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http://blogs.laweekly.com/squidink/2013/05/brews_and_i_dos_la_hotel_now_...

Our friends at the LAX Four Points hotel are being beer savvy again!

Over the May 3-4 weekend I attended the Gaslight Gathering convention in San Diego. This is the 3rd year this convention has been held.

On Saturday I presented a beer appreciation panel. The presentation room was full and after a 5 minute talk about the history of beer, we started the sampling. The sampling list:

Hitachino Red Rice Ale
Chechvar
Weihenstephan Hefe-Weiss
Baltika Porter
Samuel Smith's Nut Brown Ale
Guinness
Chimay Blue
Leffe Brown
Petrus Aged Red
Delirium Tremens

Basically it was a world tour of beers.

It is now Sunday afternoon. Home again after a wonderful weekend spent at the Acton KOA enjoying beer, outstanding dinner (yay Peter!) and great snacks brought by everyone.
But best of all was being surrounded by fellow Falcons. Though we were a smaller group than I was expecting, everyone was in great spirits....

Perhaps a trifle late to be trying to stimulate the subject, but I'm bringing a keg of Steve and Reenie's OHO! Orange Honey Red Ale. You can find the recipe right here on the Falcons website in the recipe section, from 2011. It's a good'n.

And I'll dig up a couple of old/weird things for the Dead Palates Society meeting (beer re-animation projects?).

Earlier this morning I wrote an article for ExperimentalBrew.com talking about the recent crossing of the finish line in regards to all 50 states becoming fully legal.

Of course the Falcons feature in the mix as do our newsletters!

http://www.experimentalbrew.com/node/28

This was my first experience with a competition. Was nice to see the score cards and see what I can make better. Are ribbons given out if you place or just for BOS. Thanks again.

Cedd Moses in Brewery Battle

So, what this story says is that LA Nightlife force Cedd Moses is planning a 17,000 square foot brewpub/pizza joint/skeeball alley on the first floor of the old Crazy Gideon's place in the Arts District downtown. He's getting the usual flack for it from neighbors, you know the types.

When is the Best Of Show going to be judged?

I wanted a simpler system for cleaning beer lines. I have a bunch of picnic type taps that I use for party serving and a couple of kegerators that I have for everyday use.

I used to fill up a corny with a couple of gallons of BLC (or PBW in a pinch) and push the solution through the lines, through the tap and back into the keg. I would then run water through to rinse. If I got really jazzed up, I would use an acid wash and/or a caustic cleaner. 5 star has a list of their chemicals for this purpose right here: http://www.fivestarchemicals.com/breweries/craft-brewers/line-cleaning/

Josiah inspired me to post this water report for the Highland Park/Eagle Rock area. My guess is DWP blends and may change sources in the summer, so it may be a bit out of date.

[This is after a dual cartridge particulate/lead/cysts/odor carbon filter.]

Riley

Here is an independent water report for Thousand Oaks, enjoy!

Just wanted to say thanks to everyone who came to today's Mayfaire Competition. To all of you judges who are probably home nursing their writing hands from the MANY entries that you had to judge today and to Peter who made a fabulous meal for everyone. But especially to my rockin' stewards. I was amazed by how many of you turned up to help out for the long day. Not only did you do all the running and checking scores, with Dave filing the completed score sheets (thanks Dave). You stewards also helped clean up things as well and....

If you happen to find yourself in need of an after work pick me up or just need to drown your sorrows, we’ve found a pretty neat website for you that’s basically the drunk version of Yelp.

Created by UK creative consultancy, Coolography, ”WHERE THE FUCK SHOULD I GO FOR DRINKS” gets straight to the point. This bleep-tastic website starts out by asking for your location and spits out a random business close by that you should “fucking go to”

http://www.wherethefuckshouldigofordrinks.com/

The Joy of Mead

By Bruce L. Brode

I decided that it makes sense to cache these articles here on the website. 2013 up next!

Chasing Winter with Mead

By Bruce L. Brode

The occasion of our annual mead tasting came up on Sunday, March 19, just two days before the beginning of Spring. Yet it seems Winter was not quite done with us, due to a cold and wet storm moving through on Saturday which left us with cold blustery winds for Sunday. Some 48 of us managed to warm up with a plethora of interesting meads. Note that 2012 marks the 20th year of this tasting, which began in 1992.

From Baylen Linnekin at Reason.com:

Craft Brewers Face Regulatory Challenges
As the annual Craft Beer Conference converged this year in Washington, DC, changing regulations are both helping and hampering the growing industry.

The Beer Hotel Rolls On

By Bruce L. Brode

On February 8, 2013, the Sheraton Four Points Hotel at Los Angeles International Airport demonstrated once again why it acquired the reputation of the “beer hotel” a number of years ago, and it has again risen to the occasion to burnish its image in the beer department.

http://www.justice.gov/usao/iln/pr/chicago/2013/pr0220_02.html

The US Attorneys office in Northern Illinois have charged two of America's largest honey providers and 5 individuals with illegally importing Chinese honey and selling it as honey from other sources.

The basis for the prosecution is on avoiding the tariff to prevent dumping of cheap Chinese honey. The tariff is based both on protection of domestic honey producers and the consumer, since Chinese honey has contained banned antibiotics and toxic metals.

If you’ve ever owned a growler, you know that its one downfall is that the beer immediately starts to degrade once you open it. So, if you’re a craft drinker who likes to get the most out of your brew (so, everyone), check out The TapIt Cap. This ingenious accessory easily transforms your growler into a mini keg by making sure it stays fresh and carbonated. Because there is nothing worse than flat beer, nothing.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1732077870/the-tapit-cap-the-beer-gr...

This is my Chili that took 3rd place at the chili-cookoff on Sunday.  I won't share the Bigfoot that I won, but I will share the recipe for the chili.  Enjoy!

The Spices:

4 Big Pinches Kosher Salt

1/2 Teaspoon Red Pepper Flakes

1 Teaspoon Oregano

1/2 Tablespoon Chili Powder

2 Teaspoons Smoked Paprika

3 Tablespoons Cumin

The Rest:

1 Onion Diced Chopped

My wholesale distributor, near Van Nuys Airport, has fresh berries in stock.

Raspberry $42.95 per case

BlueBerry $29.95 per case

Boysenberry $24.95 per case

Photo here:

https://plus.google.com/u/0/communities/101431009392326407412

If you want some, let me know and I can bring them to the meeting on Sunday.

Some folks on the Yahoo list asked that I post some comments about my experience with creating a temperature controlled environment for fermenting a brew.

I have heard some great suggestions like put it in a closet and turn a little space heater up a little each day, and rotate a frozen milk bottle into the water bath each day for cooling, and these all sound good and not too time consuming, but I am more lazy than that.

I want to set a temperature profile, put my carboy in the tub, and come back in a week or two and keg it.

And so begins my journey...

Hey Falcons!  Let’s start brewing...

I just wanted to give everybody a friendly reminder of the events coming up that we’d all love some kegs for!  For those of you who are new to the club, there are several events and activities through the year where we set up our our own line of taps and bars (through a small group of very generous volunteers who own these and set them up for us).  In order to make this happen, we need beers from you!

http://www.geekosystem.com/beer-to-treat-diabetes/

On the day after our great 2013 Doug King Homebrew competition, we had the Falcon’s January Shop brew.  This month, the brew crew was led by the MF VP Ed Kochanowski, aka Jersey.    The duties of a brew crew leader are to supply a recipe,  help the crew members to enjoy their experience with all-grain brewing by guiding them  through the steps of  grain milling, doughing in, mashing,  sparging, boiling, hop adding, cooling, carboy filling, oxygenating,  yeast pitching,  and equipment cleaning.   Also the crew leader collects

I will leave the specifics to the President and VPs to tell everyone about today's DKM, but I would just like to say a giant thank you to everyone who took time out of their day to come and participate in our event.  We had 40 or so judges and 15 stewards who did a fantastic job.  I want to say a special  thanks to Steve Scott for taking care of the keg and growler pours for the entire time.

I am exited to atend my first club meeting tomorrow January 6 2013. I got a good feeling about this:)

Brad Smith of BeerSmith fame had me on his show last week to talk SMaSH and the beauty of simplicity. 

Check it out! Beer Smith Blog: Single Malt and Single Hop (SMASH) with Drew Beechum – BeerSmith Podcast #51

If you have any questions or want to tell me how horribly wrong I am, let me know in the comments below!