Next Meeting on June 17: LAGERS Cup Round 2
Bring $2 to the meeting on Monday for your vote. If you’re submitting your Kölsch, bring at least 64oz, and please sign in your beer right when you arrive.
The member whose beer has the most votes at the meeting will get half of the pot. (Last quarter’s winner came home with over $20!) This quarter’s winner will also earn 10 (8 if tie) points in the overall standings. Second place will earn 7 (6 if tie) points.
Last quarter’s LAGERS Cup round was a big success. You won’t want to miss Round 2.
Before the meeting, learn more about Kölsch style guidelines. (Note: This is not a BJCP-sponsored competition. We’re providing this information for club members to learn more about the style in advance of the LAGERS Cup.)
Save the Date: 2024 KY State Fair on August 10
Come to the after party!
If you’re not participating in the State Fair as a judge, steward or entrant, you can still attend the after party. We want lots of LAGERS members there!
LAGERS will provide some food for the party.
Submissions due July 10
If you’ve never submitted a beer in a competition before, the State Fair is a great introduction. Feedback from BJCP judges will help you continue to improve your brewing.
The entry fee is $5. Submit a beer today.
Yappy Hour
LAGERS presented $4,000 check to the Kentucky Humane Society
With this year’s donation, LAGERS and Apocalypse* have raised over $38,000 since 2012 through Yappy Hour.
2024 Yappy Hour entries opening soon
We’re opening the entries for Yappy Hour next month. The more beers we can brew, the more money we can raise! Start thinking about what you want to brew.
Club Party: Scheduling in October
Rather than a summer party, LAGERS is planning a fall party for October. We will have a lot to celebrate as a club after the State Fair and Yappy Hour. More details soon!
Previous Meeting: May Meeting
Congratulations to Sean Spaulding for winning our monthly BBOT with his German Pilsner. Here are some of his thoughts about his beer.
What do you think makes this style or batch special?
Sean: There are so many new and old types of pilsners, but the Northern German Pilsner style is still my favorite. I like that it’s drier and more bitter than a Munich helles and doesn’t have the softness of a Czech pils. And I don’t have to worry that the brewer went crazy with dry hops (Italian, West Coast, Australian). To me, it has the right balance of bitterness, floral/herbal hop aroma, and bready maltiness that make it incredibly drinkable.
What advice do you have for someone who wants to brew a similar beer?
Sean: Keep the malt simple but fresh and high quality. I took the opportunity to use 10lb of imported Bohemian Pilsner malt from MaltEurop and a pound of Weyermann Munich. I usually add acidulated malt to lower the pH on light colored beers but this time I adjusted the pH of the mash and strike water using lactic acid.
Mash low, around 149° for a highly fermentable, drier beer.
The water for a German pils should not be soft. I used 5 gallons of RO water blended with 3 gallons of my very hard Crestwood tap water.
Low oxygen brewing techniques have been shown to increase malt flavor, and I think that’s important for light lagers in particular. I’m not fully there yet, but I added additional Campden tablets in my strike and sparge water, reduced my splashing and used a closed loop transfer from my fermenter to keg.
Honestly, I would have liked this version to be a little more bitter, so I’ll slightly bump up the bittering charge next time. I used 2 oz of Saaz for bittering in a hop screen at 60 minutes, followed by 1 oz of Hallertau Mittelfrüh plus a half ounce of Saaz at 5 minutes.
I chilled by recirculating ice water to 48° before pitching two packs of 34/70 dry yeast without aerating. I allowed it to free rise to the low 50s for fermentation and mid ’50s to finish up before kegging and lagering. OG was 1.049 and FG was 1.008.
Prost!
Upcoming Meetings
- July: To prepare for Round 3 of the LAGERS Cup, we’ll do a deep dive on Belgians.
- August: Awry Brewing will host LAGERS.
- September: LAGERS Cup, Round 3 (Belgian Single or Dubbel)
*A previous version of this newsletter had an error and listed a brewery that is not involved in Yappy Hour. Our apologies!
