When: SUNDAY (Not Saturday), August 15, 2010
Departing: 8 a.m. am (Not 10 am) Bus leaves at 8 a.m. from Indian Village Parking Lot, (13th & Arapaho Streets, park at North End along High St.)
Returning: 10-10:30 pm
Cost: $35 for members, $45 for nonmembers (covers bus and tip for driver, lunch and extra beverages are on your own) (Must be 21 years of age to attend.)
Door Prize Sponsors: Moran’s Liquor Works, Kirk’s Homebrew, Brick Top
Destinations: Boulevard Brewing Co., The Flying Saucer, and Lukas Liquor Superstore

SUPER AWESOME FORUM THREAD GO!

THE AUGUST MEETING

We’re gong to Jason McLaughlin’s place on Sunday, August 8, 2010. It’s also the AHA Mead Day.

We can get things started at 4 pm, and interested parties should bring their carboys and honey to make a mead. The AHA has posted a recipe and instructions for the 2010 event http://wiki.americanhomebrewers.org/MeadDay2010. We will BBQ some food, and people should bring some lawn chairs as well. If any Lincoln Lagers have some finished mead, please bring some for people to try. We could get some type of mead talk, too, from those who attended the NHC last June in Minnesota.

For more info on the August meeting, for discussion, for Jason’s address and directions to his place, please click here to jump over to the Lincoln Lagers forum!

KANSAS CITY HERE WE COME…

2010 BUS TRIP is occurring on SUNDAY, AUGUST 15th.

We have a special behind the scenes tour of KC’s Boulevard Brewery. The plan is to leave at 8 am from the Indian Village Parking Lot, then arrive in KC and take the tour at noon. After that we’ll hang out at the Flying Saucer, an awesome pub with an amazing selection of brew. For the rest of the afternoon there’s plenty to see and do in KC’s Power and Light District. At about 5:30, we’ll board the bus and head on over to Lukas Liquors in Kansas City, for some time to shop and select the finest of beers from breweries we can’t get here.  We should have you home in Lincoln between 10 and 10:30 pm.

The actual printed tickets will be available at the August meeting. Until then, the official sign up list will be posted on the club forum. Reserve your seats today. Tickets will probably be $40 again this year for Lincoln Lagers members and that will include lunch and tip for the driver. (Add $5 per ticket if you’re not a LL member.) We should have several door prizes lined up too. Cast your vote for your favorite beer-themed movie for the in flight entertainment. More details will be coming. Let us know if you want to join us on the Lincoln Lagers annual bus trip. Click here for the Bus Trip forum thread.

Here is more information on the following events:
New T-Shirts Are In!
2010 Lincoln Lagers Challenge Details
2010 Okto-Beerfest
Great American Beer Festival

Click to read the rest of this article! (more…)

Reminder #1: THIS SATURDAY is the Lagers Annual Picnic hosted at SteveO’s house. Click here to visit the forum featuring the full story.

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Mark your calendars for Saturday, July 10, for the annual picnic. Steve Olsen will be hosting. More details will be coming very soon.

If you haven’t sent in your T-shirt size, then please do it now. Professional artists are working as we speak on the new design. You can email Kim T. with your selection – or – if you don’t have his email address, you can register on our forum and send him a private message.

Two more current events to share:

Tonight (Wednesday): Meet the Brewers’ party with Nebraska Brewing Company at Bricktop. Keg is tapped at 5PM Tonight!
Featuring a very special Gravity keg for us with their Brown Ale dry hopped in the keg with Cascade and Chinook hops.

Tomorrow (Thursday): Don’t forget to stop by during the evening at Misty’s Downtown for the Modern Monks’ Grand Opening!! Starts at 5:30PM.
Buy your first beer at regular price, keep the glass and get $2 refills. Stay for dinner and leave sporting a cool new Monks & Misty’s t-shirt.

Last Saturday (April 24th), the Lincoln Lagers homebrew club hosted the 2010 Nebraska Shootout homebrew competition. The event was started in 2002 as a friendly competition between the Omahops and Lincoln Lagers homebrew clubs, and was an annual event until 2006. This year it was resurrected as a competition between all of the AHA registered homebrew clubs in the state of Nebraska.

The event was held at the Bricktop Tap House in downtown Lincoln, where brewers attended from as far as Broken Bow, Kearney, and Omaha. Each brew club was allowed to enter two beers in each of the predetermined beer style categories. Styles included Schwartzbier, Strong Scotch Ale, Hefeweizen, Smoked Beer, and a special category called ‘Best Damn Beer’, which meant just that.

Prior to the event, homebrew clubs hosted their own private judging rounds to select which members beers would represent their club. At the Shootout, clubs earned 2 points for 1st place beers, and 1 point for 2nd place. The Lincoln Lagers came away victorious with 9 total points, which included the coveted Nebraska Shootout Cup.

There were 36 beers entered by 6 homebrew clubs, all of which were judged by certified BJCP Judges. The Best of show winner was Dave Oenbring of the Lincoln Lagers, he will be holding onto the cup for the next year. Congrats to Dave and his phenomenal Strong Scotch Ale.

The ‘Best Damn Beer’ winner, Elliot Spilker of the Omahahops, was awarded the rusty capper trophy that has been passed around for this “BDB” winner since the invention of the competition.

A great victory to note was that of Dan Hodges from the Motley Brew Crew in Broken Bow, Dan and his lovely wife made the 3 hour trip as the lone entrant for his brew club. Dan took home 1st place in the Smoked beer category with his delicious Smoked Altbier. A big congrats to Dan and the Motley Brew Crew.

A potluck was also part of the party, where brewers got to share their favorite dishes while having a great time getting to know each other. The day was spent eating great food, exchanging brewing techniques, and sampling each others prized homebrew. The Nebraska clubs in attendance include Motley Brew Crew (Broken Bow), South Omaha Brewers, Railroaders Brew Club(Omaha), Kearney Area Brewers, Omahops, and the Lincoln Lagers.

Now for the winners

BJCP Category 4C, Schwartzbier
1st Place – Alan Torell (Omahops)
2nd Place – Jason McLaughlin (Lincoln Lagers)

BJCP Category 9E, Strong Scotch Ale
1st Place – Dave Oenbring (Lincoln Lagers)
2nd Place – Dave Oenbring (Lincoln Lagers)

BJCP Category 15A, Hefeweizen
1st Place – Jason McLaughlin (Lincoln Lagers)
2nd Place – Tom Hamilton (Kearney Area Brewers)

BJCP Category 23B, Other Smoked Beers
1st Place – Dan Hodges (Motley Brew Crew)
2nd Place – Tom Hamilton (Kearney Area Brewers)

Best Damn Beer
1st Place – Elliot Spilker, Baltic Porter (Omahops)
2nd Place – Scott Schneider, Black Ale (Lincoln Lagers)

Best of Show
1st Place – Dave Oenbring, Strong Scotch Ale (Lincoln Lagers)
2nd Place – Jason McLaughlin, Hefeweizen (Lincoln Lagers)

A special thanks to goes out to all the Nebraska homebrew clubs, judges, stewards, and the Bricktop Tap House for making this event a success.

Joining a homebrew club is truly the best way to master your craft, and meet great people that share a passion for our greatest gift, Beer.

Check out the club nearest you:

South Omaha Brewers http://www.southomahabrewers.org/
Omahops http://www.omahops.org/
Railroaders Brew Club (Omaha) http://www.railroadersbrewclub.com/
Kearney Area Brewers http://www.kearneyareabrewers.com/
Motley Brew Crew (Broken Bow) email: lisanatebell [at] gmail.com
Lincoln Lagers http://www.lincolnlagers.com/

Cheers,

Jason McLaughlin
Event Coordinator
Lincoln Lagers

May Meeting: Bob’s Place, May 1st

The Lagers’ May meeting will be a springtime Pot-Luck dinner at Mailman Bob’s place. We’ll kick off around 6pm on Saturday, May 1st. Bring your favorite dish to share!
Location is at 6220 South 53rd St. – That’s just past 56th & Old Cheney Rd, for any of you (and me) who aren’t from the south side of town. Exact directions and a map are posted in the Forum Thread and more updates will be posted there too once they’re available, so watch there for updates!

Nebraska Shootout Judging: April 24th

Judging is taking place this Saturday, April 24th, at Bricktop, 1427 O Street, in downtown Lincoln (Next door to Yia Yia’s pizza).
Start: 1pm to allow more time to the clubs who have a long journey
Finish: around 5pm. All the clubs are bringing as many members as can make it, along with a dish for the potluck.
There should be plenty of street parking at meters around the event, but please note that they do ticket on Saturdays. There is a parking garage located on the corner of 14th & P Street that would allow you to park and forget about it.

A big welcome to all of our zymurgists coming in from across the state! We’re happy to have the following clubs participating in this year’s Nebraska Shootout: South Omaha Brewers, OmaHops, and Railroaders Brew Club all of Omaha NE, Kearney Area Brewers of Kearney NE, and the Motley Brew Crew of Broken Bow NE.

Mark B.’s Porter heading to Minnesota

Lincoln Lagers member Mark B. rose above a number of strong entries in the Porter category, and won second place in the Midwest regional NHC judging. His Porter is advancing to the main event at the National Homebrewers Conference in Minneapolis in June 2010.
Congratulations Mark!

Lincoln Lagers featured on AHA Website

The Lagers were highlighted on the Homebrewers Association website! Full story: AHA Club Of The Week

One of our Lagers members, Erik Newgard, is looking for people willing to be trained as an American Society of Brewing Chemists (ASBC) Tasting Panel. His goal is a reliable tasting group of 20-30 individuals. Hopefully this experiment will provide some valuable experience that will improve all of our abilities to taste qualitatively and quantitatively.

Initial time commitment is a few hours in February for screening, and a couple of hours in Mid-March. (Ideally, the members of this panel might be available on a semi-permanent basis for more scientific tastings in the future, so that a new panel does not need to be re-created every time.) For more information, visit This Thread In The Members Only Forum - or if you cannot access that thread, you can send Erik a PM. Deadline is approximately Feb 12th.

Empyrean Ales’ Beer Quest – Winter Ales

Sunday, November 15th

A hearty GOOD LUCK! to our Lagers members who made the Top 10 and are serving their beers:
Jason McLaughlin – Chocolate Stout
Bob Catherall – Espresso Sweet Stout

AHA Club Only Competition Update

Tuesday, November 17th DUE DATE

In order for the submission for our next Club-Only Competition to arrive on time (in Florida), we must receive entries by NEXT WEEK (Tuesday, November 17th). The judged style is Belgian Strong Ale, which includes all substyles in BJCP category 18.

Anyone who has three 12 oz bottles of this style and would like to enter them in the competition, please contact Mark B. immediately! More information can be found in this Forum thread.

Decembeer Lincoln Lagers Meeting

Saturday, December 5th

6:00 PM, Hosted at Kim T’s. (map)

Featuring The 2009 Lincoln Lagers Challenge!!
Competition sponsored by Moran’s and Kirk’s Brew!!

“The Hair of the Un-Bitten Dog”

Saturday, December 12th

2nd Annual Beer Tasting, Hosted by Ryan C., from 4:30pm – ??

Admittance is free!!

Please bring along some commercial brews or bottles of homebrew to share and a lawn chair.
In addition to providing over 30 commercial brews, sponsor Dogs & Spuds is serving hot dogs at the event!
Bring a bottle of beer, get a ticket for a hot dog!
Full details on this awesome tasting event can be found in this Forum thread.

The fall tradition returns on Sunday, November 8th, at Doug Finke’s place. The plan is to build the best damn brown ale ever. Be part of history and join us. The six gallons of wort will be “around twenty dollars.” You add any other adjuncts, plus your own hops, and yeast. Contact Doug today and reserve your brew! Click on the graphic for more details in the LL Forum! We’ll also be having the monthly meeting in the afternoon after the Brew, probably around 3 pm. So, even if you’re not brewing, come on out and hang with the big brewers!