The next meeting of the Auburn Brew Club will be on Sunday July 12th at 3pm.
See you there with your homebrew, tasting glass, and chairs may be needed depending on the turnout.
If you’d like to get more details, just contact us.
Members should log onto the forum for more information and directions.
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Filed under: Club News, Events
Congratulations to Alabama’s most awarded homebrewer, John Tipton and Nashville homebrewing hippie Chris Lehmann, for placing in the 2009 National Homebrew Competition. Both are members of Huntsville’s Rocket City Brewers.
John won a bronze medal for his Russian Imperial Stout, in a category with 374 entries.
Chris, along with Nashville Antioch Sud Sucker members Carl Meier, John Owen, Kyle Nordquist and Zach Harper, won a silver medal for their Barrel Aged Belgian Dark Strong, in a category with 182 entries.
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Filed under: Competitions
Advocates for homebrewing in Alabama said they hope to build on the recent success of the gourmet beer lobby when the Legislature convenes its next session.
Alabama is one of four states — Kentucky, Mississippi and Oklahoma being the other three — in which it is illegal for a person to brew his own beer, according to Gary Glass, director of the American Homebrewers Association.
In Alabama, it is illegal to make beer or any distilled liquor unless you are a licensed manufacturer of that product, said Bob Martin, an attorney with the Alabama Alcoholic Beverage Control Board.
Alabamians can make up to
5 gallons of wine per year, he said, but state law says it must be made from fruit grown on the vintner’s property.
But Martin said ABC enforcement officers aren’t exactly raiding people’s houses to seize their illicit Russian imperial stouts.
“Just like anything, if you do it at home, and you’re not out selling it, and you’re not making hundreds of gallons so your neighbors notice, we don’t actively go after it,” he said.
Lt. Mike Cook, who runs ABC enforcement in Mobile and Baldwin counties, said his agency hasn’t arrested anyone for homebrewing beer in the past five years.
“We’ve just got way too much to do,” he said.
Perhaps because of the lax enforcement, homebrewing has flour ished in Alabama despite being illegal. The American Homebrewers Association lists eight different homebrewing clubs in Alabama, including L.A. Lagers in Mobile.
Glass said his organization is working with several homebrewers in Alabama to change the law.
They have submitted bills to legalize homebrewing in each of the past two legislative sessions. Each time, the bill passed a Senate committee vote but then never came up for a full vote in the Senate.
While the homebrewing bill died in this year’s session, the Legislature did pass laws that raised the maximum alcohol content for beer and wine.
That was a step in the right direction for homebrewers, said John Little, an Auburn attorney who wrote the homebrewing bill introduced this year.
“Any progressive, beerrelated change is good for homebrewing,” he said.
Little said that educating the public about homebrewing is one of the most important steps needed to push the legalization of it.
Many people think of homebrewers as shady moonshiners, he said, when, in fact, most homebrewers are middle-class citizens who look at brewing as a hobby.
Little said he doesn’t know what to expect in the Legislature next year, since it’s an election year, but he hopes the beer education work that a group called Free the Hops did to help pave the way for the higher-alcohol-content bill to pass will help his movement.
“It took Free the Hops four years,” he said. “It may take us four years or longer.”
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Filed under: In the News, Legal Issues
Strong Beer News Feed!!!
This coming up Tuesday we should receive the following on draft:
Rogue Double Dead Guy Ale
Imperial Stout
Imperial I.P.A.
Imperial Y.S.B.
From Sierra Nevada we will soon have Southern Hemisphere, Bigfoot.
These all ONLY come in draft for our state. (Darn those container-size laws)
Now these are just the first options… and we probably will not get every one of these in at the same time. We will keep updating everyone!
Unibroue on the way in bottles!!!
Thank you!
Gus
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Filed under: Club News
Last Saturday we met at Harold’s for the Spring Big Brew and WOW was it fun! Gallons of beer were brewed and of course we even had our accidents. Julie started the day with 3 carboys but ended the day with one. The first disaster occurred when boiling water was added to a plastic carboy. Would you believe they did not even need to do that! The second occurred when a glass carboy filled with cleaning solution was dropped! It was just a bad day for Julie. HEY MIKE! are you ready to give up your trophy? I think we should make the presentation at the next meeting Sunday July 12th at 3pm @ Julie’s house (how appropriate). We would like thank the new members that can out to watch and brew. We would also like to thank Harold and Nancy for all of their hospitality!
PROST!
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Filed under: Club News, Events
In the next two weeks we should see these beers arrive in Auburn. They will be available at Fine Wine and Beer by Gus. If you are on his mailing list you should receive an email by the middle of the week stating what he will be able to get. Gus is going to be doing a pre-order so if you are not on his mailing list I would recommend you join so you do not miss out! This will be an exciting time in Auburn when the first beers arrive. Make sure you are not left out!
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Filed under: Around Auburn, Commercial Beer
Ok, so I modified the famous line from Neil Armstrong when he became the first man to walk on the moon on July 19, 1969. With the passage of legislative measure HB373, our limit has been raised from 6.0 percent 13.9 percent. We can drink foreign and microbrew beer now (legally)!
Overall this might not have been much but it was a step forward and I would say in Alabama it was a big step forward. With a governor from Clay County I did not think that he would even sign it but just let it die a slow death in his pocket. Now we can look to next year and a new administration in hopes of getting more outdated laws corrected not only for our own personal benefit but also for economic development. I am speaking of making home brewing of beer legal (even Utah can now!) and opening up the commercial micro brewing industry. It is true there is a trickle coming out of the faucet of the commercial microbrew industry but with a couple of turns of the faucet this industry can produce more revenue for a local economy as well as The State.
So let’s celebrate what has been achieved and look forward to the work that still needs to be done. Go out and grab yourself one of the new arrivals and enjoy!
Prost!
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Filed under: Club News, Commercial Beer, History, In the News, Legal Issues
The Auburn Brew Club will hold its 2nd annual Spring Big Brew on Saturday, June 6, 2009. Around a dozen brewers are planning to set up each of their brewing systems at one of our member’s house in Auburn, each brewing 5 or 10 gallons. This will be an all-day event, and there’ll be plenty of food and, of course, great beer.
If you’ve never brewed, come on by and observe the process. You may decide you’d like to try it for yourself one day. If you’re a brewer but have never been to an Auburn Brew Club meeting before, come meet some interesting and inspiring people. Everyone agrees that the club meetings and discussions have served to improve their brewing and beer judging skills.
If you’d like to get more details, just contact us.
Members should log onto the forum for more information and should fill-out what they are brewing and bringing on the spreadsheet link.
Hope you can make it!!!
Auburn Brew Club
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Filed under: Club News
Our meeting scheduled for Thursday April 30th is being moved to Thursday May 7th.
As always there will be a number of great beers to sample. There may be a SPECIAL demonstration this month, if we can work it out, to create inexpensive carbonator caps. If so, bring a couple 2 liter bottle caps and some car tire stems (you can get them at auto stores for between $5 and $6 for a set of four) (The inexpensive black ones are fine).
We will have the traditional tasting and judging, so bring a glass and a chair!
When: Thursday May 7th 6:30pm
Where: Curt’s House
Directions: See Event forum
If you are new to the club and are not on the forum, we’d love to meet you. If you would like to get more details, just contact us.
Come join the fun and expand your brewing.
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Filed under: Club News
There are a handful of personal blogs at auburnbrewclub.org that are temporarily not accessible due to some recent changes and confusion about how to reestablish DNS settings for those subdomains properly. Slowly, working on it.
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Filed under: Website
From the April 9, 2009, Alabama Baptist:
Godfrey said those who want to legalize home brewing compare themselves to those who compete in barbecue competitions.
“My response to that is that I’ve never heard of anyone being killed while under the influence of barbecue,” he said. …
“We would have no idea of who’s drinking this. This is another reason we need to discourage home brewing,” Godfrey said.
Alabama home brewers and winemakers need your help TODAY!!
The number of days remaining in the 2009 Alabama legislative session are dwindling. There are only a few session days remaining, and the work of the Senate keeps grinding to a halt due to filibusters. Democrats are filibustering over the inability to pass legislation related to gambling and sales tax on food, while Republicans in both houses of the Alabama legislature feel slighted by Democrats, the controlling party.
The following key individuals in the Alabama Senate need to be contacted and urged to help SB492 permitting home brewing and winemaking get through the logjam, with these key points being made:
* Most Democrats favor the bill. This is a perfect opportunity for the Democratic controlled Senate to pass a Republican sponsored bill in a display of fairness with respect to which party’s bills get to come up for a vote.
* Alabama is one of only 4 states that has not updated their statutes since Prohibition to explicitly permit home brewing and winemaking for noncommercial purposes in a limited quantity. This failure hurts the state’s image and economy.
* Passing SB492 will demonstrate that the Senate is willing consider bills backed by ordinary citizens, and not only those backed by deep pockets and paid lobbyists, a habit the Senate has faced increasing scrutiny over.
Here are the Senators to contact who can help legalize the home brewing hobby in Alabama:
Senator Lowell Barron, Rules Committee Chairman
Fax: (334) 353-8277
Secretary’s Email: louise.fenn@alsenate.gov
Phone: (334) 242-7858
Lt. Governor Jim Folsom
Fax: (334) 242-4661
Secretary’s Email: marilyn.taylor@ltgov.alabama.gov
Phone: (334) 242-7900
Senator Phil Poole
Fax: (334) 242-8818
Secretary’s Email: carol.bullard@alsenate.gov
Phone: (334) 242-7889
Senator Rodger Smitherman
Fax: (334) 353-7123
Email: rodger.smitherman@alsenate.gov
Phone: (334) 242-7870
Senator Zeb Little
Fax: (334) 353-3970
Secretary’s Email: senatemail@gmail.com
Phone: (334) 242-7855
Below is the full article from the Alabama Baptist News:
Read more…
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Filed under: Legal Issues
From Maureen Ogle’s First Draft Follies:
Part I | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6
Homemade beer inspired “good vibrations” and a “pleasant high.” Unlike the rest of the “plastic, mass-produced shit” of modern America, homebrew represented “an exercise of craft” and empowered the “politically oriented” to retaliate against “Augustus [sic] Busch and the other fascist pigs who [were] ripping off the Common Man.”
“If you’re looking for a cheap drunk,” added the beer adviser, “go back to Gussie Busch. But if you dig the good vibes from using something you make yourself, plus an improvement in quality over the commercial shit,” brew on, brothers and sisters, brew on.
There is no way to measure the number of Americans who practiced homebrewing in the early and mid-1970s, but by the summer of 1973 enough were that the Treasury Department issued a formal warning advising Americans to “leave the beer-making to the brewers.”
Treasury’s warning was a bit bizarre, even laughable, given that Senator Sam Ervin was a few blocks away conducting hearings into gross illegalities on the part of the Nixon administration. Such, however, are the ways of men.
Charlie Papazian ignored the advisory to cease and desist. He stumbled across homebrewing in the early seventies while studying nuclear engineering at the University of Virginia. A friend introduced Papazian to a neighbor, an older man named George Connor.
One day while the two were visiting Connor, the older man went to the basement and returned with a bottle. It’s beer, he said; he’d been aging it for a year or two. Connor opened the bottle and poured samples.
Revelation. Papazian and his friends usually drank 69-cent six-packs of Ballantine, which was okay but nothing to get excited about. Connor’s “cidery” brew sang with “clean, fresh, lively” flavor. It was, Charlie decided, not only delicious but “interesting.”
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Filed under: History
Beer Wars Live Event - Please Post!
Thursday, April 16 — ONE NIGHT ONLY
An evening dedicated to celebrating the world of craft beer and the American entrepreneurial spirit.
With over 95 million beer drinkers, beer is an American icon and is interwoven into our culture, yet the real story of these independent brewers has never been told. Beer Wars introduces the who’s who in beer while following the journey of small, independent brewers who are challenging the corporate behemoths. The evening will feature the world premiere of the groundbreaking documentary Beer Wars, followed by a spirited LIVE discussion with brewers and experts from the film.
Playing in 440 movie theatres nationwide on Thursday, April 16th, Beer Wars LIVE will begin a conversation about the future of beer in America.
Purchase tickets for the LIVE event on April 16th at 8pm ET/7pm
CT/6pm MT/8pm PT (tape delayed) at
www.fathomevents.com/upcoming/details/Beer_Wars.html
For more information, visit www.beerwarsmovie.com
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Filed under: Club News
From Gary Glass and the AHA:
Dear AHA Members,
The American Homebrewers Association is assisting an Auburn University study on homebrewing as a “Serious Leisure Pursuit” in the United States.
In the interest of getting the most representative and reliable the data we can, we encourage as many homebrewers as possible to participate in the study by filling out a brief survey. Please read this informational letter pertaining to the research and if you agree to participate, you can click through to the anonymous online survey.
Your participation is entirely voluntary. Total time commitment is approximately 15 minutes and there are no known risks associated with participating in this study. The survey delivery software will not collect email or IP addresses and/or any other identification markers.
The survey site will remain open through April 30, though we would greatly appreciate it if you could complete the survey in a timely manner.
Please feel free to forward this message on to any other homebrewers you know.
Results from the study will be posted on the AHA website and to the AHA TechTalk forum once they have been compiled.
Thank you for supporting this study.
Gary Glass
Director
American Homebrewers Association
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Filed under: Polls
Friends of Craft Brewing in Alabama:
Thanks to all your efforts, Alabama Senate Bill 492 passed the Senate Tourism & Marketing (T&M) Committee on Thursday, March 26 with a 7-0 unanimous favorable vote. Passing the T&M Committee was a crucial step in a multi-step process, and we hope SB492 picks up steam in the next week or two. Now is not the time to relax but to increase our efforts and increase our contacts. Push, Baby, Push!
(1) Schoolhouse Rock’s I’m Just a Bill on Capitol Hill
Here’s a little civics lesson for beer lovers who’ve lost too many brain cells since high school.
(2) Alabama’s Goat Hill
And then there’s Alabama (capitol is known as Goat Hill). It is much more difficult to get a bill passed in Alabama than in Washington, DC. In the Alabama Senate, in order for a bill to come up for a floor vote, the bill must be placed on what is known as a “Special Order Calendar.” Senate Special Order Calendars are adopted each session day by the Senate Rules Committee. There are numerous interests that desire to be placed on a Special Order Calendar for a floor vote in the Senate, but relatively few make it. It is a highly contentious struggle. Since the Alabama Senate hallways are continuously lined with high paid lobbyists (aka salamanders), the Alabama Home Brewing and Winemaking grass roots community will need to make a major push to get a Senate floor vote. We’ll need to continue pushing until we get a floor vote on SB492. One of the big things we have going for us is that we are not lobbyists. We are the Voice of the People !!!
(3) We’re half way through the Session
There are 30 regular “Session Days” each year. Tuesday, March 31, is Session Day #16. Alabama Home Brewers and Winemakers (and those who support a vibrant and robust craft brewing culture in Alabama) should begin making contacts to the thirteen Senate Rules Committee members and continue making the contacts until we get a vote. We have a real chance to get through the Senate this year. Most members are favorable to our bill. We just need to make them want to actually cause the bill to come up for a vote.
(4) Push, Breathe, Push
Giving birth to a law in Alabama is 100x more painful than childbirth. And the state doesn’t pay for epidurals. We need to keep pushing, as painful as it may be, until we give birth to a bouncing new baby law that we can watch grow up and mature into a healthy craft brewing culture in Alabama. When old and graying, sitting on our front porches on a beautiful Fall Day, admiring the autumn colors, we can sip on a Pumpkin Ale made by a neighbor and remember way back when we were young, idealistic, energetic, and gave birth to a law in the most difficult of circumstances. It’ll taste like Freedom!
(5) The Nitty Gritty
Please put this info on your Facebook (yay) and Myspace (blah) pages if you have them, and encourage others to make these contacts as well.
The basic message needs to be: (i) asking the Senator to please support SB492 permitting Home Brewing and Winemaking by bringing the bill up for a floor vote in the Senate and by voting in favor of the bill, (ii) stressing that this is a non-commercial bill, and as such should be less controversial than other commercial, alcohol-related bills and (iii) anything else you’d like to say to educate the Senator on Home Brewing and Winemaking would also be very appropriate.
There are 13 members of the Senate Rules Committee, so this will require some effort, but the Right to Brew is a very worthy cause; and, if you make the effort, you can be proud to have been a part of progress in Alabama. Please contact each member of the committee.
(6) Helping you Help
For the lazy, we still need your help, and we’ve made it easy for you. That’s as easy as it gets! (but personal one-to-one contacts are always best!)
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Filed under: Legal Issues
My good friend Derrell Winowich, who is close to beginning operations with Alabama’s newest craft brewery, the Chattahoochee Brewing Company, based in Phenix City, created a poll at probrewer.com, asking how many pro brewers started out as home brewers. probrewer.com is THE forum on the interwebs for Professional Brewers.
Derrell started this poll on March 12 for the purpose of using the results to support Alabama’s home brewing legalization cause. The results have been piling up since then. The results have been as expected (at least from my perspective), but impressive nonetheless.
The results confirm what many have always believed… Home Brewing is the Heart and Soul of the Craft Brewing Industry. Without it, their would hardly be a craft brewing industry in the United States.
If you love good beer, support home brewing, particularly in Alabama, where we need the support most!
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Filed under: Commercial Beer, Polls
