Event: Montessori School of Dayton Craft Beer Tasting

Very excited about January 28th, when my kids' school will be presenting our first craft beer tasting. We've been planning this over the last few months and I've personally been working with McAllister at Premium to put together an exciting and diverse beer list. A few last minute details to nail down, but it's looking like a great inaugural event. Dayton beer folks, this is open to the public and the crowd at the school is very cool. Check out the detail below and get tickets on EventBrite:

The Montessori School of Dayton (MSD) and their families presents their first annual craft beer and food tasting event on Saturday, Jan. 28. Sample up to 20 beers from of Ohio, Michigan, and Pennsylvania’s best craft brews: Weyerbacher, Troegs, Stoudts, Ohio Brewing, North Peak, New Holland, Founder’s, Dark Horse, Brew Kettle, and Bell’s. Little Miami River Catering will pair appetizers and desserts with several of the beers for a unique beer and food pairing experience. Beers provided by Premium Beverage Supply, with soft drinks by Earth Fare.

The Brew Ha-Ha takes place on Jan. 28 from 5 -10 pm. Order tickets online at http://msdbrewhaha.eventbrite.com or visit MSD at 2900 Acosta Street, Kettering, OH 45420 to purchase tickets during normal business hours M-F 8am-4pm. For more information call 293-8986. Tickets are $25 per person in advance and $30 the night of the events. Proceeds benefit the MSD Capital Improvement fund.

UPDATE: Check out the awesome beer list, including the area exclusive premier tapping of Double Trouble.

1,952 Craft Breweries in the US (and counting)

Thanks to Jay Brookstone for this interesting bit of news. Apparently we are tipping near the 2000 brewery mark in the US (and this can't possibly count the three new breweries planning to open in the Greater Miami Valley this year).

Cool piece of artwork illustrates this fact:

Posters are available at Printfactry.com, where you can also zoom in on the image to see your favorite brew.

Dayton Beer Company

Big day for beer in the Miami Valley! Mark Fisher at the Dayton Daily News just posted about the soon-to-be opened Dayton Beer Company. Great news for me, as it'll be in Kettering, about a mile from the house!

As Mark Fisher reports:

When up and running, the Dayton Beer Company will sell craft beers such as pale ale, blond ale, porter and hefeweizen for retail. The label on each type of beer celebrates aspects of Dayton’s heritage, such as Inventors IPA and Patterson Pale Ale, named for NCR founder John Patterson.

“We want Dayton to be proud of its history and to give Daytonians a product they could call their own,” said Hilgeman, a 2005 Alter High School graduate who holds a marketing and international business degree from the University of Cincinnati.

Can't wait! Last spring, I wrote an article musing whether we would see locally produced beer again. Toxic Brewing Company should be opening later this year downtown, Vitruvian Brewing Company in Yellow Springs, and now Dayton Beer Company, it looks like the drought may be ending.

Yellow Springs Brewery in the works

Thanks to Brewtensils for the link. Looks like Yellow Springs is getting a brewery:

After years of dreaming, planning and home brewing, Shane and Jacqui Creepingbear are launching their long-awaited Vitruvian Brewing Company. The couple began moving into the MillWorks space formerly occupied by Nonstop Liberal Arts Institute on Jan. 1, and will spend the first two months remodeling for beer production. They expect to have their first brew sometime in March.

Read more at the Yellow Springs News.

Craft Brew Tax Cut Proposed

Bloomberg has a great article today about some proposed legislation to give tax cuts to craft brewers:

This legislation would roll back excise taxes on small brewing companies by anywhere from 11 percent to 50 percent. The current tax rates, adopted in 1976 before the rise of micro- and craft breweries in the 1990s, have never been updated, requiring many brewers to pay levies calibrated for much larger operations once considered small.

Looks like some Ohio brewing folks are part of the push to make this happen:

The push for changes in the tax code is being led by the Brewers Association and a group of brewers and brewery employees, including Patrick Conway, a founder of Cleveland- based Great Lakes Brewing Co.; Greg Hardman, of Cincinnati-based Christian Moerlein Brewing Co.; and Steve Hindy, president of Brooklyn Brewery

Interesting that part of what this legislation would do is reset the ceiling so that some of the larger craft brewers, like Boston Brewing company, would still qualify. The makers of Sam Adams may seem like a big brewery, but as the article points out, they still only produce one 50th of what AB does. Sam Adams and Yuengling, also mentioned, are much more interesting choices than pretty much anything AB puts out, so I love to see them get a leg up on the macro-brews.

BrewTensils Brewing 101

Live in the Miami Valley and want to know how to brew or improve your brewing chops? Check out the brewing school at BrewTensils. There are four sessions, with the first one next week. From their website:

Introduction to Brewing

Brewing 101 – January 12th – 7pm to 9pm

Just the basics, this class covers what each piece of equipment in your brew kit is used for, as well as walking you through your first batch of beer.

Pre-req: A desire to brew great beer starting with your first batch!

Cost: Free!

In depth look at Ingredients

Brewing 102 – January 19th – 7pm to 9pm

Ever wonder what alpha acids are? Lovibond rating have you confused? Want to know the difference between 2-row and 6-row? This class is designed to demystify the ingredients used in the brewing process. With better understand of the ingredients used, it is a small step to take your beers to the next level.

Pre-req: It is usually a good idea to have your first batch under your belt before this class.

Cost: $5 paid at the start of the class.

How to Keg

Brewing 110 – January 26th – 7pm to 9pm

This class covers the trials and tribulations of setting up your own kegerator at home. You will also learn now to keg your own beer and how to maintain your whole system. This class is useful for anyone who wants to setup a kegerator at home, brewer or not.

Pre-req: The desire to have beer on tap at home.

Cost: $5 paid at the start of the class.

Introduction to All Grain Brewing

Brewing 201 – February 2nd – 7pm to 9pm

All grain brewing seems like a crazy amount of work and calculations. We help you realize that it’s a pretty simple and straight forward process to get into. This class walks you through the terms used in all grain brewing, as well as the equipment, and finally the process.

Pre-req: It is usually a great idea to have a few extract batches under your belt before you attempt all grain brewing.

Cost: $5 paid at the start of the class.

Brewing: Bison IPA to start the new year

Monday I got together with a few other dads from our kids' school to show them how to brew. I wanted something that was straightforward, something that would be tasty but not too technical.

I opted for a West Coast style IPA. The recipe was an extract plus grains, with the excessive 2 row simply because I had it laying around:

8 lbs liquid extra pale malt
2 lbs 2-row pale malt
1 lb Crystal 60
1 oz Citra (13.6 AA) @ 60 min
1 oz Cascade (5.6 AA) @ 30 min
1 oz Cascade (5.6 AA) @ 1 min
Wyeast WLP041 Pacific Ale Yeast with Malta starter
Full boil, immersion chilled

Brew went off fairly smoothly. Forgot that pellets would clog the stainless steel chore boy I use as a filter, so I had to fish that out post-chill.

Also didn't realize that this yeast had such a long freakin' lag phase. Nearly 24 hrs, which would normally have me panicked except that the White Labs forum has tons of accounts of slow starts.

Bubbling away now. Will move to secondary in two weeks. Thinking about siphoning some off to age on bourbon soaked wood chips.