Monthly Meeting at Cosmic Eye Brewing Company
 

When: Thursday, Novembeer 3, 2022, 6:00 – 9:00 p.m. Six o’clock for socializing, business at 7 o’clock. 
Where: Cosmic Eye Brewing, 6800 P Street, #300, Lincoln, NE 68505, 531.500.2739.

It's becoming a habit, man. A good habit! We're meeting at "Nebraska's Most Heaviest Brewery." Plus... we are giving away a $25 gift card to Bottle Mark for custom bottle caps or labels... and – there's more – some free memberships to American Homebrewer's Association. Come to the meeting! You could be a lucky winner! 
 

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The 2023 Sower's Cup! Some numbers and odds 'n' ends...
         
Another successful year is in the books. Thank you to everybody who helped steward, judge, sort, pack, label, cook and clean up. It's all about the people... and the homebrewed beer and mead and cider. We're looking at Octobeer 6 & 7, 2023, for the next one. Save those dates!

In the meantime, here are some numbers for your review from this year's Cup:

• 423 entries: 385 beers, 22 ciders/perries, 24 meads
• 91 entrants from 22 states
• 96 placing entries 
• 44 judges
• 39 brew clubs
• Top Club Participation (entries)
  • Kansas City Bier Meisters (68)
  • Iowa Brewers Union (57)
  • Lincoln Lagers (32)
  • Denton County Homebrewers Guild (30)
  • Homebrewers Local 402 (23)
• 24 judges
• Medals by Club (Top Five)
  • Kansas City Bier Meisters (21)
  • Iowa Brewers Union (11)
  • Lincoln Lagers (8)
  • North Georgia Malt Monkeys (8)
  • Homebrewers Local 402 (7)
• Bests of Show
  • Beer: Eric Martin & KCBM Barrel Project, Kansas City Bier Meisters, Wild Stout (28C: Wild Specialty Beer)
  • Cider: Bill Boyer, North Georgia Malt Monkeys, The Ghost of Johnny Appleseed (C2B: Cider with Other Fruit)
  • Mead: Bill Boyer, North Georgia Malt Monkeys, What is... Your Favorite Color? (M2C: Berry Mead)

  1. Standard American Beer (15) Cosmic Eye Brewing 
  2. International & Czech Lager (14) Quality Brands 
  3. Pale Malty European Lager (16) Brewer's Best
  4. Pale Bitter European Beer (20) Farnham House Brewing
  5. Marzen (14) Bierhaus Maisschäler
  6. Amber European Beer (16) Omega Yeast
  7. Dark & Strong European Lager (18) Spike Brewing
  8. German Wheat Beer (9) Stone Hollow Brewing 
  9. Commonwealth Pale & Bitter Beer (20) Blichmann Eng.
10. British Isles Amber & Brown Ale (15) Kinkaider
11. British Isles Stout (13) Moran's Liquor Works
12. Strong Ale (15) 1867 Bar
13. American Pale, Amber & Brown Ale (21) Fast Rack
14. American Porter & Stout (19) Patriot Homebrew Supply
15. IPA (16) Zipline Brewing
16. New England IPA (13) Corn Coast Brewing
17. Sour Ale (13) Special-Tee Remodeling
18. Belgian (20) White Elm Brewing
19. Trappist Ale (20) Beersmith
20. American Wild Ale (9) K&Z Distributing
21. Fruit Beer (14) Rory McLaughlin
22. Spiced Beer (13) Brickway Brewing
23. Smoked Beer (7) Jake's Cigars & Spirits
24. Wood Beer (8) Boiler Brewing
25. Historical, Specialty & Alt. Fermentables (15) Imperial Yeast
26. What is Juice? (4) TMCO
27. Cider & Perry (22) Sideshow Spirits & Cider
28. Traditional Mead (8) Valhalla Bee Farm
29. Fruit Mead (8) Havelock Honey
30. Spiced & Specialty Mead (8) Screen Ink

Thank you to Scott Lavendar for contributing some facts and figures to this story.
 

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• Dopplebock
• NEIPA
• Specialty Wood
• Belgian
• Fruit & Spice Mead
• Custom: Historical / No-Hopped Beer.

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Local Brewing Odds 'n' Ends 

• The Bottle Share! Bearded Brewer and Patriot Homebrew Supply have partnered together to host a gathering of homebrewers to share their homebrew. This is an opportunity o allow others to try yours and exchange feedback. The organizers ask that you bring 32-36 ounces per style that you wish to share and they will serve one-to-two-ounce pours. Bring a friend. This happens on Tuesday, Nov. 8, 6:30 - 8:30 p.m. at the Bearded Brewer, 18039 R Plaza, Omaha. Click here to sign up in advance.
• Our favorite downtown craft beer bar and long-time site of Lincoln Lagers' meetings - The Happy Raven - closed its doors on Octobeer 1. Matt Myers opened the place in 2015. It was Nebraska's Best Beer Bar (craftbeer.com) in 2017, 2018 and 2019. Thank you, Matt! Best of luck in the future for you and your staff. Read the related story here.
• We haven't been to a Lincoln Stars Hockey game as a group for a long, long time. A few of us want to go and we'd like to make it a club outing. There are several options available, depending on how many want to go. Here are some options to consider. Let's Go, Stars!
• Omaha's Farnam House Brewing Company – one of the Sower's Cup proud sponsors – has decided to close its doors on October 31. From their Facebook page: "We cannot adequately express our gratitude to all our staff, industry peers, supporters, friends and family who have stuck with us through Covid, staffing issues and all the other trials of the last few years. We feel it is in the best interest of our families to close and move on to other adventures. We will miss you all and hope you continue to support the many wonderful breweries in the area because we plan to," Tony and Christina Thomas, Phil and Bernie Doerr.

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402 Quarterly Contest

We are in the second year of the quarterly homebrew contest with the Local 402 Brewer’s Union from Omaha. This year we mixed it up with each club choosing a style for each quarter. We are planning the intra-club judging of imperial stout and English barleywine at the December club meeting. Top two entries for each style advances to the head-to-head contest with the 402s. Check out the BJCP Style Guidelines for details on these and all of the recognized styles. Watch the club website and Facebook for more fourth-quarter judging details. 

During a recent judging, we tossed around some ideas for 2023. Maybe going to twice a year and the winner picks the next comp's styles. Also thinking about sweetening the pot with some gift cards. Is anybody up for an extract kit contest? Could be fun!

March: English IPA & British Golden Ale (Omaha)
June: American Pale Ale & Saison (Lincoln)
September: Cider & Vienna Lager (Omaha)
> December: Imperial Stout & English Barleywine (Judging in Lincoln)
 

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In recognition of the 24th annual Learn to Homebrew Day on November 5, the American Homebrewers Association (AHA) invites all craft beer and fermentation fans to join the global community of homebrewing hobbyists. Homebrewers, whether experienced or first-timers, are encouraged to pledge to brew their own beer and welcome those curious about the craft to experiment with their first batches of homebrew. “Homebrewing makes life more delicious and introducing friends and family to the joys of the hobby is a leading charge of the AHA,” said Julia Herz, executive director, AHA. There's still time to get a brew together and invite your friends to learn how to brew. For more information on this year's LTHB Day, check out this page on the website of Craft Brewing Business. The Shower Beer: Why drinking a beer in the shower feels so damn good! 
Oh, come on. We've all done it. Hot shower. Cold beer. A terrific combo. According to Fatherly.com, it's "actually a great way to improve productivity and creativity." Showers release dopamine, which "can assist your creative juices." Click here to read the whole story.

Everything you need to know about coffee beers
It's after lunch and you're thinking about a second cup, you might think, coffee or beer? Well, why not both? Beer and coffee go together. "There’s nothing like a good coffee beer to warm up on bitter days or as a dessert alternative any time of year. Appreciating what separates good coffee beers from the bad ones, though, means understanding how brewers put them together in production—and where they got the idea in the first place." Check out hopculture.com for the whole (bean) story.
 

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The Trub Zone - Kim Theesen, Brewsletter Editor

Contrary to popular belief, the club’s website - lincolnlagers.com - is still up and going. It may have a bit of an old look to it – yeah, I haven’t seen Bryan Marcov in a while either – but most of the need to know is updated at least once a month. During the past few weeks, what with the Sower’s Cup’s activities, it was edited damn near every day. Unlike email and this newsletter, websites are more flexible. If we post something and the content gets changed, it’s relatively easy to edit. Notices via email? Not so much. For the Sower’s Cup, note the prominent dates I placed at the top so you would know for sure just how new the information was. I believe this is a valuable resource and I hope everybody takes a few minutes to explore it. Are some parts dated? Yes. Can you find some dead links on it? Yep. Could we get some new photos of current members on it? Workin' on it. Could we rearrange a few things to make it easier to find stuff? Probably. Well, tell me what do you want to see? What can't you find?

I’ve been a one-man web staff since taking over the website and Brewsletter position for the club.  As I said, the front page gets updated monthly, sometimes more often. I have done some maintenance and rearranged a few things. It’s understood that it’s had that same look for a long time; there are plans to give it a facelift. Please be patient with us as we work our way through it. 

I would love to get some input from other homebrew clubs and find out how they communicate with their members. Do they rely solely on social media (Facebook) or combine that with a website or emailed newsletters? What little web surfing I've done, I'd put our little website up there with others. In the meantime, it would be great to get some input as to what you want to see on our club site. One suggestion was to get our Other Comps page going soon; that way our members can plan ahead for their 2023 competitions and brews. What’s most important to you? Tell me.
 

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More on the Sower’s Cup… Bottle inspection and label removal

There’s a lot more to review on this year’s big comp, plus I have lots of photos to edit and share. I’d like to do a special edition or just plan on including it all in the next Brewsletter or perhaps on the retooled website. A number of us did get together recently and we documented a number of items that should make 2023's edition run even smoother.

As for now, I wanted to bring up a small section of the BJCP scoresheet: Bottle Inspection. Having judged a few beers and having my beers judged, this is usually just a quick formality; it doesn’t get you any points, but it might just give a clue or two as to the brewer’s M.O. After the category details and special ingredients, there’s a space on the sheet to check for “appropriate size, cap, fill level, label removal, etc.” In most cases in these comments, I'll note the cap color and the usual 12-ounce brown bottle. If there’s something odd or unusual, that should be noted. For example, I saw aluminum cans, pint-sized bottles, swing tops, twist offs and clear glass. But one thing that’s relatively rare for comments from my experiences was using the reference to “label removal.” Hmm.

FWIW, I volunteered to deal with the empty bottles. I got 'em all home, did a quick rinse with the bottle washer (it was the most efficient way), stuck 'em on the bottle tree, and stuck 'em back into the Zipline six-pack holders and case boxes. A few empties (the twist offs!) got boxed up with my personal collection and recycled. About seven or eight cases found homes and four more cases (as of this date) are still patiently waiting adoption. That being said, I got to look over lots of Sower’s Cup entries and noted a few things related to “label removal.”


I noted four bottles with visible, still-sticky-to-the-touch residue on their surfaces. And not just a few gummed smudges, we’re talking commercial-label sized – several inches across and tall – of gooey adhesive. How sticky was it? It was so sticky that I could press my finger onto the surface and drag it across the table. Yeah. I can’t believe that someone would enter a bottle that looked like that – a bottle that felt like that. 

In my early days of homebrewing and before kegging (and much like others I'm sure) I became something of an expert in label removal and locating good bottles with easy-to-remove labels. The vast majority shed their labels easily with a brief soak in plain water. Some needed more time to soak, some needed some scrubbing or scraping. Only when the bottle was something unusual (note the St. Peter’s bottles and its world’s strongest label adhesive) would I then take the extra effort of breaking out the solvents in an effort to free the glass from its colorful yet stubborn sticky label. In many cases, if the label was too much of a pain, it got tossed into the recycling tub. The effort was just not worth it.

I’m curious now as to what the judges may have said about the "label removal” or lack thereof in these specific instances. I’m also wondering what the scores for those “sticky” beers were. Yes, yes, I understand that it’s all about the beverage in the cup that the judge is drinking that gets judged, not the glass vessel. Subconsciously, however, if the brewer can’t clean the bottle, or even easier, just grab another one, what does that say about their brewing technique? Personally, I’d be too embarrassed to enter a bottle as messy as those. Not a good first impression. It's not lazy, it's uninspired. 

Next month, in my continuing dissertation on the beer bottle, we'll discuss and review bottle openers and the many ways to pop off a bottle cap. 

Cheers!

K!M T.
molarartist@hotmail.com

NOVEMBEER
3... Thurs... 6 p.m. Monthly Meeting - Cosmic Eye Brewing
5... Sat... All Day - Learn to Homebrew Day - Your Home Brewery
8... Tues... 6:30 - 8:30 p.m. - The Bottle Share at Patriot Homebrew Supply
17... Thurs... 6 p.m. Monthly Social - Pour Craft Beer & Spirits

DECEMBEER
1... Thurs... 6 p.m. Monthly Meeting - Lee's Chicken Restaurant
15... Thurs... 6 p.m. Monthly Social - Code Brewing Co.

JANUARY 
5... Thurs... 6 p.m. Monthly Meeting - TB
TBD... Sat... Annual Holiday Party  

(Disclaimer: Dates and details are subject to change at the last minute. Confirm with the organizers that these are accurate and still happening. Sometimes things are out of our control, you know? Check the website and Facebook when in doubt, OK? Cool. Thanks!)