Category Archives: Miscellaneous

Catch all category.

Upcoming Events

Events, Meetings & Events, Miscellaneous

Hey all, it’s a busy few weeks in the local beer scene and beer and homebrew world, so here are some reminders of upcoming events and deadlines.

Email us if you would like anything else posted, and have a great time with all the exciting beer events over the next few weeks!

President’s Corner March 2016

Miscellaneous

Well I’m finally drinking a beer without doing important stuff at the same time so I guess it’s time to write a presidents corner! Yay!

So I suppose this would be the November presidents corner right?  B4B went great thanks to all the volunteers and a lot of hard work from Bill Bopp and David Curran we raised significantly more than previous years for charity, great job guys! I am predicting a great Christmas party at Lineage with a cozy warm wood log fireplace (TV) and an extra bottle in the white elephant.

Oh that was a fast month of December. Now for the Jan presidents corner… I’ve actually been brewing a bit lately and should actually have some British beers ready to enter into BBF.  That will be a great improvement over my previous years of running it when my entries are all 7 days old or younger, kinda helps some styles..

Feb Presidents corner, so BBF has run my life this month but it was worth it.  The competition seems to run smoother every year.  So far I’ve heard very good feedback from visiting judges, if you have other feedback send me an email and I’ll note it for next year.  Unfortunately the pin once again cannot be kept by SODZ 🙁 on the bright side we again lucked out that the Akron winner, Richard Reed, is patient enough to pick up the pin at the Akron Wizard of SAAZ competition in March.  It’s a good comp and they support our comps so if your free make it out and hang out at the Akron breweries!

Wow is it March already?  This year has gone fast.  I’m writing this presidents corner with my left hand, while eating a BBQ chicken pizza and drinking an American IPA with my right hand, sitting at the Gordon Biersch tapping party.  Richard Sheppard is sitting next to me, elbowing me and doing his club secretary duty to pester me for a presidents corner.  (Is that an acceptable visual for you, Ben Siefker?) Little does he know that’s what I’m doing on my phone right now.  And each time he elbows me it causes a type-o, spelling error, or grammar error, in fact his elbow is the cause of every error or factual inaccuracy in this article.

If you envy Richard’s authority to demand articles, or think you can do a better job writing them than I can, or have the desire to guide the direction of the club, or have free time and want a bona fide resume building excuse to go out and have a beer with SODZ guys, please… Run for a position on the board 🙂 elections are at this month’s meeting so there is still time, no campaigning or debating required 🙂

So March is also a major holiday month, personally I’ll be celebrating in whisky (bourbon) country.  Without me here I hope you don’t ignore this highly important, beer respecting holiday, even if you weren’t born Irish, every one is on March 17th ;-).

Brew on, stay classy, (I don’t remember my sign off) ((that’s if I even had one?)).

Sláinte!
Will 

Officer Nominations 2016

Miscellaneous

Officer Nominations are now open for next SODZ year. Voting will take place at March meeting. New officers will preside starting in April. If you are interested in running for office or want to nominate someone email Will Shiel at president@sodz.org

Current nominations are as follows:

President

  • Will Shiel

Vice President

  • Ryan Torres

Secretary

  • Carey Hall
  • Alex Aossey

Membership

  • Jim Sudduth

Treasurer

  • Dave Curran

SODZ 20th Anniversary Work Shirts

Miscellaneous

For SODZ’s 20th Anniversary we are making work shirts made with the SODZ logo. An example of the shirt can be seen below.

SODZ_work_shirt_2015

Order Form

To get yours, Please fill out the form below if you are interested in purchasing a shirt. We will take money at any official SODZ meeting (Monthly Meeting/Oktoberfest/Beer for Boobs/etc). Ordering will be closed October 20th.

Payment Options

Is it a little convoluted to have you fill in information for a order and then have you pay in a separate section? In an answer yes but damn it we are brewers not web designers.

Your options for paying for a shirt are as follows:

  • Show up to a SODZ event with a check for the correct t-shirt amount payable to SODZ.
  • Show up to a SODZ event with cash for the correct t-shirt amount
  • Show up to a SODZ event with a credit card and we will charge it.
  • Pay for the shirt via Paypal using the PayPal button below.

PayPal Payment Option

Please use the button below to pay for your shirt.


Shirt Sizes




End of Summer Update

Competitions, Miscellaneous

The end of summer is close at hand and you know what that means…It’s Brewing Season! SODZ will restart our monthly meetings in September, look for the meeting notice soon. In the meantime, here are some quick updates:

Lots of SODZers making headlines in the pro-brewing world. Come out and support your homebrewing brother’s living the dream!

  • SODZ members Tom Ayers, Greg Dannemiller, Brian Mathias and Ryan Romer-Jordan are opening up Ill Mannered Brewing Co and the Grand Opening is this Friday September 4th at 5pm. Check out the information here: http://www.illmanneredbeer.com/ I can’t wait to try out their Oatmeal Coffee Stout!
  • Former SODZ president Vic Gonzales has thrown off his shackles and is now the “Official” full time brewer at Pigskin. They are throwing a coming out party for him, stop by try his new Double IPA.
  • Current Vice President and Barley’s Assistant Brewer Ryan Torres has accepted a position at Scioto Downs Casino’s new brewery Brew Brothers Ryan is currently looking for an assistant of his own and is looking to hire quickly. Details and application here. The new brewery is scheduled to open in the Octoberish time frame.
  • Dick Stevens, owner of Elevator Brewing, has an opening for a cellarman at the brewery. This is an entry level position, and involves cleaning kegs, operating the coolers, moving and storing kegs, and other general work in the brewery. If any of you members have ever thought about getting involved with working at a brewery, this is the usual starting point. This position is flexible, but could be a full time position. If you have an interest, please contact Don directly at croucher43 at yahoo dot com

Lots of upcoming local and regional homebrew competitions. Please, consider supporting other clubs either by entering, judging and/or stewarding. They support us and make our competitions possible.

  • September 12th, registration open now. Dayton homebrew club DRAFT is hosting Brewfest competition open to all new BJCP 2015 styles. They are still in need of stewards and judges. Register here: http://brewfest.daytondraft.org/
  • October 10th, registration open now. Cincinnati Malt Infusers is hosting the 20th Annual Oktoberbest homebrew competition. Register here: http://maltinfusers.brewcompetition.com/
  • October 10th, registration open now. Pittsburgh’s TRASH is hosting TRASH XXV Homebrew Competition. Register here: http://trashcompetition.org/
  • November 7th, Cleveland’s SNOBS is hosting Son of Brewzilla. Unfortunately, registration is closed due to hitting the max number of entries. You can still register to judge or steward here: http://beersnobs.org/cbwcomp/
  • November 14th, registration tbd. SODZ (hey that’s us!) will be hosting Beer for Boobs homebrew competition and fundraiser at Weasel Boy in Zanesville. Details coming soon.
  • December 5th, registration open now. Hop Yard 62 in Grove City is hosting an Oatmeal Stout competition. More info here.

Ohio Hops Bine Training

Hops, Miscellaneous

I took a half day off in middle of May and met my Dad in Wooster, Oh at the OSU Horticulture Research Facility. They have a small hop yard for experiments and analysis and hosted a free hop bine (yes bine, not vine) training event. I already knew how to train bines, it’s clockwise and up (following the sun). However, I’ve been considering growing hops at the family farm in Marietta, Oh and I wanted to check out the yard and squeeze all of the information I could out of them.

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The first thing I noticed was the huge 18 ft trellises. The next thing I noticed was the drip irrigation system on each row that was hooked up to a pump (pictured below). On this day, they were feeding nutrients too, just Phosphorus & Potassium for now. They will start feedings of Nitrogen later in the season. Generally, hops like slightly acidic soil with plenty of Nitrogen. Hops also likes lots of water an inch a week but they don’t like standing in water, that is when mold and mildew can set in.

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Speaking of mildew while we were training the bines Chelsea, our gracious host found two plants already starting to show signs of Downy Mildew. See the black spots underneath the leaf below. Also, it can dwarf the plant make the bines stubby. This along with powdery mildew and Prohibition is what wiped hop farming out of the eastern part of the United States. Treatments for mildew and pests should be started before you see signs of them, they said liken it to a flu shot.

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The question that was asked multiple times, was “What hops grows well in Ohio?” They kept answering with the sound advice of, “It doesn’t matter which hops get the highest yield in Ohio is, if you can’t sell it. Talk to your brewer and find out what varieties they want.” They went on to say that some brewers are very interested in working with Ohio hops and others are not, citing “They have too many other things to worry about.”, not happy with quality and consistency of hops seen so far.

I still want to research further before taking the plunge. It takes a lot of startup money, around $10k an acre and it takes 2-3 years before you see a full yield. Not to mention the constant fighting of disease, aphids and other pests. The upside is hops can yield above 1000 lbs/acre and the demand from craft brewers and IPA lovers doesn’t seem to be going away anytime soon.

Follow Ohio Hops on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/OhioHops
Richard Sheppard

Free Agave Nectar

Miscellaneous

SODZ has come into the possession of a large amount of agave nectar (syrup) and is giving it away to paid members for FREE! This is your membership dues at work.

For those of you unfamiliar with agave nectar it is extracted from the agave plant, also used in making tequila. It is most similar to honey, possibly a touch sweeter.

Paid up members can sign up below to get your share. We are limiting the amount you can get to 18lbs or about a gallon and a half. This is enough to make 5 gallons of sweet agave wine. Use the calculator here to determine how many lbs you need. We will keep the sign up open until February 5th and contact you via email on how to pickup.

Shout out to the Cincinnati Bloatarian League for hooking us up!