Springfield's getting a brewery!
The
Rolling Meadows Brewery is getting set up just north of town, and although their doors aren't open yet, I'm sure looking forward to raising a pint or two when they are!
Their website is
http://rollingmeadowsbrewery.com/601.html
Latest Club Meeting Minutes
Greetings Schooners,
Several topics were discussed at the November meeting at Floyd's, and some pretty tasty brew was offered.
1. The Teach a Friend to Homebrew Day was a big success, thanks to all the planners, participants, and especially the onsite brewers, as well as all the contributors of homebrew that was sampled. If there are any suggestions for next year's event, this might be a good time to scribble them down while the memory is fresh - or just post a reply to this discussion. For example, someone mentioned that having a card, or a flier of some sort to hand out with the Prairie Schooners' info would be a good idea. All other input is welcome and encouraged.
2. Court suggested a Holiday party for the December meeting, and very generously offered to provide the banquet room at the Inn at 835 for all the members of the website, as well as our families and friends. All comers could bring a snack well as some of their favorite homebrew and/or commercial brew. Availability of the facilities at the Inn is limited, especially as the holiday season approaches, but it looks as though Saturday, December 12th is open, and Court suggested that we could start about 6:00 p.m. We'll blast this out to everyone on the website's email list shortly so everyone can have a chance to plan ahead.
3. It was also suggested to post notices of future meetings, not only as an email blast to the website list, but also like what has been done in the past with a flier on the hop fridge at Friar Tuck's. Also considered was to post a notice in the calendar section of the Illinois Times. This led to the suggestion of having one of our members handle the media stuff - a sort of "PR Person."
4. Mike Bauer started what could be a new tradition for the group by holding a raffle for a pint glass from Friar Tuck. Congratulations to Alison for being the lucky winner for this month's prize, and who knows what will be raffled off at future meetings? A packet of yeast? An ounce of hops? Maybe a B3-2100 MoreBeer 20 gallon brew sculpture with the full SMART digital temperature control package, integrated plate chiller, and the boil kettle maximizer/diverter option?
That's it from my notes - hope to see you at the Holiday party! - and Brew On!
Oh yes, forgot to mention - Mark Sheftick has set up a phone number and general email account for the club. He has posted them on the left side of our main webpage, but here they are again anyway:
Contact Information:
prairie.schooners@gmail.com
(217) 953-0229
Thanks to Mark for doing this. It will help to get the word out. I'll notify the AHA to reflect the update.
Assorted Useful Links (a work in progress)
The American Homebrewers Association page on the Brewers Association website:
American Homebrewers Association
How To Brew by John Palmer is one of the most useful books to a homebrewer, new and old. Palmer graciously put the first edition of his book on the internet. It is free to read and print.
www.howtobrew.com
Homebrew Talk forums are a good source of information. Run a quick search can often yield needed information, especially in a hurry.
Homebrewtalk.com
Brew365 is a great source of information and recipes. They even list out recipes to clone some of the popular commercial brews.
www.brew365.com
Brew-Monkey is another repository for information and recipes. Especially of note are their interviews with craft brewers.
www.brew-monkey.com
Hopville is a budding community for homebrewers and their recipes. It's still under development, but instead of being "in beta" it's been "getting bettah" all the time.
http://hopville.com/whats-brewing
Basic Brewing is run by James Spencer and is a weekly podcast on homebrewing and general beer topics. His video offerings are a little more intermittent but just as good. The nice thing about audio is that you can learn something useful even while you are doing some sort of menial activity. If you have never watched or listened to any of his productions, scan the archives for anything of interest.
Audio Video