Our April meeting features Judging Irish and Scottish Ales, BJCP class 9 for the National Club Only Competition. Bring your class 9 beers to the club meeting, the best will be sent to the competition. The club will pay for fees and shipping, so brew up some fine ales and by Faith and Begorrah, you might win!

Our March Club meeting features the judging of the March Club Only Competition. Bring your Stouts, BJCP class 13, beers. The best will be sent to the national competition. The club will pay all fees and postage, so just bring your Stouts.

The Falcons February Club meeting features our Annual MF Chili Cookoff! Bring your any-style Chili in a crock pot. The club will vote on which is their favorite. Every year we have a great selection of delicious mouthwatering meaty and veggie chili! If you like chili you don't want to miss this meeting!

NEW YEARS! NEW BEERS!

Hosted by Larry James from Wine Warehouse
Only $30; $20 with Twitter Code Word
Includes tastes and parking

Beers:

Staropramen Pils (Czech Rep.)
Schlenkerla Helles Lager (Germany)
Green Flash Raron Vert (USA)
Courage Imperial Russian Stout (England)
Hitachino Nest Commemorative Ale 2011 (Japan)
La Rulles Cuvee Meilleurs Voeux (Belgium)
Uinta Hop Notch IPA (USA)
Shipyard Applehead Ale (USA)
Buffalo Bills Blueberry Stout (USA)
Fullers Vintage Ale 2011 (England)

Plus a few surprises…

December 10, 2011 was a beautiful late fall day, clear enough for me to see the outline of the San Jacinto and San Bernardino Mountains, and rendering the San Gabriel range close enough to seemingly reach out and touch, as I drove to San Gabriel for the Maltose Falcons Annual Holiday Beer Tasting.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/11/1116_051116_brewery.html

Thought this was very interesting... makes me want to work out a spicy chica recipe.

Great Midwestern Beer Run

For those of you who don't know, erstwhile Falcon and brewer of all things "MEGA", Jonny Lieberman, is a Senior Editor at Motor Trend. Basically, he gets handed lots of cars, free gas and an excuse to swear and write funny things about motors in print.

Was out with Marlen on other errands this morning and she spotted the brewery sign on the side of the big blue building and told me, "turn around!" We did and then I followed my nose. They were brewing. We didn't try to get a tour, but probably could have talked our way in if we had wanted. But the taproom is open as well, two buildings to the south. So what is it? Golden Road Brewing in Glendale is open now. We went into the taproom for a quick pint. Today they had four of their own beers up on tap. I had the Point the Way IPA and Marlen had the Schwartz Stout(served on a nitro tap too).

The big number arrived by voice mail Monday. Depressing. Bewildering. Large.

I put out a plea for the number of another plumber on the yahoo email group. The first response was back-channel from a DIY (do-it-yourself) Falcon who ended up changing the course of the brewery construction.

The none-too-delicate suggestion was that I stop typing so much and pick up a wrench.

If some of you are hoping this means I won't continue to prattle on endlessly about every valve and coupling, guess again. The total blog reads may suffer, but not more than you, dear reader.

Going on about 25 years now, the Falcons have journeyed to San Gabriel for a Christmas tasting extraordinaire. This year Marlene decided to put together her first ever vintage tasting. She always does a great job She told a story about how the first years the Falcons chose the beers themselves, but after a few years of the usual suspects (Snowcap, Anchor, Celebration, etc), she took it over to go plumbing the depths of oddities.

Bruce as always took notes, which will be up before long, but here's the list at least:

1) The Bruery 4 Calling Birds (2011)

No word from the plumber. The dogs have stayed in the yard. I have to admit, life would be simpler with propane.

It's been a busy week, but not for the brewery. My plan to let the plumber take some time evaluating the BTUs has worked splendidly. Not a peep.

I have had time to ponder the advantages of propane. I had the feeling some brewers I communicated with were rooting for propane, kind of like someone might root for a sports team. Looking back, I can certainly see advantages.

We will be judging Dark Lagers for the AHA Club Only Competition at the January 8th meeting. Bring in yours and we will select one to represent the Falcons!

To enter your beer, bring six unlabeled bottles and your recipe to the club meeting listed below. We will create a judges panel to select the best beer to represent the club. Cheers and GOOD LUCK!

UPCOMING COMPETITION: Dark Lagers (BJCP category 4). This category includes Dark American Lager, Munich Dunkel, and Schwarzbier. Commercial examples include:
Dark American Lager: Dixie Blackened Voodoo, Shiner Bock
Munich Dunkel: Hofbräu Dunkel, Harpoon Munich-type Dark Beer
Schwarzbier: Köstritzer Schwarzbier, Samuel Adams Black Lager

Happy Prohibition repeal today!

Today marks the anniversary of the ratification of the 21st Amendment to the US Constitution thanks to the votes in Pennsylvania, Ohio and (oddly enough) Utah. Federal Prohibition officially ended on December 15th, 1933, but the important day is December 5th 1933 as the day it all officially went down.

Ingredients:

Walnuts or Pecans (I use large bag of pecans at Costco: ¾ of the bag makes 3 batches)
4 – 6 Large Hershey Bars or any kind of chocolate (4 bars makes 3 or 4 batches)
2 cubes of butter (½ lb)
1 Cup Sugar
1/4 Cup Water (Sometimes I substitute “Beanie's Big Ass Porter” for the water)

Items you'll need:
Non-stick sauce pan (cleans up easier)
Wooden Spoon
Parchment paper
Cookie Sheet (9” x 13”)
Chopper or food processor
Container for the nut/chocolate mixture
Butter knife

INSTRUCTIONS:

Dearest Falcons!
I just wanted to thank each and everyone of you for taking the time to bring a toy to our 3rd Annual Spark of Love Toy Drive. We collected 3 big boxes and 3 giant Hefty bags full of toys for the children. We delivered them to the Fire Department on Fallbrook. They were truly astounded to see how many toys we were unloading from the car. They asked us to thank all of you for your generosity.

.
Milestone passed! The first purchase! Two of these babies:

http://www.instawares.com/thunder-group-natural-gas.thu-irbr002cn.0.7.htm

Thanks again to Rich for finding THE cheapest gas burner on the internet.

The plumber came this week to look at the brewery site. It sounds like his first brewery.

Hey so I am trying to put together a list of rock & roll/blues genre songs that reference beer or maybe just drinking, and it seems like it is harder than I thought. I've got a few like Roadhouse Blues ( btw- according to fellow Doors member Ray M it's "Got myself a beard" in reference to sleeping for multiple days), Hey Bartender, One Bourbon one Scotch one Beer, Old Taylor, What Good Can Drinking Do (first recording of Janis J), any other suggestions from the group that has beer on the brain?
Thanks
Craig W

2012 Doug King Memorial Competition Results

There will not be a Brew 101 class for the month of December. As most people are busy during the holiday season, we will start new classes in the New Year. Happy Holidays!

Our monthly Club shop brew is set for Sunday December 18th at 8:00 a.m. Our News Letter Director, Mark Poliner will be leading this crew with a unique brew. He plans on making a Juniper Rye Ale.

Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans.

My own double fantasy is getting a brewery going again while keeping my dog in the yard. Strangely, the two dreams continue to revolve around each other.

(addendum: The line "Life is what happens..." is from the song "Beautiful Boy" from John Lennon's 1980 album "Double Fantasy", http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_Lennon )

I bet you could get some LOW gravities using this yeast strain.

Researchers at the University of Georgia have developed a "super strain" of yeast that can efficiently ferment ethanol from pretreated pine -- one of the most common species of trees in Georgia and the U.S. Their research could help biofuels replace gasoline as a transportation fuel.

http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-11-super-yeast-ethanol.html