Merry Christmas to all. Come on down to Point Brewery and join the party. We will be hosting our annual christmas party in the Hospitality Room from 6:30 - 9:00pm on Thursday December 18th. No regular scheduled topic for the night as this is a social gathering to enjoy. Please bring a dish to pass as we have had in the past. Hot or cold food, main dish or snacks and deserts. CWDB will sponsor the plates, silverware, and napkins. Outlets and extesion cords are available for hotplates. Come down and Enjoy!
2008-11-20
Thursday November 20, 2008...Clone Brew Competition Judging will be held during this meeting at the Point Brewry Hospitality Room from 6:30 -9:00 pm. (Note: There was an error with a wrong date previously listed for this event) It is to be held on the 3rd Thursday of November as a usually scheduled meeting date.
As discussed in past meetings members are going to brew clones of their favorite commercial beer. You need to bring in a 6-pk of the clone (or equivalent in growler) and a 6-pk of the original commercial example for comparison. Club members in attendance that night will evaluate the clone compared to the original. You will be given a score card to write comments on, and you will vote for what you consider the best cloned beer brewed. Sampling and evaluation will start right away, so don't show up late. Prizes will be awareded to the winner. No entry fee will be needed as this is just a fun club function. You can bring other beers along but do not set them out for sampling until after teh clone brew tasting/scoring is over. Snacks as always are welcome.
2008-11-01
Saturday November 1, 2008...The First Saturday in November each year is National Teach-a-Friend to Homebrew Day, and Customer Appriciation Day at Point Brew Supply, and our annual fundraiser event.
Interested CWDB members can brew in front of Point Brew Supply and O'so Brewing company with your own individual brew systems. Other shoppers and public will be stopping by to see what you are brewing adn the equipment you are usuing. Please ask if they have any questions. Let Katina or myself know if you are going to be coming so we can plan accordingly. Space is limited out front of the store so you may want to double batch with another homebrewer. Homebrewers that preregister with Katina or myself will be allowed first choice at set up space out front. Show up to brew, shop for supplies, or just hang out.
CWDB and PBS will have food sales throughout the day for a small donation. Money raised will be donated to local food pantries. We also need members to bring homebrews along to share with each other and for the public to sample. Anyone donating a food item to the food pantry will be given a ticket for a sample of homebrew. Last year we raised over $300 and procedes went to the Boys and Girls Club. Hope to see you there.
2008-10-25
Saturday October 25th, 2008 is Open Brew Day at Dave Olsens House. Dave has graciously ofered to host a group brew event at his house. Bring your own equipment and brew with friends. Or just show up to hang out and harass Dave. Bring your own lunch and snacks and beer to share. Fire pit on site if your interested in a fire brew. Dave has some wood available. If your interested call Dave and get dirrections. His home phone is 341-1248. Thanks Dave....
2008-10-16
Thursday October 16th 2008 Regular Monthly Meeting from 6:30 to 9:00pm at Point Brewery Hospitality room.
Topics for the night is the future use of the hospitality room for our club meetings. We will be meeting with Point Brewery representatives and discusing contiued use of the meeting room. The brewery pays someone to watch the room while we meet and has graciously waived any room rental fees in the past. CWDB had in return had supplied volunteers to all Point Brewery sponsored events as our way of saying thank you. Recently our volunteering has declined to almost no volunteer participation. Additionally, budget restrictions in today's economical time has Point raising issues about our use of the room. One option is to disband our club. Members interested in contiuning an organized club are encouraged to attend this meeting.
Once this topic of discusion concludes we will be have a judging/evaluation session using BJCP scoresheet and using a blind beer for tasting. This will help prepare us for future evalutation of our Golden Growler beer entries to be club judges. We will be discussing the upcoming Golden Growler style guidelines. If your planning on participating in this years GG competition by either brewing or pre-juding please attend this meeting as it would benifit our clubs odds of winning. Thanks to everyone who helps make CWDB's odds of winning a reality. Better Brewers Make Better Beer.
Remember meeting wrap up promptly at 9pm. No loitering in the parking lot afterwards.
2008-09-20
Travis and the Bull Falls Homebrewers have invited us to join their big brew party. Here is a link to the Bull Falls website with all the info. Looks like a fun time brewing up with good eats too....
Thursday September 18th, 2008 was CWDBs 17th Year Anniversary Party. Held at Point Brewery's Hospitality room from 6:30 - 9:00pm. No formal meeting topic for the nite, but we talked about the past years events and said thank yous, and discussed the next years club plans. .Club members attending gave feedback to the beers sampled as we did a lot of "showcase of beers".
For the upcoming year we will be doing a "sign in" sheet at every meeting event and drawing names for prizes at the end of the next year. The more events and meeting you attend the better your odds at winning. This is CWDB's rewards program for the year for members who participate. Club funds generated over the year will be returned to members as a way of saying thanks for being there. Thanks to everyone who helps out during the year.
2008-09-01
You are all invited to WOODSTOCKTON FEST at Greg Tamason house. This is the 5th running of this annual event held each Labor Day. Greg says come on by and join the fun and festivities. Party is Monday September 1st from 2-7 pm located at 6977County Beautiful Lane (just off of Hwy J on the east side of Point). Hwy J is closed at Hwy 10 so use the Detour route of Brilowski Road to HH then backtrack on J. The party features live entertainment with Greg’s band on the back deck. They were the opening act at O’so Grand Opening. Greg is picking up a 1/2 barrel of Big-O, but feel free to bring beverages to drink or share also. Everyone seems to bring some food to share and let me tell you, that’s the reason that I go. Some of the best eats around. Bring a chair and relax under the shade trees in back yard. Hope to see some of you there.
2008-08-21
Thursday August 21st, 2008 was the REGULAR MONTHLY MEETING for AUGUST from 6:30 until 9:00 pm at the Hospitality Room in the Point Brewery. Andrew brought in some old bottles found in the Wisconsin River drawdown for us to look at. We sampled a variety of homebrews including an excellent Octoberfest from George. The new night shift brewer took us on a quick tour of the brewery. We also finalized plans for a clone brew contest for later this fall.
2008-08-15
Friday and Saturday August 15-16, 2008 Point Brewery is having its annual Brews, Brats, and Bands festival. CWDB members can volunteer time to bar tend or help out with other tasks. Sign up for a shift of pouring beers with Dave Pias dalpias@charter.net or call him at 345-0696. Thanks to those of you who are helping out.
2008-07-26
Marshfield Hub City Days with car show and beer fest is Saturday July 26th. Neither O'so Brewing or CWDB will be doing a tasting booth, but there will be plenty of other beers available to sample. Check it out if your in the Marshfield area.
2008-07-19
O'so BrewingGRAND OPENING!!! was Saturday July 19th from Noon till 8pm at the Springville Warf parking lot. The event kicked off rather well as Katina had quite a crew of volunteer staff helping out with all the tasks. Bart tended bar, Mike ran hourly tours, and Marc wandered aimlessly through the crowd. Volunteers were too numerous to list, but thanks to everyone who helped. CWDB manned a homebrew booth and raised a few dollars with a ring toss game. Greg Tamason's band opened up the show. Nine different O'so beers were served on tap with the Summer Saison fresh from the tanks. The event ended with an inch and half rain falling in 20 minutes, wow. Photos and video from Bob Stempski can be seen on the Oso web site. Check it out. O-yeah, there is merchandice now available for sale with the O logo.
2008-07-17
CWDBs Regular Monthly Meeting was from 6:30 to 9:00 pm at the Stevens Point Brewery Hospitality room. We started things out with a ton of snacks set up on the bar. A few new club members showed up after hearing about us at PBS. We discussed havign a clone brew competition later in the fall. The meeting was turned over to Ted Zinn who ran a judging and evaluation presentation. We divided into groups and scored Point White per BJCP guidlines. Amazing that all four tables of scores were within one point of each other. Results were sent onto John Zappa, who later commented "thanks for your support". Award winning Lagers were presented to the group from Tom Zahasky. Tom had been perfecting his lagering and should have brought more beer along. Maybe next time.
2008-06-30 Club members. Please submit your "LOW hop recipes to Marc at O'so marc@pointbrewsupply.com
We would like to have all recipes by the end of June
recipe header might look like:
Corn Flakes Cream Ale
(Kelloggs Homebrew Shop, General Mills, Wisconsin)
Recipes can be for any BJCP style that isn't very hoppy, including cream ale, alts, Scottish ales, sweet stouts, most lagers .. or whatever. You can also submit recipes for "house ales" (beers that don't really fit nicely into the BJCP framework).
It would help if you arranged the recipe with the "statistics" first (OG, FG, IBU, etc.), complete ingredient list second and brewing procedures third.
Also, if you have a three- or four-sentence "blurb" to go with the beer, please include it. (A blurb for the imaginary recipe might go something like, "This is a light, dry beer that is crisp and refreshing.The inclusion of corn flakes gives the beer a sweet, corn-like note. Watch your fermentation temperature.") If your recipe is for a house ale, the blurb should tell the reader what it tastes like.
2008-06-21 Was the 6th Annual Summer Solstice Event held in Iverson Park. Brewing started at 7am for early arrivals and the last wort was chilled sometime in teh mid afternoon. We had 7 homebrewers brewing beer this year and a dozen or so more people stopping down to enjoy the festivities throughout the day, including some new club members who came down just to check things out. Weather couldn't have been nicer for this one. People shared homebrews and grilled burgers, brats, kabobs and steaks. Katina was seen drinking Miller Light in a can...what's up with that.
2008-06-19
There was NO regular meeting as we are had the annual Summer Solstice Brew Event over the weekend. Take the evening to get caught up on your weekend chores and show up on Saturday instead.
2008-05-15 was the CWDB regular monthly meeting from 6:30 to 9:00 pm at the Point Brewery Hospitality room. Topic was Growing Your Own Hops and a discussion on next years Golden Growler interclub beer style.
2008-05-10 CANCELLED: Big Bock Giveaway Party....After talking to Steve King and getting some feedback from other brewers we have decided to cancel an "organized" Big Bock party, as we had originally scheduled for May 17th. The Bourbon Barrel Bock had an off-flavor to start with. Samples have been given out at past gatherings and no one was too impressed with the brew. Lack of club participation at events is another reason why we are forgoing an actual big bock party as previously planned. If you are interested in getting a quantity of this brew we can still make arrangements for you to get your fill. We will bring a Cornie keg to meetings and events for sampling and to fill growlers. If you want a carboy or Cornie of your own you can contact either Mike or Steve and we will accommodate you. Hurry, we wont let this offer run indefinitely.
2008-05-03 is the National Big Brew Day held annually on the first Saturday in May each year. While we have no plans to brew an oversized batch for this event with our big brew equipment we will be setting up individual brew systems in front of Point Brew Supply. Space is limited to six brew systems so call Katina and get your name on the list. We encourage you to double up with a friend and brew a double sized batch and split it. Twice as much beer is always nice.
2008-04-19 was the 4th Annual Golden Growler Competition at Hereford and Hops. See the Bull Falls website for all the details. We have a link to the event. Check it out. Good luck CWDB members.
Golden Growler competition results can be seen at the following link http://www.bullfalls-homebrewers.org/ and check out the channel 7 news clip at http://www.wsaw.com/home/headlines/17945089.html Thanks to all of you who participated in this years event.
2008-04-12 will be a day to Drop off Beer to enter into the Golden Growler Competition. Drop off location will be Point Brew Supply. We will be collecting the final three American IPAs for delivery to the event. Also, we will be collecting your beers for the second part of the competition. See the link to the Golden Growler Event for details as to what is required (bottle labels, payment, etc). Winner of the open portion of the competition will get to have his beer brewed at Hereford and Hops and put on tap there. Think about it…
2008-04-10 is the Pre-Judging Event for CWDB’s American IPAs for this years Golden Growler club-vs-club competition. Note that this is held a week earlier than our regularly scheduled meeting. This is due to deadline dates for getting samples moved into the final round. Meeting starts right away at 6:30 pm in the Hospitality room. A full 6-pack will be needed. Do not bring any other beers along other than American IPAs for the competition. Format for judging has changed this year. As previously discussed we will need your recipe written out or on pro-mash. Judges do not need to have brewed this style to participate in judging. Best three will move on to the final round. We will also pick three styles to submit for next years event.
2008-03-20 was our Regular Monthly Meeting from 6:30 – 9:00 pm in the hospitality room at the Point Brewery. Topic for the night was a discussion of Specialty Brewing Equipment. Members with handmade or specialty equipment were encouraged to talk about the pros and cons of their equipment. We took a look at hopbacks, wortchillers, conical fermentors, counterpresserfillers, and more. We also had a final briefing on next months Golden Growler Competition.
2008-03-12 was CANCELLED maybe next year?
2008-02-21 is CWDB regular monthly meeting at Point Brewery. Topic of the night was Specialty Grains. This topic had been postponed from January and we handed out some specialty malts for you to use in your next batch.
2008-02-09 Annual Polar Brew On The Ice at Sunset Lake.It is usually held either the 2nd or 3rd Saturday of February each year depending on which weekend is colder and how much ice we have. Come and brew on the ice, set up for ice fishing, drink and be merry. CWDB will be cooking up a batch of chili and having hot dogs to feed your hunger on the ice.
2008-02-02 was the Annual Polar Plunge at Rusty’s Backwater Saloon. Money raised by the plunge goes to fund the Special Olympics. This year O’so Brewing Company will be featured at the event. Come on down to watch the jumpers and have a sample of some of the O’so specialty beers
2008-01-26 was the Central Waters Brewing Company’s 10 year Anniversary Party. They released a special 10th anniversary beer and had live music from Sloppy Joe, as well as special tappings of beer all day long.
2008-01-17 was the CWDB regular monthly meeting. A half-dozen thirsty souls braved an all day snowstorm and blowing winds to attend this meeting only to find the doors to Point Brewery locked once again. Thanks to Andrew and Heidi for allowing us to use their apartment as an alternate meeting location for the night. Regular topic of discussion was postponed and the group focused on sampling. Things started out slow at first but we picked it up a bit with some high gravity brews. Katina had to drive Marc home after his eyelids broke down, and Mike even made it to work the next day.
2008-01-15
Thursday January 15, 2008 is our Regular Scheduled meeting. Same time and same place as usuall. Stop on down and check out what is going on.
2008-01-15
Thursday January 15, 2008 is our regular scheduled monthly meeting at Point Brewery Hospitality Room from 6:30 until 9:00 pm. It's the third Thursday, but it falls a bit early in the month as the 1st is on a Thrusday. Some guys say "I thought the meetings were always at the end of the month". No...they are always on the 3rd Thursday. So mark your calendars.
Topic for the night is still up in the air. I have some presentation material to go over on beer clarity. We'll group discuss recipie options for this coming Golden Growler competition. Someone was going to bring in a home-built stir bar mechanism to show-n-tell. And we'll do a few Showcase of Beers sampling and evaluation. So, brings some homebrews, microbrews, and snacks are always welcomed.
See you there.
2008-01-05 Was the 9th Annual Ice Cold Beer Festival held at The Waters of Minocqua from 1pm-4pm. CWDB will have its own sampling booth. This will be our fourth year attending
2008-01-01
National Teach-a-Friend to Homebrew Day held first Saturday in November each year. You are welcomed to set up your homebrew equipment in front of Point Brew Supply and O'so Brewery and brew with your fellow club members. If can't brew stop by for lunch. CWDB will host something to eat for the event. Let Katina or myself know if you are coming so we have an idea of how many brewers to expect. Hope to see you there.
2007-12-20 The Central Wisconsin Draught Boards annual December Christmas Party was held on December 20th in the Hospitality room at the Point Brewery. For those of you who didn't attend It was a spectacular food smorgasbord. Everyone brought some beer to critique and share. Donated prizes were raffled off with the usual people winning more than they deserve. Next year make sure to attend and spread some cheer. er beer!
2007-11-15 CWDB regular meeting from 6:30 till 9:00pm at the Point Brewery Hospitality Room. Topic for the night was American IPA as a beer style for this years Golden Growler competition. We discussed Hop selection and hop usage. And doing a few ShowCase of Beers sampling.
2007-11-03 Was the Annual Teach-a-Friend to Homebrew Day. This event is held the first Saturday in November each year. This is the AHA-American Home brewers Associations annual event. Bring a non-brewing friend or beginner home brewer to check out the home brewing hobby. Location and times to be announced. Good news! Point Brew Supply reports that $306 was raised for the Boy's and Girl's club and donated in the name of "The Central Wisconsin Draught Board" Thanks for all those who participated and we will see you next year!
2007-10-13 October 13-14, 2007 was Wisconsin Dells on Tap Beer Fest as part of the Wisconsin Dells Harvest Fest Weekend. Check out the following link for details. http://www.wisdells.com/WisconsinDellsAttractions/autumnharvest.cfm
2007-10-07 O’SO Brewery pilot batch give-away was October 7th. Marc invited the brew club down to the brewery to help run his first test batch of O’SO beer. This beer won’t be put into production but will be given away to the club members who come down to watch and help out. So bring your carboys. We are expecting to give away about 42 carboys full of wort. Bring a second carboy as we don’t know how many people will show. If we can manage we will also have yeast for everyone, but be prepared to supply your own yeast if we can’t pull through. Bring some homebrews to enjoy while waiting for the beer to brew. Good luck to Marc and his new brewing operation.
2007-10-06 Fall Octoberfest Big Brew Event Date was October 6th. We brewed a 60-gallon big batch of American Style Bock beer with our big brew equipment. Plans now include fermenting the entire batch as one and lagering it in an oak barrel over winter. In the spring we will be having a spring bock party where we will tap the keg. Anyone from our club that wants some of the beer is welcome to come and drink your fill. Bring a growler and take some home. Bring some empty bottles and bottle fill yourself as an option. All beer made will be returned to the club. We will need help with propane on brewing day.
2007-09-22 is the 2nd Annual October Brew Fest / German Fest at Travis Fitzgerald Memorial Park in Lyndon Station (NW of WI Dells). This is an event that the DUFF homebrew club from Wisconsin Dells attends. It looks like they are having an outside brew event, homebrew competition, and spectator sampling all in one event. Check out Mid-State Fermenters web site for Up & Coming events for details at the following link. www.midstatefermenters.com
2007-09-20 Was our regular meeting at the Point Brewery from 6:30 – 9:00 pm in the hospitality room. This is our Club’s 16th Anniversary. We had an open forum to discuss where we want to take the club over the upcoming year. Ideas for upcoming meeting topics, events, parties, etc. Help plan out the year with what you want to do.
2007-09-15 was the 2nd Great Heron Homebrew Open Award Ceremony at the Central Waters Brew pub in Marshfield. Entries are currently being accepted. Check out the following link for details on this event. www.centralwatersbrewpub.com/great_heron/
2007-09-15 was the annual Great Lakes Brew Fest at Racine Festival Park from 3:00 pm – 7:00 pm, Racine WI. The event is growing into one of the larger Wisconsin brew fests and features beers from around the Midwest. Perhaps we could plan a bit better and take a bus for next years fest. Any one that attends please report back. For fest details see the following link: www.greatlakesbrewfest.com
2007-09-08 Was the 5th Annual Lions Beer Review in Rapids. No one made contact with the event organizers for our club to host a booth. Maybe next time someone will check into this for us. The event is open for anyone to attend as a thirsty sampler. If you go let us know how it went.
2007-09-03 Labor Day was WoodStockton V at Greg Tamason's place on 6977 Country Beautiful Lane. (J and HH).from 2-7pm. The event featured Live Music on a deck in the back yard of Greg’s house and plenty of great food.
2007-08-16 2007 was our return to the Point Brewery Hospitality room for our regularly scheduled meetings. An open discussion forum was the topic of the night. We decided to move ahead with our club logo design, hoping to have it ready for our 16th anniversary meeting next month. We discussed options for having a calendar made for 2008 as a fundraiser for club members to purchase. And talked a bit about the upcoming big bock brew event. Highlight of the night was Point Oktoberfest on tap. Thanks to Point Brewery for handcrafting another great brew.
2007-07-28 is the 2nd Annual Hub City Beer Fest in Downtown Marshfield.
2007-07-19 July 19th 2007 CWDB met for its annual summer gathering in the open pavilion in Iverson Park. Topic for the night was sampling from the variety of wheat beers made during our first Big Brew event with the new big boil kettle. Approximately 10 of the 15 different yeast strains for the wheat beer were compared to one another. The remainder of the samples are missing in action. Having moved the summer gathering from August as in the past to July provided enough daylight at the end of the event so lanterns were not needed. Or perhaps we just stayed extra late in past years.
2007-07-01 Big Brew Spring 2007 Wheat Beer. Tasting notes by Joe Larsen.
Here are the primitive notes I took at the tasting in July of the wheat beers we all brewed together. As you might know, we all used different yeasts. The variety of flavors was astounding. These comments are definitely not worthy of a BJCP review, but as a ten word (or less) snap description you might find them useful.
My batches were the WLP380 and WLP400.
WLP565 Belgian Saison: Yum. Sweet and spicy.
WLP320 US Hefeweizen: OK. Tart like the Wit.
WLP380 Hefeweizen IV: My wife likes this, calls it Lemon Balm. Very little carbonation.
WLP400 Belgian Wit: If 380 was "Balm," this is Lemon Blast. Tart and good. I like it.
Wyeast 3463 Forbidden Fruit: Fruity start, sour after. Very good.
WLP300 Hefeweizen: Banana, light, nice. Slight cloves.
Wyeast 3942 Belgian Wheat: Mild taste.
Wyeast 3056 Bavarian Wheat Blend: Mild.
Wyeast 1056 American Ale: Sweet. Nice. Creamy.
2007-06-21 2007 CWDB took a field trip to check out Central Waters new Brewery in Amherst. It had been a couple of years since we had last ventured out of town, and that was to Central Waters old Junction City location. What a difference it was compared to the old location. Club members were treated to some select brews not even on the market. After drinking a couple of rounds we were given an in-depth guided tour of the new facility. Thanks to Central Waters for having us. Check out some of the photos below.