July 2024

Hope everyone had a great 4th of July! Summer is in full effect and what a perfect time it is for a crisp lager or refreshing pale ale. We will be having our club BBQ in just a couple weeks! Hope to see you all there.


Monthly Meeting

July’s meeting is our Summer BBQ and this is a great time to meet other members, have some great food, and enjoy the summer weather. We'll be smoking pulled pork and a variety of gourmet sausages/hot dogs. We will have a cooler with 4 picnic taps with a variety of drink choices. Bring a chair(s) if you can. Optionally for those that love to cook, bring a side dish or a dessert.


Great American Beer Festival Tickets

Tickets for this year's Great American Beer Festival (Oct 10th-12th) go on sale this month. There is a pre-sale for American Homebrewers Association (AHA) members starting Tuesday July 16th. If you’re not an AHA member, consider joining before July 8th to get access to the pre-sale. Tickets will be available to the public on Wednesday July 17th. Previous years the club tries to meet up for the Saturday afternoon session. This year is a little different as there will only be 1 session on Saturday from 12:30-4:30pm. During the AHA member pre-sale, you can buy a ticket for early entry to get in at 12pm. More info on the GABF website


Quarterly Happy Hour

Mark your calendar and join us at Lady Justice Brewing. We were at this location last fall when it was Sunroom Brewing. Lady Justice took over this really cool location. Come hang out, catch up, and have a beer or two with the club!


Education Corner

Brewing Salt Additions & POV

I remember first trying to figure out salt additions and pH about 7 years ago. I was so intimidated. Moving from extract to all grain wasn’t as difficult (yet I remember the same anxiety). I had to realize two things. 


First, instead of figuring out brewing salts and pH together, I should just focus on one. I started with brewing salts.


Second, entering my water profile wasn’t as difficult as I thought. I had been watching and reading articles on the subject and thought I needed to understand everything, all the explanations were so in depth. I took the plunge and sent some water off to Ward Labs (I didn’t realize that Denver Water has numbers online). Once I received my report back, I quickly understood that I simply entered the numbers of how they’re sent into my software (note, Denver water will provide a range, use the middle of the range as your number). There wasn’t much thinking involved. Education is important but it really wasn’t needed for me to start doing brewing salts. 


After this it was easy. Most of today’s software have a recipe style that is selected and the software will then calculate what salt additions to add in the mash and the sparge. And, if one wants to manually do their own adjustments, most software will allow for this.


One last note that is very, very important. Brewing should be fun. For some folks, adding brewing salts is taking the hobby too far and removes the fun factor. Brewing should always be fun. If someone is an extract brewer and all grain will ruin the fun, don’t do it. I feel the same way about things like salt additions or any other item. We each have to decide what will take away or continue the fun of the hobby.


If you’ve been considering this change, don’t let it overwhelm you. We’re in a club for a reason - Ask someone about it and ask if they would lend a hand (this is so true of any topic). That’s why each of us are in the club!