewed.
Darrell Proksa
Everyone in attendance at the April monthly meeting had the rare opportunity to taste the same beer (a cream ale) brewed with 11 different yeast strains as part of the Yeast Common Denominator experiment. The following yeasts were used and the club thanks the associated brewers for their commitment and participation in this effort:
| Wyeast 1098 (British Ale) | Phil Gravel * |
| Lallemand/Danstar Nottingham | Tom Oelrich * |
| Wyeast 1007 (German Ale) | John Mains * |
| Wyeast 1272 (American Ale II) | Mike Uchima * |
| Wyeast 3068 (Weihenstephan Weizen) | Shane Coombs |
| Wyeast 3787 (Trappist) | Marc Kullberg |
| Rochefort (Yeast Culture Kit Co.) | Steve McKenna * |
| Munton & Fison | Alan Rhea |
| Lallemand/Danstar Manchester | Al Socha |
| Wyeast 1028 (London Ale) | Steve Bailey * |
| Wyeast 1214 (Belgian Ale) | Russ Johnson * |
* Cream Ales selected for serving at Total Beverage on May 2.
On May 3rd, as part of National Homebrew weekend, Total Beverage sponsored a side-by-side tasting of homebrew and its representative commercial example of the same style. The club would like to thank the brewers mentioned below for contributing a few bottles of their finest for this effort. The second entry underneath each item is the commercial beer chosen to represent the style brewed:
Dry Stout - Shane Coombs
Guinness Extra Stout
Mead - Marc Kullberg
Chaucer's Mead
India Pale Ale (IPA) - Marc Kullberg
Goose Island IPA, Fuller's IPA
Sparkling Dry Cider - Marc Kullberg
Old Deadly's
Barley Wine - Marc Kullberg
Young's Old Nick
Old Ale - Mike Uchima
Old Peculiar
American Brown Ale - John Mains
Pete's Wicked Ale
Belgian White - Russ Johnson
Blue Moon Belgian, Brasserie Abbaye Des Rocs' Blanche De Honnelles
Hefe Weizen - Russ Johnson
Hacker-Pschorr Weisse, Schneider Weiss
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Last modified 7/2/98.