October 2000

Monthly Meeting Minutes will be posted here.

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Greenblood
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Joined: Tue Feb 14, 2006 2:22 pm
Location: Lawrence

October 2000

#1 Post by Greenblood » Wed Jul 26, 2006 3:31 pm

Minutes of the September Meeting

Robb Hensleigh presented a seminar on all-grain brewing. Thanks, Robb for making an excellent presentation and sharing your homebrew!

Old Business
Cleanup Crew: Rob and Xan

Treasurer's Report: We have $535.60 and need to pay out $66 for postage, $30 rent, $46 tax to Midwest Graphics, and $20 to the Secretary of State.

Yeast Bank: We have yeast!

Library Books: We've got books. Please check them out!

Sister Club: We haven't heard back from the Australian Brew Club about becoming our sister club. Joe will e-mail again and see if they have had a chance to discuss it with their members.

Guided by Flavor: Guided by Flavor has been in contact. Will need volunteers to be on hand during taping. Xan is meeting with host Tony Nave on October 3rd to discuss details such as type of beer, location, and taping date.

Holy-Field Vineyard and Winery: Holy-Field has finished their harvest this year. They finished earlier than they expected due to the hot, dry weather. Anyone planning on attending either of the next two harvest Sunday's will need to wait until next year.

Lawrence Journal-World: Joe will check on the Lawrence Journal-World clubs column to see if LBG meetings can be added as a regular event.

Jackie Rager: Jackie Rager had a triple bypass on Tuesday, August 8, 2000. He is in rehabilitation and doing well.


New Business
LBG Halloween Party: will be held October 21st at the ECM building. Prize will be given for best costume, so mark your calendar now!

Lawrence.com: information on the club is out-of-date. Rob will e-mail Pete with the correct contact number.

October Seminar: Is the Guild Dying?. 7:30PM start time!!!

Meeting Adjourned.


Commercial Tasting: India Pale Ale
Sam Smith's-England (0 votes)

"This is English" - Barry
"Sam Smith?" - Chuck
"Bass?" - Rich
"It's not Bass, it's too sweet." - Don

Wild Goose-Maryland (2 votes)

"I bet it's American" - Don
"Ditto" - Barry
"Significantly lighter than the first." - Glen
"Not as malty as the first." Andrew
"Real bitter at the end." - Doug
"Probably American, true to style." - Max

Fullers-England (0 votes)

"They call this an IPA?" - Rich
"I think it's hoppy." - Rob
"Yeah, but it's malty as well." - Joe
"I had this last ngiht, but I can't remember what it is...Boulder, I think that's what it is." - Chuck

Goose Island-Chicago (12 votes-winner!)

"This beer kicks ass!" - Rich
"You think it's Cascade hops?" - Chuck
"Yeah" - Andrew, Joe, and Doug in unison
"Ahhhhhh" - Xan

Xanthippe Stevens
Secretary



Upcoming Seminars
October, discussion about the future of the brew club; November, tour of Free State Brewery; and Joe suggested a tour of the Little Apple Brewery in Manhattan.


Festivals & Competitions
Derby Competition: The Derby Brew Club 7th Annual Homebrew Competition, Derby, KS

November 4-18, 2000
Entries due 10/23 - 11/1 with $6 each for the first six entries and $5 for each additional entry.
Contact: Kip Innes at 316-788-4787 or
316-523-6894 or kbinnes@aol.com


Is the Guild Dying?
In an eye-opening letter to the members of the Lawrence Brewers Guild through the listbot, Rob Dewhirst put down his concerns about the direction the club is heading. For those of you who don't have access to listbot, I will summarize his points here and bring the letter to the meeting so you can read it in its entirety.

His first point is that we need to do more to attract new members. We have lost several core members over the last few years but not gained many new ones. Once we lose the critical mass, the club will lose momentum and will eventually die out. Each event should be a recruiting tool.

Business meetings should be even shorter. No need to waste the club body's time with minutia; that's what the club officers and committees are for.

We should strike the commercial tasting from the agenda because the balance of attention has shifted from homebrew toward the commercial brews. He said it has the side effect of ensuring a supply of beer each month, so either people are less motivated to bring their homebrew, or they are sated by the time social hour arrives. It's a bribe to get people to come.

The meetings need to start on time. Meetings have started progressively later, and this sets a poor examples for new members or guests. How can we expect them to take the club seriously when it is appears that the members don't?

Rob makes some valid points. I agree with him that it's not any one person or incident that has caused our club to be what it is today but a conglomeration of factors that have caused change over time.


Do Ya Wanna be a STAR?!
The Guided by Flavor project that Xan has been working on got me looking a little further into the services Sunflower Cable provides.

I have been acquiring information from the Kevin Hoehns, public access coordinator at Sunflower Cablevision, on producing shows to air on their public access channel.

I am considering making a few shows on homebrewing that would air on Sunflower channel 19. It requires some training on camera and editing rooms use that Sunflower provides (the only cost is the tape). Sunflower provides a limited editing system and three cameras for checkout.

I am willing to undergo this training for this if I can get some assistance from others. Mainly we'd need a couple of camera operators and some people willing to help me "script" the shows. I think at bare minimum it's a two-person operation.

We would own copyright to the footage we tape, allowing us to make copies for promotional material.

It should cost virtually nothing except time. Since we have the luxury of editing our footage, we can actually brew for the shows instead of "faking" things like they usually do on TV.

Rob Dewhirst (from listbot)

Part 2

I met this afternoon with Kevin at Sunflower to get the nitty-gritty on producing a show for public access.

Here are the highlights:

* Public access programming runs from 6:30-1200 pm, M-Sat. Through Spring, most of Saturday is taken up by reruns of local sports. They air some programming on Sunday, but it's discouraged (I didn't press him for why).
* We are encouraged to make 30 min shows, because they are easier to work with and schedule. Unlike regular programming, this is a full 30 mins.
* We have free access to three cameras and tripods (only one at a time) and simple editing facilities at the library. One of the cameras is a digital Hi-8 camera which will interface directly with my Mac at work, so we'll probably punt the facilities downtown and edit footage on desktop computers. This is also a very good reason for limiting the show to 30 mins - that's about all the hard disk space I have!
* Everyone who appears on camera must sign a talent release with Sunflower. This gives them permission to air your "performance." You only need to sign before we AIR a program that you appear in, not before you shoot. You also don't need to go to Sunflower to do this. I have copies of the talent release form.
* We have to purchase our own Hi-8 tapes. They are ours to keep. We retain copyright to all footage we shoot. We are not restricted from using the tapes to make promotional material for our group.
* We can checkout cameras and tripods for up to two days at a time. If we check one out on a Friday, we get it back to Sunflower monday AM.
* Our footage cannot feature brand names, logos, or commercial endorsement. We are allowed to promote our group as much as we want, but we can't put big grins on our face and say "We like Muntons." Likewise, we can't tell people to go buy brewpots and stuff at walmart. SOME logos and names are unavoidable, and that's ok.
* We are not allowed to air material that is obscene, libelous, slanderous, illegal, or violates "community decency standards."

Here's what I need to make this happen:

At least one person to help me operate the camera. To operate the camera, you need to become a Certified Public Access Producer by Kevin at Sunflower. This sounds all high-falutin, but what it really means is you need to go down to 6th and New Hampshire for 1 hour to have him show you how to run the camera.

You can contact Kevin Hoehns (pronounced "hanes") at 832-6344. His office hours are 11-5 M-F (he's there other times, but directing shows). He's very approachable. Just tell him you're with me, and he'll do the rest. Remember, coordinating this programming and certifying people is his job, so don't feel bad about calling him and scheduling a time. You aren't pestering him. I believe Joe and Andrew offered to help, but that was probably before I mentioned that to touch the equipment, you had to be "certified."

* People to help me with the script and topics. I have a pretty good idea what I want to do, but I don't want to leave anything out. I'd really like to do this over beers at Free State sometime.
* I MAY need some other examples of equipment. For instance, I do not own a wing bottle capper, just a bench capper.
* Someone else to be on camera with me, to ask questions along the way, etc. (and to help show this is a FUN GROUP ACTIVITY).
* I'd like to have some music for certain portions, at least and intro and ending. This needs to be either music that is in the public domain, or music we make ourselves, due to copyright restrictions.
* I have a friend with a film degree who loves my beer and offered to help a little with the project. If you ALSO have film experience, I'd love to have your input.
* Sunflower does not have microphones to loan, so we are forced to use the built-in mics on the cameras, unless someone has other microphones to loan us (such as lapel mics or boom mics).
* Also, does anyone have a large electric hotplate?

Rob Dewhirst (from listbot)


Nation's Thirst for Specialty Beers has Gone Flat

AP-Just a few years ago, connoisseurs thought small breweries and their tasty pale ales, amber lagers and dark stouts were going to trasform the beer industry. But the country's thirst for specialty beers has never fulfilled expectations, and many small breweries are cutting back after an industry shakeout. Nationwide, more trhan 300 brewpubs and breweries have shut down since 1996, the year sales peak for four of the largest specilty brewers: Boston Beer Co., Pete's Brewing Co., Redhook Ale Brewery Inc., and Pyramid Breweries Inc.

The latest casualties include Vermont's oldest brewery, the Catamount Brewing Co., which shut down recently. And the Miller Brewing Co. has given up its stake in Maine's largest brewer, Shipyard Brewing Co., after distribution was scaled back in the Midwest and the Middle Atlantic states. Some brewers learned the hard way that they should have focused on their local audiences instead of trying to grow too fast.

"The lesson is: Devote your time, your money and your effort to your core market, and you'll be fine," said David Geary, who opened D.L. Geary's Brewing Co. in Portland in 1986.

But some closings are inevitable because the market could not support the entry of more than 900 brewpubs and microbreweries over a three-year period leading up to 1998, when sales went flat, said David Edgar of the Institute for Brewing Studies in Colorado.

Back then, observers thought specialty or craft beers could obtain as much as 10% of the national beer market, but the market share of these beers remains below 3%.

"I think what you're finding is this segment of the beer market was more of a flash in the pan," said Skip Carpenter, an analyist at Donaldson, Lufkin and Jenrette in New York.

What exactly constitutes a craft beer is murky, but connoisseurs say they now it when they taste it.

Geary defines it as a traditional beer brewed by traditional methods with traditional ingredients. Edgar says craft beer is produced with 100% malted barley instead of 30% to 40% rice or corn found in the nation's top-selling brands. Another difference is price, about $6 or $7 for a six-pack of craft beer, compared to about $4.50 or $5 for a six-pack of traditional American brews in 12-ounce bottles.

The cluttered marketplace was one of several problems facing the new entrants. Analysts said some of the companies lacked a hands-on knowledge of the industry; they didn't have a good handle on large-scale transportation and distribution issues, and the quality of the beer suffered.

Meanwhile, some fair-weather beer drinkers moved to the next fad, flavored drinks like Hooper's Hooch and "Bodean's Twisted Tea" that are filling shelf space to the detriment of brews.

For breweries, it was a case of the survival of the fittest, and that's not necessarily a bad thing for the 1,447 brewpubs, microbreweries and regional specialty brewers still in business, analysts said. Scaling back means many of the breweries are cutting back to their original goal of producing local beer for local people, according to Geary.

"It's fairly clear that when people get excited about something good, they think, 'If some is good, more is better,'" he siad. "That's not the case."

Geary's business grew 10% last year, and the company always kept its focus on Maine, New Hampshire and Massachusetts, which account for 95% of sales, he said.

The Shipyard, which sought to grow aggressively with Miller's financial support, saw production drop from 39,500 barrels in 1996 to 25,300 barrels in 1998 after it pulled out of unprofitable markets, president Ford Forsley said.

Forsley and Alan Pugsley, the company's master brewer, bought back full ownership from Miller Brewing Co., and they plan to devote greater care to their core market. Shipyard sales grew 10% last year under the new strategy, and the company hopes to return to the New York market.

"The brewers who stay aggressive and stay exciting will continue to capture the market," he said.

Submitted byJennifer Garrison


Discount Days at Bacchus & Barleycorn

LBG mebers receive a 10% discount from Bacchus & Barleycorn, October 9-14. Please show membership card or bring newsletter. Bacchus & Barleycorn is located at 6633 Nieman Rd. in Shawnee (913-962-2501).

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